Arkansas River (Pueblo)

Day two of an epic fishing weekend in Pueblo. Ok... so maybe not epic but fun for sure. Ben and I had seen the pump house hole the day before and wanted to give it a shot so we parked off of Cotton Wood Road and headed straight for the fence line. Dad and Marty had joined us so we had a herd. We weren't the first people on the river but the hole directly under the pump house outlet was open.

Same flies as the day before. Yellow eggs, PTs, FB Mercury Black Beauties. Ben and I hooked up right away while Dad went downstream and Marty rigged up. This run is absolutely jam packed with trout. You could barley run a line through without hooking or foul hooking a trout. These runs are tough because you don't want to foul hook a trout but at the same time the takes are very subtle so you set the hook on any movement. We brought in the foul hooked trout quickly and with barbless hooks the release was very quick.

Ben in some sort of strange sun storm

After things died down I wanted to try a sink tip line with a heavy weight where the pump house outlet enters the river. This is a technique that I use at the toilet bowl that works really well. I was able to get a good "drift" on the bottom but there is a nasty snag (feels like a log) that you cannot avoid fishing this way. Lost two good fish fry patterns that I tie that imitate a small fry with the egg yolk still attached before moving on to other water. Thought that some of these may get discharged from the hatchery (no clue really where this water comes from but it was worth a shot) and if they did I could imagine a few hogs sitting in the white water getting huge on unlucky fish fry. 

Wrong date on the camera on this one

Dad hooked into some nice fish below this run below the first weir downstream. While we were fishing this run. Marty jumped in and started hooking fish as well.

Dad and I worked upstream to the run Ben and I had done well in the day before. This is the riffle into a drop off that runs along a rock pile bend. We fished from the rock pile side but things had slown down in this run from the day before. Not much action except a descent bow on a red tungsten bead head PT.

We worked back downstream to the pump house where Marty had dialed in on the slow side of the drop off. He was killing them with yellow sucker egg patterns. I probably watched him land over half a dozen within 15 minutes. Big smile on Marty's face :-)

By this time the mob had arrived and I felt like I was in a fly fishing zombie apocalypse film. Guys were slowly walking towards us with arms outstretched holding fly rods... Time to move on. We hopped in the car and headed down to Pillars Park. No one was fishing the weirs but there was a guy in the Bud hole that we wanted to fish so back to the car... We hit reservoir road and fished the water treatment plant. The temperature had really dropped and the fishing dropped off with it. We fished a few hours around the water treatment plant and landed a few fish between the 4 of us but it was  slow going. Ben had a nice articulated pumpkin Sex Dungeon on him and I decided to give a few stockers a heart attack with it.

I was slow stripping it in a deep hole when I hooked a massive branch that bumped along the bottom when I set the hook. Oh yeah!!!! Big Fish!!! Get the net!!! The branch came up and rolled on the surface to my dismay. It was super exciting while it lasted but it was a terrible let down.

The good side is that it was an awesome weekend of fishing with family and friends. Everyone caught fish and had a great time. Can't beat that.

Arkansas River (Pueblo)

Headed up towards the damn today to get familiar with the water upstream from the pump house. I normally don't fish this stretch of water because it pulls a crowd. Today was no exception but Ben and I wanted to get a feel for the stretches of water that we haven't fished before above the Nature Center in order to get ready for the Frost Bite Fish Off in Feb.

We started off just below the bridge just below the damn (Juniper / Pueblo Res Road). There is a nice riffle that drops off into a deep run. The fishing was fantastic right away. Ben and I probably landed closed to 20 fish in a half hour. The bows could not resist a yellow otter egg with a yellow bead yolk. There were some bait fishers directly across from us that looked pretty surprised at the amount of fish we were catching. Hopefully they'll convert....!

We decided to move downstream and cover more water. There were some nice pockets for the next few hundred yards downstream but we weren't able to hook up until the next deep bend pool. This run is NICE!  I would love to fish this run at 70-100 CFS vs the 40 that was running because it would make the riffle before the drop off perfect during a hatch. The fish were hanging in the tail end of the deep water and Ben and I both hooked some descent bows. Yellow (sucker) eggs, and a red tungsten bead head PTs size 18 worked well. The secret to this run is to fish it from the rocky side of the river along the main current. There is too much slack water to cover from the other side and line control becomes an issue. If you come across this run you'll see exactly what I'm talking about. If you are reading this you were probably with me fishing this run today anyway :-)

We made it down to the pump house which I had not fished before. The first thing that came to my mind was the toilet bowl on the Frying Pan. I knew exactly what I wanted to do in this hole but it was packed with bubbas.  No worry my Old Man wants to go fishing tomorrow so I know where we'll be starting out!

