PIKE NATIONAL FOREST – They were fishing this hidden stretch of Tarryall Creek when the beaver showed up. Damn thing looked as big as a black bear.

It was dark-thirty. Jordan Burt, Josh Phillips and Josh Suggs – three starters on the back line of the Switchbacks FC’s defense, and more accurately, as we stood ankle deep in a trout stream, three obsessed fly fishermen – were wrapping up another day on the water the only way they do, by fishing some more. Phillips heard rustling in the bushes.

“You know how it feels when something’s watching you, but you can’t see it?” he says. “That’s what it felt like. I knew there was something in there.”

Then the valley went quiet, the only sound the tumbling creek washing into a nearby logjam.

“I look down and the beaver’s right next to me. He smacks his tail on the water: Boom!” Phillips says. At this point his teammates are trying not to cry from laughter. “Talk about a heart attack.”

When the soccer players rumbled into a gravel driveway off Highway 77 between Jefferson and Lake George, their intent was as clear as the tailwater that twists and turns through a forgotten corner of South Park. They arrive in full uniform: Simms waders, slingpacks spilling over with forceps and fly boxes, Gore-Tex rain slickers and ball caps from the “South Platte Fly Shop” in Woodland Park, their shop of choice. Three fly rods stuck out from a backseat window, strike indicators bouncing just below the rod tips.

It was a Monday, their day off from soccer, so what else would “Jordy,” “Suggsy” and “Fishing Josh” be doing? On days ending in Y, they are probably hunting browns, rainbows and cutthroats.

“These guys fish more than anyone I know,” says Ed Ragain, the Switchbacks owner.

Ragain, a gifted fly fisherman himself, built a log cabin in this river valley about a dozen years ago. Now he generously permits access to 2 miles of private water to the Switchbacks players. It’s the kind of pristine trout habitat you read about in expensive fishing magazines: Dark pools made deep by beaver dams; long, bending undercut banks where the big one surely waits; slippery riffles where you can cross, if you do so carefully; and, if you’re alone, not another human within miles.

“Right there,” Jordy says, pointing his Winston 5-weight in the direction of a plunge pool. “There’s always a fish right there.”

Thankfully, there’s been no sign of the beaver/bear. Yet.

“Got him!” Suggsy shouts from downstream.

His fly rod is bent over in the familiar arc of success. Fish on.

***

The Switchbacks are rolling. With 19 points through nine games, the Colorado Springs soccer franchise stands in second place in the United Soccer League Western Conference. Phillips, a star defender who must be good since he played at Gonzaga University, believes they are the best team in the league.

“We’ll win it,” he says. He’s winning, regardless: A few minutes ago, Phillips caught and released a thick, 15-inch brown trout on a black stonefly pattern.

“I just started fly fishing seven months ago,” he says. “I’d never done it before (meeting) these guys.”

Now Phillips has an Instagram account handled “@fishingjosh” with almost 4,000 followers, various fly-fishing companies bless the three soccer players with free swag, and, up to four or five days per week, they leave straight from Switchbacks training sessions to hit their favorite waters – the Arkansas River, Eleven Mile Canyon, “Dream Stream” and Cheesman Canyon stretches of the South Platte or here on Tarryall Creek, casting in solitude under the shadow of 9,357-foot Bradley Peak.

“When you have practice from 10 to noon, the afternoons are open for fishing,” Suggs says.

“I love soccer. It’s a huge part of my life,” Burt says. “But I’d rather be out here fishing than anything else.”

Suggs and Burt are lifelong fly casters, and Phillips credits his teammates for getting him hooked. His first day with a fly rod came in the highly technical waters of Cheesman Canyon, which, I told him, is like learning to play soccer while defended by Lionel Messi.

“We were up in Cheesman for 12 hours,” Phillips says. “I caught exactly zero fish.”

As the sun slinks behind a wall of ominous clouds, the three players line up in one of their go-to riffles in Tarryall Creek. The stream last week doubled in size, leaping from 60 to 130 CFS overnight, as spring runoff kicks in and the snowpack begins to melt. Even so, it’s never wider than a penalty box.

Suggs hooks the next fish, and the clickclickclick of fly line unspooling from his reel suggests it’s one of the 20-inch hogs who rarely see a fly pattern.

“I think he took the San Juan,” Suggs says.

“What color?” Burt asks.

“Pink.”

Seconds later the 5X tippet snaps and the hefty ‘Bow is gone to the depths – a development that brings great laughter from his mates, a string of expletives from Suggs.

“Suggsy’s been hooking those big fish lately!” Phillips shouts.

“And those big fish keep getting off,” Suggs replies.

***

When Suggs and Burt agree Phillips has come a long way, the expectation is they’re talking about soccer. (In fact, Burt says the best player in the USL might be Phillips, who began this season in camp with the New England Revolution of the MLS.) They’re talking about his fly-fishing acumen.

The story goes like this: On one of his first ventures into Colorado’s trout streams, Phillips lathered a fly pattern in “Gink,” a greasy gel that prevents dry flies from sinking and keeps them afloat on the water’s surface. The only problem? He was casting a streamer, which is meant to dive below the surface and emulate a small baitfish. Those don’t float.

“Josh comes over and says, ‘I got him on this dry fly!'” Burt says.

“We tell him it’s a streamer,” Suggs adds. “But he’s like, ‘No, no, no. It’s a dry!'”

No matter. As the Switchbacks trio release brown after rainbow after brown, you realize quickly they are fishers for life.

“He’s excelled fast,” says South Platte Fly Shop guide Vincent Renda, who, along with shop guides Austin Coleman and Ian Harpe, have served as invaluable resources in Phillips’ young fly-fishing career. “For someone who has only been fishing for seven or eight months, he’s an exception. He’s always fishing. It seems like he’s out there every day.”

Or, as Phillips put it, “I go fishing as much as humanly possible.”

Immediately after Switchbacks FC’s 1-1 tie against the Orange County Blues on Friday night, the players packed their car and headed west to Basalt. Their plan was to fish the Fryingpan River, another Gold Medal fishery, before returning in time for practice Sunday. Win or lose, the Switchbacks are going fishing.

“This is the best team in the league to play for,” Burt says.

Ten yards downstream, Suggs drops his three-fly nymph rig below an overhanging tree branch and into a dark run. Perfect cast, perfect drift. His strike indicator jabs upstream. Fish on.

“Nowhere else in the league has fly fishing like this. Portland, Seattle maybe,” Burt says. “But it’s not as good and diverse as what we have here. I mean, look at this place.”

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Twitter: @bypaulklee