Miracle Mile

ridiculous fishing

Maybe you saw the article a few years ago in a leading fly fishing magazine about fishing with flies without hooks.  You tied the fly, then clipped off the offending barbed portion.  A Vegan, Liberal sort of approach, the idea was to observe when a trout or whitefish “took.”  You were expected to see and feel the strike, then be happy.  No lip pulling, scaring the fish.  Certainly no flour, butter, lemon and capers.  For the first time fly fishermen could report "takes," not empty creels, which was appealing to the writer, who I suspect had come home empty-handed one too many times.

Without hooks, I’d rather fish with live crickets or stay home, but there are some strange methods in the world of fishing you won't read about in the Orvis catalogue.  It's all fun if you adapt quickly and go with the flow.

I hired the owner of the leading fly shop in Fort Collins to take me up to the “Miracle Mile” in Wyoming for “really big trout” a few years ago.  It’s a world famous fishing destination.

There was talk about “hatches,” and he owned a Boulder Boat Works river skiff I admired in front of the shop, so it was easy for him to set the hook on me right in his store, and give me what he referred to as a “deal” on a new Sage 5-weight rod, a Ross reel and various accouterments, all designed for Colorado fast water.  An old Florida Cracker like me, new to the area with a bunch of poker-won money in my pocket, was easy pickin’s.

A shop filled with mysterious tiny flies can derail a Florida fly fisherman used to throwing 3/0 snook flies.  For some reason I respond to stories about hookless flies and “really big trout”. 

Before the crack of dawn we trailered the boat a few hours to “the mile,” a stretch of what’s called “tailwater” downstream of a dam.  It is not a river.  Someone in an office lets the water out depending on exacting scientific measurements or when he/she feels like it.  Could they accidentally pull out the big plug, let out a tsunami and drown you?  

The guide had a few leaders already made up, tied to his fly rods.  Better to use his, he said.  Nine foot mono leaders with a wooly-boogerish fly on top and a size 16 red-worm-like fly on the bottom, all topped off with what he called a “strike indicator.” (That means “small cork” if you’re bream fishing.)  As I pulled line off the well-worn cheap reel in preparation for a modest first cast, I was told to “whoa, don’t cast it out, just put it on the water off to the side of the bow.  Keep an eye on that indicator and set the hook if you get a hit.”  No “giant browns” sipping dry flies?  No aggressive rainbow “takes” on top?

I asked, incredulous, “Just let it float alongside the boat?  No cast at all?”  Once I did that it became clear why he wanted it that way.  If one of the dangling nymphs caught on grass--a recurring nuisance-- he could reach over the side, pull the leader hand-over-hand, clear the hook and drop it back in the water.  

I’d come all the way from Florida, and here I was wearing a fancy vest, fishing with a cane pole, watching my cork like the folks alongside Alligator Alley.  It really wasn’t even a river, but a long washed out gully in sagebrush country.  Our takeout spot was hours away.  

I had problems.  He was my ride back to Fort Collins.  If I hurt him it would get complicated fast.  He was young and strong and seemed oblivious to my disappointment. 

Because I’d been duped on fishing trips before, I knew what to do. I laughed long and hard.  The guide asked what I was laughing at.  “Oh, nothing,’ I told him.  I sat there watching the bobber and marveled at the color of the farm-raised trout that took the nymphs.  If there’s water enough to float a boat out there, they stock it with trout.

I enjoyed floating along in the skiff, standing in the bow pretending to be a fisherman while the guide kept the boat straight in the current.   People who saw us that day on the water thought I was fly fishing...didn’t they?  

At one point, the water necked down to a chute-like spot where it was shallower.  You could see it a half-mile away, lined as the sides were by fishermen in waders and vests, maybe ten in total, all making short casts up-current, then watching their bobber as it floated down.  They took turns, and seemed to be taking it  seriously, happy to be standing in one of the few shallow spots available to bank anglers. (Signs along the water indicate the public and private property.  Access is a problem for fishermen in the West.) 

To neck me down, to narrow my choices in favor of a guide boat, to take away any interest I might have had about walking in to fish elbow-to-elbow at The Miracle Mile, the guide told stories about rattlesnakes he’d seen on the banks.  He said, "They're two-step snakes.  They bite you, you take two steps and you're dead.  Haw, haw!"  He didn't want me walking along by myself, casting a fly.  The week before I’d been wading in Lake Okeechobee with alligators and moccasins.  Ground rattlers and diamond backs frequent the dikes and around the boat ramps, and rumor has it that giant pythons are moving into the area.  Ho, hum to the rattler stories.  Dangers, real and imagined, are a central element to fishing guide stories everywhere.  You need a guide.

I didn’t know it at the time, but you can go online and find out how much water is being released-- the Cubic Feet Per Minute-- giving you a picture of the “river’s” velocity for the day.  Gauges on other free-flowing rivers and streams provide the same information, which gives experienced fishermen valuable input.  No sense in driving long distances--everything’s a long drive in Colorado and Wyoming-- then hiking in to fish a stream that’s too fast to wade due to snow runoff.  Naturally, the river’s speed and depth affects its bug life and your choices of flies to use. 

I didn’t think the Miracle Mile measured up, but lots of people do.  It’s known for its “trophy fish,” one of which would look good on an office wall.  I suggest that you have a size 14 dry fly mounted in a frame alongside the fish.  Who would know you caught the fish bobber-fishing with nymphs?

I ended up buying a boat from Boulder Boat Works, and my wife and I rowed the Colorado River and had many adventures--she’s a fine rower-- and we caught a few fish, all on our own.  

It had felt good to be in the pickup truck on the highway as the sun came up, with that unusual boat behind us, going fishing in Wyoming, mountains all around.  Why bother fishing?