Arkansas River (Pueblo) - Urban Fishing

Today we had the pleasure of meeting up with Guide and owner of Steel City Anglers, Ben Wurster, to hit some new water on the Arkansas River in Pueblo. I had seen several pictures that Ben has posted of nice trout that had been caught in town. I emailed him to see if he could give me some pointers and he provided a map of where he goes and offered to meet up with us! As you can see this stretch of river has it's own kind of beauty. Not the typical image that comes to mind when you think of fly fishing in Colorado but the "graffiti" provides an interesting backdrop while you are fishing. It makes it easy to name different runs such as the Martini Hole. I have to say that this stretch has big fish written all over it. It's deep plunge hole after deep plunge hole. Even at low flows these holes stay deep and cool. Ben said that he's broken more good fish off along this stretch then any other stretch on the river and I can see why.

Ben (Lewis), Mike, Marty, and I got to the river a little late since someone was holding the map upside down on the drive to the river. I won't mention any names but it starts with a J and ends with a amie. We just took the scenic route which is what was planned all along. It worked out in the end though because as soon as we were rigged up Ben Wurster pulled into the parking lot. We decided to head upstream to the Martini Hole which starts with a nice drop off on a bend and then runs along the drainage and cuts a nice channel over 100 yards long. The Bens and Marty hooked up immediately. I decided I was going to work the length of the cut with a streamer but didn't manage to find any players. I switched to nymphs and landed a few nice trout on egg patterns and san juans.

A front blew in out of nowhere and it looked like our day was going to come to an end around 9. We grabbed our gear and started heading back to the truck. 5 minutes later we were at the truck and the wind was gone and the sun was shining. It was time for a change anyway. We whipped the Martini Bar fish enough for one morning.

We headed downstream and started fishing the weirs. This stretch of river is awesome. Use plenty of weight and make sure you have 10 feet of leader to get down far enough. I'm sure there are some 8-10lb trout in this area. Marty hooked into two nice bows (no pictures unfortunately) and I landed this nice 16" bow. Size 14 red Copper Johns and any Amnesia pattern seemed to be the ticket. The secret to this section is getting to the bottom. A stiff 6 weight to chuck weight is ideal.

Had a really good time on this trip. Always good to get a great group of guys out on the river. Almost everyone caught fish (sorry Mike - your day is coming up :-)) and Marty had an all star day with two nice 18" bows. I'll be doing more urban hog hunting for sure!