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My opening day for Spinney Mountain Reservoir was yesterday, April 4th, and man was it awesome! We left Denver around 5am, and to our surprise it was snowing/sleeting in the highlands ranch area, but when we got in the mountains nothing! The roads were a little bit wet with some ice patches here and there, so the drive wasn't bad at all. We stopped in at Chaparral Park General Store, and spoke with Rob about how opening day was, and the size of the fish coming out. He told us that there were some nice fish that came out the day before, including a nice 27 inch brown!

After getting a few things, we headed down to the lake, to my favorite spot around the North boat ramp. There were no boats out yet, and there was a little chop going with the slight breeze that was blowing. Air temperature was 22 degrees, so a typical chilly morning in South Park. It took us about five minutes or so to get the first fish of the day on! Was a nice fat female rainbow that came in at 21 inches! Not a bad fish to start the day off! The bite was then on, and every few casts was a nice fish after fish. We helped a few boaters launch their boats, and one gentleman asked my buddy if he would like to go out and fish with him on the boat for helping him out. He initially said no I'm fishing with these guys, but we told him to go out with him (didn't have waders like we did), so he changed his mind and went out!

Around 11:30, the bite slowed down so we decided to head around to the south side of the lake to try a different spot. I soon figured out where all the cars I had seen drive in the park had gone. As i drove over the dam, there was a group of 6-7 fly fisherman that were shoulder to shoulder, fishing on the dam, and a few barely spread out around the same area. Got to the other side of dam, and it was about the same thing, with people being about 10 ft. apart. Found an area near the spillway where there wasn't anyone and starting fishing again. We caught a few more fish as we moved along the shoreline then took a break to eat some lunch.

After getting some food in our bellies, the gentleman that took our friend out on the boat, was leaving for the day so we snatched him up and went to another spot on the lake around north bay. It was a heck of a hike back there, but the fishing was the best out of the whole day, with 90% of the fish we caught back there being 20-23 inches! We also found a duck decoy, Rapala Floating Jointed lure, and 2 sportsman's warehouse boxes full of flies, which looked like they had been in the water for quite some time.

We ended the day back near the north boat ramp, and caught a few more fish, with my buddy landing his personal best brown at 20 inches! It was a gorgeous brown, and fat! As the sun set, we knew our day was coming to an end as the Park Ranger drove across the damn and started ushering people out, and closing the gates. It was probably my best day at Spinney so far, we caught about 50-60 fish, and for everyone saying that the pike are ruining spinney, all I'm going to say is this: Every trout we caught was 18 inches or bigger and FAT! Not just full of eggs, but they had some chunky crawdad filled bellies as well! We fished most of the day with 2 1/2 inch tube jigs, HD Trout, and kastmasters. I hope everyone that plans on going to Spinney has the same luck we did out there! The fish are bigger this year, and in numbers! It was a long, but worth it day out fishing, 12 hours of great fishing, and we had no trouble passing out when we got back into town around 10pm.