Detecting the Take You Can't Feel
On a tight line, most takes never reach your hand — they show in the sighter. Reading the stall, the tick, and the pause that break the drift, and why you set on all of them.
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Leading vs. Following Your Flies on a Tight Line
Drift control on a tight line: when to lead the rig and meter the pace, when to follow the current, and how to stay in light contact without towing the flies off the bottom.
Sight-Fishing: How I Actually Spot Trout in Clear Water
Half of sight-fishing is just seeing the fish. Here's how I read light, pick lenses, and spot trout on gin-clear South Platte tailwater.
Reading the Bottom: Where Your Flies Should Be on a Tight Line
Reading water tells you where trout hold; reading the bottom tells you where your flies will tick. Spotting buckets and shelves, then setting weight and tippet to ride the slot.
Your Sighter Is an Instrument, Not an Indicator
On a tight line, the sighter isn't a bobber — it's a gauge. Here are the five things my euro sighter reports on the South Platte: contact, angle, depth, speed, and the take.
Terrestrial Season — Ants, Beetles, and Hoppers on the South Platte
When summer terrestrials hit the water — ants, beetles, and hoppers — South Platte trout eat them hard. Standard fly sizes, where to fish them, and how to work the banks.
Colorado's Drought Summer: The Flow Was Fine the Whole Time
Nine weeks of Dream Stream gauge readings from this site's own hatch reports. The flow never dropped, and the river went on the closure list anyway.
South Platte & Arkansas Conditions Report — Flows Are Low Right Now (June 25, 2026)
A weak winter dropped the Dream Stream, Eleven Mile and Arkansas to skinny flows — where to fish instead, and the water temp that should end your day.
What I Bring to the River: The Day Pack That Survived the Edits
Gear that has survived seasons on Colorado tailwaters. The pack, the rod, the fly boxes, the tools, the layers, and the small stuff that makes the day work.
Mayer's Mini Leech Jig: The Small Dead-Drift Leech That Out-Catches Streamers
Landon Mayer's pine squirrel mini leech on a jig hook. Dead-drift, jig-style — why this small pattern out-fishes swung streamers on South Platte tailwaters.
Olsen's Blowtorch: My Favorite Fly and the Variations I Tie
My favorite fly. Devin Olsen's competition jig with a hot-tag and opalescent rib. Why I tie the Blowtorch in orange and green, and how to fish it tight-line.
The RS2: Rim Chung's South Platte Emerger That Defined a Tailwater
Rim Chung tied the RS2 in the 1970s for the South Platte. Fifty years later it's still the most-fished emerger on Deckers, the Dream Stream, and Cheesman.
Walt's Worm: The Pennsylvania Nymph That Belongs in Every South Platte Box
Walt Young's 1984 Pennsylvania limestone nymph — buggy hare's ear body, cigar profile — imitates scuds, cased caddis, and crane fly larvae all at once.
The Wooly Bugger: The Most Copied Fly in History and Why It Still Works
Russell Blessing's 1967 Pennsylvania pattern is the most-tied fly in fly fishing. Why the Wooly Bugger still earns its place for fall browns and high water.
Why First Lite Took Over Every Layer of My Wardrobe — and I'm a Fly Fisher
A Colorado fly fisher in a hunting brand head to toe. Why First Lite — Wick Merino, Navigator Hoody, the Rugged Wool — owns my wardrobe year-round.
Where to Fish the Trico Hatch on the South Platte
Section by section: which South Platte water holds a fishable Trico spinner fall — Dream Stream, Deckers, lower Cheesman — and which water to walk past.