Caddis on the Ark

Decided to go find some hatching caddis on the Ark this weekend. I've been hearing a lot about how good the fishing has been so I decided to go check it out for myself.

I headed up early Sat morning and started fishing about ten miles downstream from Cotapaxi. As soon as I stepped out of the jeep I saw caddis flying around. Good sign! I didn't however see anything rising when I started fishing. I decided to start with my nymph rig which consisted of a Tungstone and a caddis larva. I was pleasantly surprised when I started hooking up on the stonefly. I didn't think I was on the river early enough but they were definitely favoring the stone fly over the caddis until about 10:00 AM. Trout were ON the bottom so I had to add weight a few times before I started hooking up.   

Mike and Ben met me around 2:00 and we had great dry fly action till about 3:30 - 4. What a blast! We had feisty browns chasing down our caddis as they swung at the end of the drift. Pretty hard to keep your fly in front of them long enough to get an eat. Once I started waiting till I felt a tug I started hooking up no problem. So fun seeing fish chase down your fly. The fish weren't huge but they had plenty of energy and none of them came in without a fight. Mike was on FIRE for about fifteen minutes. It was almost every other cast!

After an hour and a half of really fun fishing someone flipped the switch and the top water action was over. I wish it lasted longer but we enjoyed it while it lasted. We headed down and fished through Canyon City on the way out and picked up a few little ones but didn't hit the heavy caddis like we had upstream. The money dry pattern was a size 18 Puterbaugh Caddis. Love this fly. Easy to tie, durable, and catches fish.

Always fun hitting the Ark this time of year. There were a lot of people out but with one hundred and two miles of gold medal water we were able to find nice runs without a problem.