Ryan Dearth/Colorado Daily

Due to high winds, Dave Wheeler of Longmont was the only fisherman to found at Golden Ponds last Wednesday. There will be more fishing to be had at Boulder Reservoir throughout the summer.

S ometimes the stars align and you float in fortune. So it went last Saturday on a boat ride through a coveted, private stretch of the Rio Grande's headwaters, where currents can run to extremes -- from swollen murk to too skimpy to float without friction.

Owing to heavy releases from Rio Grande Reservoir, the river had been murky for weeks. Salmon flies, the giant insect celebrities in these high meadow and canyon haunts, swept through two counties in three disappointing days.

Then, a few days before outfitter Joel Condren launched his driftboat for Travis Steffens, of Denver, and me at Thirty Mile launch, the river cleared and held fast at an eminently navigable rate.

Pale morning dun spinners and brown drake mayflies danced with caddis and yellow Sally stoneflies. Along some Rio reaches farther downstream, such lush groceries turn trout picky and fly-fishing technical.

Not here.

"Some days you catch fish just because you had the fly in the water," said Condren, owner of South Fork Anglers guide service (a partner of the Rio Grande Angler fly shop in Creede, 1-877-656-3474).

That would be almost any fly. Lately, upper Rio Grande trout have been slurping foam-bodied flies that resemble riverboats with rubber legs.

So much for worn-out rumors that wild brown trout are tough to catch.

Wild browns are the Rio Grande's mainstay. And now the river holds more browns than ever thanks to fishing regulations tightened in 2002.

The new rules did away with bait. Anglers must fish with flies and lures. Old limits allowing two kept fish over 16 inches were replaced with enlightened limits of two keepers under 12 inches. All rainbows must be released.

"Since the (regulations) have changed, we are seeing better biomass and bigger fish in the upper river. I think it will be better than the Gold Medal section in another five years," Condren said.

"Everybody's saying that," Division of Wildlife biologist John Alves agreed afterward. "The biomass at Marshall Park (above Creede) is back up to levels we saw in 1990s before whirling disease. And the quality and size of fish has gone up."

Downstream at heavily fished Coller State Wildlife Area, the biomass has swelled from 52 pounds/acre in 1990 to 66 pounds/acre.

Nearly everyone raves about the improvements.

"It's a dream for a guide," Condren said. "Some people dispute 100-fish days are possible, but I'm here to tell you, in some boats, if it's not 100 fish, it's not 10."

Steffens kept busy catching fish on a metallic beadhead nymph. Occasionally, one would smash his floating ugly fly or savage a streamer. One was a brook trout, several were rainbows. Brown trout 17 inches long came to the boat with the regularity of mail catalogues.

He caught so many fish that he struggled to munch lunch around a fixed grin. He also caught the mother of all fish, a rainbow trout that had been resting under some overhanging willows.

The she-fish prompted some hooting, but the monster bore the earmarks of a tattered brooder on the lam from someone's concrete raceway.

It happens. Alves said he stocks a few rainbows but never any brood fish. Bucket biologists do that by moonlight, although their ill-advised freelancing competes with wild fish for space and food.

The window of fortune lasted two days after we left, then slammed shut. Condren called to report that, although clear, the upper Rio fell dramatically.

Five days later, flows at Thirty Mile were impossible to float without dragging bottom enough to outrage some landowners.

No matter, Condren said. There's plenty of water to float, and much to wade, farther downstream.

The Rio's golden browns are down there, too, many of them even bigger.