Fly Fishing Deckers Canyon

Fly Fishing Photography - Colorado - Deckers

There is no end to the pleasures that fly fishing can provide a person once they get past the initial suffering that comes along with the sport. That’s not to say it ever gets easy, you just learn how to screw up less. For me, one of the great pleasures is watching the way light, or the lack thereof, can transform a river. Might not look like it, but this was a cold December day on the South Platte River in Deckers Canyon. The solitude a canyon brings is great. It also brings endless shifts of light that can be equal parts beautiful, tricky, and frustrating from a photography perspective. One of my biggest difficulties with fly fishing is a positive one; deciding whether to fish or to photograph. After years of deliberation the obvious conclusion presented itself - fish when the light sucks.

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Fly Fishing - Crested Butte, CO

Taylor River Fly Fishing

Fly Fishing Photography - Colorado

Sometimes you think the sun is going to help with the cold and on certain days is does. For all the rest of the days, it’s easiest to just accept the fact that you won’t feel your hands again until you get back to the truck. At which point you’ll need to put a koozie around your beer just so they don’t get any worse. Thankfully this wasn’t one of those. It’s only the middle of October but that doesn’t matter. If you spend time in the mountains then you know an early summer morning can feel oddly similar to winter. It’s got to be part of that whole love/hate thing.

It’s safe to assume that most western fly fisherman, in the beginning at least, are only concentrated on the rainbow trout. It’s put up on a pedestal. The trophy. The goal. Won’t deny having those same feelings, but that’s all changed over time, as everything does. Now, in my opinion, brown trout are king. Their colors and markings are really special.Now, In the name of transparency this isn’t my fish, but my friend caught it while I was shooting. Which means I was sort of catching it vicariously through him. That’s the only way I’ve found to calm the urge to set the camera down and replace it with a fly rod. It’s a vicious cycle that I’m trying to be at peace with. On the scale of problems, it’s a good one to have. Snowboarding is the only thing I do that absolutely won’t involve a camera unless it’s the one on my phone. Fly fishing on the other hand is a constant battle.

Good times on the Taylor River that day.

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11 Mile Canyon - Fly Fishing

Fly Fishing Photography

11 Mile Canyon - Colorado - Trout - Fly Fishing Culture

The last 2 months of travel/shooting have been so full that I literally forgot about these images for a while. My turnaround on posting images is usually 6 months to a year though, so this is uncharacteristically quick. These are from a rare trip to Colorado when I opted for a plane instead of driving, if that tells you anything about my recent schedule? Not complaining at all. The last two months have been great and I couldn’t be any more grateful to be busy after the black hole of 2020 which consisted of almost zero commercial work. Enough of that talk. 11 Mile Canyon near Lake George is a special place, but don’t tell anyone. I’ve been hearing about if from friends for years and was finally able to experience it first hand. All the guys in our crew were catching monster Rainbow Trout. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to get up close to photograph them, although I don’t care much about those kind of images. There are more than too many of them on the internet as is. Hope to make a yearly trip to this canyon.

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