Arkansas River (Pueblo) - 100 Fish Day!

What a day on the Arkansas! If we went three casts without a fish we started wondering what we were doing wrong! Marty and I linked up with David and Stephen at daylight and walked down to Valco Bridge. I have hooked some very large trout under the bridge and I wanted to position Stephen to have a shot at one of them. I helped Stephen rig up for deep dredging and showed him the drift that he wanted. He took the rod and had the drift down right away. This guy knows how to fish! He hooked up within a few casts but unfortunately the fish broke off. Might have been the fish of the day!

The flow was low, around 40. It's the lowest I've ever fished this river. The hole at Valco still fished very well. I've had two types of day fishing this area. Days were I hook several large fish and days were I hook tons of dinks. Today was a dink day. I think the hole had recently been stocked. I don't think our flies had a chance to get deep enough to the larger fish before being gobbled up by a little guy. Even though we weren't catching big fish it was a lot of fun having constant action.

Fly selection didn't seem to matter. Anything worked for a few fish. We even got into some good streamer action. Stephen was catching nice fish on nymphs and streamers. He did a good job switching back and forth when the action died down with one method.

Probably the most exciting point of the day was when Marty hooked into something large that took a good tear across the stream right towards me. This was not a dink! Stephen was ready with the net in case the fish took a run downstream. After a few minutes the fish came up and we all got a good look at a large SUCKER!!!!! It isn't a trip to Pueblo unless you feel the burn of the sucker. Today it was Marty's turn. Good net job by Stephen. Good practice for the dozens of huge trout that he is sure to catch in his young angling career!

Marty with the fish and the sucker burn of the day