Arkansas River (Pueblo)

Decided to take a solo trip down to Pueblo this afternoon for a few hours of fishing. Wanted to find a closer parking spot to the run I had found last week. Somehow I managed to find a way through the park and a neighborhood to a road that led right down to the river just downstream from where I was fishing last week.

I headed upstream to the run I had missed a 20 incher in the week before and rigged up. There was a guy fishing just upstream from the run but the run was open. I waded out and started getting rigged up. He came down and we started talking. His name was Jeremy. He lives in Pueblo and fishes the Ark every week. We talked about this section of river and how we liked it because of the good runs and lack of people. He asked for some pointers and I gave him a few flies. He said he wanted to watch me fish for a few so I said cool. I waded out to the run and took a cast. I missed a fish on my first cast and hooked on on my second! Love this run! Jeremy offered to take a pick and I'm glad he did. This is one pretty fish.

I stayed in this run for a while and landed another half dozen or so. I wanted to hit the runs down by the train bridge. Every descent run produced at least a take. Probably landed close to 10 descent bows in a few hours. Just what I needed to recover from a stressful week!

Batteries are recharged and I'm ready for the Holidays!

Arkansas River (Pueblo)

Better late than never. Totally spaced writing up a blog entry for last week's trip. Busy week trying to get everything done at work in order to enjoy some time off! We had a nice 5X5 buck great us in the parking lot downstream from the nature center! Not a bad start to a day of fishing.

Mike, Marty, and I wanted to get away from the crowd and find some new water so we headed downstream from the Nature Center. There are a few nice runs shortly downstream from the Nature Center but then the river slows down and flattens out for a while. I kept walking downstream and we came across a nice spillway. Reminded me of the one on the East Portal of the Gunnison. Marty and I fished directly below the spillway for a while and we both managed to land a handful of dinks. Good warmup for the day.

Mike caught up to us and took a few casts and managed to land a few as well. We kept walking downstream past a section of weirs that went on for a few hundred yards. I turned a bend and found an awesome run where two currents combined directly in front of a drop off.  This was a prime run. I hooked up almost immediately. I stayed in this run for a while and managed to hook and land several descent rainbows. I decided to keep heading downstream and Marty took a few casts in front of the drop off. I didn't get very far downstream and Marty yelled out that he had a nice one on. I walked back upstream to provide a net and to get a pic. It was a nice red 16" rainbow. Really nice fish but he didn't want his picture taken and jumped out of Marty's hands before we could get a pic.

Mike and I moved downstream and found some really nice runs below a train bridge. Mike hooked into a really nice bow that fought hard for about 10 minutes. It finally looked like it was coming into the net and made one last unexpected run and the hook pulled out! Would have been the fish of the day. Mike learned about getting net happy the hard way. Just after that I hooked into a really nice bow that took me directly under a log and got me hung up. It was a pretty action packed 15 minutes without a fish to show for it.

We decided to start heading back upstream and I had to through a few more casts in the run above the drop off. After a few minutes I hooked into a really nice brick red bow that took off like a bullet across the river to the far side. I got a good look at him as he broke the surface. This fish was a 20 incher. He started running downstream directly for a group of submerged branches and I knew I had to turn him. I turned my rod sideways and tried to keep him from getting in the brush and the hook pulled out. I knew it was too much pressure but if I let him run I'd lose him and my flies. That one hurt!

It was a good half day on the Ark and we learned some new water. I think we saw one other guy fishing along this stretch. Nice to hook good fish away from the crowds.

Frying Pan River

25" 9# Brownie

I don't even know where to start to describe this trip. It was one of those trips that border on "epic". It didn't start out great but quickly changed for the better.

Dad, Mike Greene, and I left for Basalt Friday afternoon around 1. We needed to take a detour to the Orvis outlet in Denver so I could use my Orvis gift card on a pair of waders. Long story short I sent in a pair of waders for repair and they sent me a full refund in a gift card (always good customer service). Very cool store if you are ever in Denver. I picked up a pair of Silver Sonic waders and the guy gave me a coupon for $25 off at the register. With that and the gift card I paid $98 for them. I LOVE Orvis! For a full review on these waders check out John Kleis' blog entry here .

