Arkansas River (Cotopaxi)

The taste of dry fly fishing last weekend drew me back to the Arkansas this weekend for more. Mike Greene and I headed up past Cotopaxi. On the way we could see that the water was off color. I figured that runoff had begun but the flow wasn't that much higher than it was the previous weekend. It was a bummer to see dirty water but we were going to make the best of it.

We started out using the standard fare of green Caddis larva and pupa. Mike had a few hits but didn't have any luck hooking up. After covering a few runs without success I decided to change things up a bit. I tied on a small black Barr's Slump Buster and started dead drifting it. On about the second cast I had a hard hit and pulled in the nicest fish of the day. He seemed a little bigger than the standard 12-14" browns that we normally catch in this area. I'd say he was a good 15" (second fish from the right on the stringer).

I thought I was on to something with the dead drifted streamer but I was wrong. I took Kelly Galloup's advice and started running through the colors. I tried black then went tan. I tried purple and then went olive. NOTHING.... I was starting to really hate the dirty water.

The Caddis hatch never materialized. Later in the afternoon the water started to clear up so I was hoping that they would start hatching but no dice. I figured the dirty water was from rain the night before upstream. We did get some saving grace with a descent Blue Wing Olive hatch in the afternoon. I tied on a size 20 Mercury RS2 and within a few casts had hooked into a brown. This ended a stretch of about 2 hours without a hit. This guy took off downstream and I had to chase him down.

Mike hooked into a nice trout around this time and I waded out to provide a net. The trout was running downstream from Mike and then did a 180 and headed upstream. It was enough pressure to pull the hook out. I think this fish was a little nicer. Mike said it didn't really freak out when it was hooked like a lot of little fish do. It's always the big ones that get away.

Even though it was a tough day we did wind up with 5 nice fish that Mike took home and cooked up in the smoker. Not a bad day's work!

First Dry Fly Action of the Season - Arkansas River (Canyon City)

Marty and I decided to chase the Caddis hatch on the Arkansas on Sunday. We started downstream of Cotopaxi in the morning and did well on Barr Uncased Caddis and Barr Graphic Caddis both green and size 16. After moving upstream a ways I decided to head back downstream to see how Marty was doing. I made it down to where Marty was and sat down on a rock for a rest. I had only been sitting for a few seconds when an entire herd of Big Horn Sheep popped up behind Marty! I thought they would take off as soon as one of us moved so I whispered to Mary, "Don't move..... Look behind you". Mary told me he didn't know how to do both of those things at the same time..... Good point. He turned around and this is what he saw.

This is the first time I've seen Big Horn Sheep in the wild! It was awesome. They just stood there and watched Marty fish for a few minutes and then walked down the railroad tracks. You just don't get these kinds of experiences sitting on the couch.

Around lunch I saw a few Caddis hatching but it didn't develop into much of a hatch. We decided to drive

upstream a few miles to see if the hatch had moved up towards Salida. We drove through Cotopaxi and stopped a few miles outside of town. This stretch of river was crowded! Almost every bit of fishable river had someone in it. We figured the hatch had moved upstream and brought the crowds with it. We found a run that was empty and started fishing. We caught a few on Barr Graphic Caddis but the hatch was really starting to take off and the trout were starting to rise! Oh yeah!!! First good hatch of the spring. We both tied on some nice Elk Hair Humpy's that Marty had tied and within a few casts we had hooked up. We had some awesome dry fly action for about 15 minutes. I think we landed 4 or so but had a lot more on. Then the sun came out from behind the clouds and the fish hit the bottom. It was like a light switch. One minute we are knocking them dead on dries and the next minute we are being schooled. We waited for a while till the sun went back behind the clouds but by that time the hatch was over. It was awesome while it lasted though! Not many things are more fun than catching a trout on a dry fly. I can think of only one....

Nice Rainbow Marty Caught