Fly Fishing Colorado's Big Thompson in Winter

The Big Thompson is a tributary of the Platte River and flows eastward out of Rocky Mountain Park and down the slopes of Colorado’s rockies. Mike Oakley says forget about gear in the dead of winter — staying warm is the chief requirement — and take the smallest black flies you can find. You’ll have plenty of company. “‘Doesn’t anybody work anymore,’ Hatch asked. That’s sort of a running joke between us, though for some reason both of us had imagined having the river mostly to ourselves — as if every Colorado fly fisherman living north of I-70 and east of the Continental Divide who’d already bought their 2008 license was not keenly aware that the Big Thompson below Olympus Dam is about the only game going on the Front Range between November and April.” In the Estes Park Trail-Gazette.