Delaney Buttes 5/15 & 5/16

Made the trip up to Delaney Buttes last weekend to fish with Dave, Wade, and Jeff hoping to hook into some hot Spring action. We had contemplated hitting up Antero or Spinney but had heard such mixed reports we decided Delaney was the way to go.

I arrived at South lake about 8am to the scene above looking north from the south side of South Delaney. It was snowing off and on with some serious gusts of wind, shocking, and got quite cold. The sideways snow proved too much for my "waterproof" jacket, but it wasn't too bad if you took a few breaks out of the water.

On my second cast I landed a decent sized Cutt on a grey chironomid. A few casts later I caught what turned out to be my biggest fish of the day, above, on the same fly, the fish weighed in at about 4 lbs and 20". As tough as the weather was it allowed for a little chop on the water which helped the fishing. When the wind died down at times it was tough to hookup.

Dave and Wade showed up about 9am or so. Wade was able to land a nice Cuttbow on the grey Chiro.

Here's Dave with a yellow Bow that looked like it had been in a few fights. It was a pretty fish, but scratched up presumably from the spawn. He jizzed all over Dave while Wade took the picture. Nice hook jaw though. Overall, the fishing on Saturday was a little slow but we all got well into double digit fish and each netted a 4-5 lbs trout. Most of the fish landed were taken from the north cove of South Delaney on grey Chiro's and were all about 12-14" Cutts. We must have gotten into a year class as it was pretty consistent for a while. A few bigger Cutts took egg patterns, but most on the Chiro.

This was the hot pattern, though a grey version. It's Craven's Jumbo Juju Chiro. Dave and I tied it a little differently as we didn't epoxy (used Hard as Nails) and didn't include the gill tuft. It's an easy tie and was quite productive in size 12-14.

Jeff made it up just in time to strip streamers on North Delaney. Here's the group shot, not sure what my problem is, perhaps I was upset that I drank all my homebrew? North Delaney was dead. In fact I cannot confirm that there are any fish still alive in this lake the action was so slow. Hopefully it heats up soon. Everyone we talked to had the same response. Therefore we spent most of our time at South.

A little dark, but it was quite peaceful tubing North at night. After zero success on a variety of streamers I threw some mouse patterns hoping to entice a huge brown, no luck. The calm water did allow for a nice Cuban cigar though!

I had to take off home early Sunday morning but the other 3 fished all day with better luck, Dave thought everyone caught about 20 or so in similar size and fashion to Saturday's fishing.

As you can see the weather improved considerably, sorry I missed it!Dave with a solid fish from the tube!

From the "WTF is That!?" Department...

Anyhow, we had a good time, even if the fishing was a little slow. It was nice to meet Wade and Jeff, thanks for the photos Wade! I look forward to getting out to Delaney soon again, hopefully the fishing picks up a bit. After hearing Darren's report of South Park it sounds like we made the right decision.