View photos/Bill Claspell Cochetopa browns aren't typically huge fish, but what they lack in size, they make up for in enthusiasm.

Flies on the river, if only they could talk

Drifting flies the essence of fly fishing

“Tra-la-la.” If my flies could talk, and sometimes I really think they can, that’s exactly what they would be saying as they ride the riffles and tempt fish on their suicide missions down the seams. “Tra-la . . ." Wham!

Drifting dry flies, and especially drifting them on small creeks and streams with lightweight tackle, really is the essence of fly fishing. It’s different from casting to big water, much the same as it probably is for actors to play small theaters rather than large auditoriums. It’s more intimate. And there’s less room for mistakes. The things you do wrong on small waters don’t go unnoticed so much as they might on a river where you’re casting thirty to fifty feet or more. No, on the little stuff, you’re right there with the fish, on their level, playing the game by their rules. It’s cool.

I always like to take a little time each year and hit some of my favorite small waters and the first trip this summer was to Cochetopa Creek, located off U.S. 114, between Saguache and Gunnison. You may remember reading something in The Pueblo Chieftain a few weeks ago about the archeological research that has been conducted in that area that has uncovered Indian artifacts from hundreds of years ago. When I look at the creek and the Cochetopa Dome, which overlooks the area, I can feel the history of this area as if it wasn’t so long ago that the tribes came here and flourished. It probably hasn’t changed too much, really, except for the paved highway and dirt county roads and the Dome Lakes, which lie just above the creek. Other than those, the creek still flows clear and cold, brush choked banks still hide plenty of brown trout, and if you close your eyes and listen closely to the wind, it’s likely the same sounding wind that blew across these hills a hundred years ago.

Cochetopa is Ute for “Pass of the Buffalo," and while they’re gone now, it isn’t too hard to imagine large herds wandering around in the grass here. It’s a mostly flat valley that falls at a gentle grade between U.S. 114 and Dome Lakes, and that is where the fishing is the finest. Here is where you’ll find the creek as it traverses through green grasses and willows, bending and turning, and cutting deep troughs under the banks, making perfect hideouts for the browns that dominate this stretch of water.

My son Dillon works to remove the elk hair caddis from his first ever fly rod fish.

It’s a narrow creek, no more than 20 feet across at its widest point, and it runs shallow through the riffles. The hundreds of bends, though, provide deep water drops and dark hiding places for fish to feed and it’s this kind of water that just screams out for a lightly drifted dry.

Light weight, short rods are the order of the day on Cochetopa, and I prefer my 8-foot, 4-weight rod with a 6X tippet for its easy handling around the willows. Casts don’t have to be long on this creek, with 10 feet of line out past the top eye being more than sufficient in most cases, but they do have to be accurate in order to get the proper drift close to the bank. And it takes a deft touch and a stealthy approach to get close enough to drop a fly at that distance without being detected.

It’s the perfect situation for new fly fishers, and my twins joined me on the banks of Cochetopa to see if they could entice a strike from its many runs.

Moving slowly and trying to stay away from the banks, we worked our way upstream and watched for rising fish. Pale morning dun mayflies and stoneflies seemed to be the dominant hatches and I peeled several of the stones off the back of my neck as they alighted there and crawled into the shade of my hat. Looking into my fly box, I was disappointed to see that I didn’t have any of the small stimulators that I had tied last year for this same creek, but I did have quite a few elk hair caddis flies left. Choosing one with a yellow belly, I compared it one of the stoneflies that I had captured. That stonefly had a reddish underbelly, but I noticed a few others that were yellow orange, and I decided that my caddis would have to do the trick.

One of the cool things about fishing small hay meadow creeks like this is that you rarely have to match the hatch exactly in order to catch fish. There are so many insects living in the grass, in the willows, and popping off the bottom of the stream that the fish get used to the floating buffet and readily take advantage when a likely looking meal floats by. And it certainly seemed that the fish weren’t terribly surprised to see a caddis on the water, as they quickly took turns blasting it off the surface and pulling it under.

Meandering through a flat bottomed grassy meadow, Cochetopa provides a scenic backdrop for any angler.

Most of the fish that you catch on Cochetopa aren’t big. A 15 inch brown here would be considered a giant, and the vast majority of the fish will run in the 6-8 inch class, with a few 12s thrown in to keep things interesting. But on the light tackle and spider silk sized tippets, even the smallest fish can give you a run for your money and what they lack in size, they surely make up for in numbers and willingness to bite.

Cochetopa is a wild trout fishery, which means flies and lures only and that all the fish you catch have to be returned to the water immediately. It’s not the place to go if you’re looking for some pan fryers, but for beautiful scenery in a place with lots of history, there is nothing quite like it anywhere else.

If the flies in your box talk to you and they’ve been aching to take a short trip down a seam, Cochetopa and the many small creeks and streams that surround the area are just the right place to make them sing.

Pueblo West resident Bill Claspell is an avid outdoorsman, hunter and fisherman who also enjoys writing about his escapades. He can be reached by e-mail at bnlrac@msn.com. Expanded versions of his columns, and more tips, are available at: http://www.scoutoutdoors.net .

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