The “Dream Stream” was very low when we arrived with flows near 50 cfs. The big spawning rainbows and cutthroats had already returned back to Eleven Mile Reservoir. There was a small midge hatch but we decided to nymph with a san juan worm trailed by a miracle nymph. On my first cast I land a nice 12 inch rainbow and three casts later caught a 10 inch brown. We decided to head downstream, hoping to find some of the post spawn fish returning to the lake. Fishing was slow, but I managed to land a nice 16 inch cut-bow in a pool below some riffles. As we headed back towards the parking lot I decided to try a griffiths gnat as I saw some fish taking bugs just below and on the surface. I landed 4 more small rainbows between 6-10 inches. It started snowing and the change in weather seemed to turn the fish off. The temperatures for the day remained in the twenties and the wind became a factor when the snow started.

We returned two days later and fished further upstream from the stretch we had fished before. The fish were feeding like crazy. I lost 20 and 18 inch rainbows right away in the current and we continued pulling 12-14 cut-bows from the same pool and the riffles above it. My brother, Matthew landed his first trout on a fly rod after fishing patiently for 3 days. After spending two hours fishing the same hole, we decided to head downstream again. Matthew landed a nice 18 inch cut-bow that turned out to be the big fish of the day. The fishing had slowed and the new "good" pool needed to be rested. I walked the three miles upstream to eleven mile hoping to find some of the big spawners, but only saw a one cutthroat that was close to 24 inches and I scared off a nice 20 rainbow. I did land one 12-inch rainbow, but that was all I had to show from my long walk. We returned back to the pool and caught a few more trout before leaving. In all Rob, Matthew “Jerry”, and I each landed close to 40 trout each, all between 12-18 inches. The best fly was the San Juan worm in red, tan, orange, chartreuse and white. Miracle nymphs, egg flies and black beauties also worked well. The temperatures were in the 30’s in the morning and reached the 50’s in the afternoon. There was an afternoon midge hatch and many of the smaller fish were picking them off the surface.