Fly Fishing Guide to
Rocky Mountain National Park
A Fly Fishing Guide to Rocky Mountain National Park is a wonderful resource if you are going to fish RMNP. And you do want to fish Rocky Mountain National Park. There is a lot of almost perfect tenkara water there.
There are 54 lakes in Rocky Mountain National Park that have known populations of fish. Add to that 230 fishable stream miles. How do you even start to narrow it down? There truly are an almost unbelievable number of choices.
Steven Schweitzer has organized the book brilliantly. He divides the park into eight zones so that you can key on a specific area to fish rather than having that unbelievable number of choices thrust upon you all at once. Within each zone, he outlines each possibility on a trail by trail basis. And because, with only a few exceptions, the fishing in the park is hike-in fishing, it makes perfect sense to organize the book around the trails one would take to fish the streams or reach the lakes.
For each trail, A Fly Fishing Guide to Rocky Mountain National Park gives a detailed trail map and guide, which not only shows the trail highlighted on a topo map, but also gives the difficulty rating for the trail, the distance, the trail profile (making it easy to visualize the elevation gain - or loss), and key destinations along the trail. Each of the streams and lakes that can be reached from that trail are described, along with which of the six species of trout that inhabit the park can be found there (seven, if you include hybrid cuts). The trailhead (starting point) for each trail is given as is the U.S. Geological Survey Quadrangle so a more detailed topographical map can be referenced.
The book provides that information for 39 different trails, covering virtually all the fishing destinations in the park. Based on his detailed notes from every trip for ten years of fishing the park, Steven Schweitzer lays it all out in a very well organized, very easy to read format. You could not accumulate the knowledge contained in the book unless you fished the park yourself for ten years (and lived only a half hour away, as he does).
And if that wasn't enough, the photographs of the streams, the scenery - and the fish - will have you daydreaming and dropping hints to your significant other about where you really need to go on your next vacation. (You really do need to go there!)
Schweitzer wrote the book before he became a tenkara angler. In the book he recommends an 8' 3 weight for the streams and a 9' 5 weight for the lakes, where you will almost always experience a breeze. Personally, I think the optimal rod choices would be an 11' Iwana for the streams and an Amago for the lakes. (Anglers on a tight budget could consider the Stone Fly 330 for the streams and 390 for the lakes).
Although the book gives an amazing 121 fly patterns, I think you'd do fine with just a
CDC & Elk,
a
Sakasa Kebari
with the peacock herl body and perhaps a
killer bug
tied on the size 14 scud hook and the
Little Dark Kebari.
If I ever get the page written for the Tip Grip ant, it might be a reasonable addition as well. A half dozen patterns, at most, should do just fine. The last time I fished the park, the only fly I used was a CDC & Elk, and I had a great day.
Out of stock.
A Fly Fishing Guide to Rocky Mountain National Park - $30
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International priority mail shipping is $12 to Canada/Mexico and $14 to other countries.
The shipping charge is added to the price of the book.
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