We stayed at our usual digs in Basalt, The Green Drake Inn. Nice place but I had brought a small DVD player to watch some fish porn that night and they didn't have the TV remote and there was no way to select a video input for the TV.... Alicia had gone and loaded up on chick flicks and came home to no DVD player. Sorry babe! I'm a bone head. Especially when it comes to a Frying Pan trip. OK I'm wandering...

On to the good stuff. We woke up at 4 and planned to do some fishing before daylight. We arrived an hour before daylight (that is before driving past our turn and heading up past the reservoir in the dark because we were too busy discussing social security of all things) only to find a car in the parking lot. Bummer! Love the Frying Pan and have fished the entire stretch from the damn to Basalt but I REALLY love the toilet bowl (along with the rest of the state - more to come on that later). We walked up to the damn and there was one guy there. We don't like to crowd up on people so we were discussing what we were going to do when we started talking to the guy. He had been there since midnight doing some night fishing and was getting ready to leave. Score! Nice guy who appreciated us not just jumping in the run all around him.

The flow was around 40 which is the lowest we had ever fished this river and it was dark so it was hard to get dialed in right away. We are used to fishing this river at at least twice this flow and the current coming out of the damn was a lot lighter than what we are used to. I set Mike up at the top of the run and tried to get him dialed into getting his flies on the bottom and feeling a hit. Mike picked it up quickly and landed this nice 20" bow. This was Mike's biggest trout ever but he would quickly break his record.

Dad, Mike, and I started rotating out of the head of the hole as we each caught fish. Mysis were the obvious choice but we also hooked some fish on egg patterns. Pretty much any Mysis size 14 - 22 worked well but especially those patterns that you can't find in the shops :-). I could go on and on about these fish. Big, strong, and colorful. We wound up catching 10 fish over 20" and probably 60-70 fish altogether. We were all totally worn out at the end of the day. It's awesome that such a place that gets so much pressure still has as many big healthy trout that it does. I think that says a lot about most of the people that fish these popular tail waters.

Mike caught 2 fish over 20". The two biggest trout he's ever caught. I was really happy to see Mike landing big fish. I think he REALLY has the bug now. Mike also landed this beautiful cut-bow which is one of the nicest I've ever seen.

Dad wound up with two fish over 20" including a football of a brown. The bigger browns in this run don't have many spots along their bodies. It's almost like it's a cross between a cutthroat and a brown only there are no red marks along the bottom jaw like a cutthroat has. I'm not sure if such a fish exists but if it does it may be what we are seeing here.

I wound up catching the biggest brown I've ever caught. It took about 15 minutes to get him in because he got hooked by both my flies. It wound up going 25" and weighed just over 9 pounds! Awesome fish.

Here is the good stuff. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves. I'll close with a few words on foul hooked fish and fishing etiquette.

FIRST UP THE BOWS

NOW FOR THE BROWNS

You do wind up foul hooking some fish in this run. You can't help but foul hook some fish when you are fishing a run as packed with trout as this run but you should NOT be trying to foul hook fish as I've seen guys through the years trying to do in this run. It's important to know when to set the hook and when not to. It can be hard because some takes are very subtle. Especially the bigger fish. This just takes time to learn. You can usually tell right away if a fish is foul hooked. If you aren't feeling good head shakes and you feel a steady "swimming" type of feeling then the fish is probably foul hooked. If you do foul hook a fish it's best to just horse them in and get the fight over quickly in order to not wear them out too much. If they break off or pull out - no biggie - they'll live to take your fly another day.

A few words on fishing etiquette. No one likes to be overrun when fishing a popular spot. At the same time nobody owns these popular spots. We had a guy come up around daylight and started talking with us. He was polite and asked if we minded if he fished with us. We said we didn't mind and even though it was extremely tight with 4 guys crowding the damn, it was better than hogging the run and getting in an argument. The guy was a nice guy and I enjoyed fishing with him. I would encourage everyone to do the same thing. On another note - we had guys that just walked up and started casting in front of us. This is not the approach to take with people. Most of the time if you just ask someone if they mind if you jump in they will let you do so.

I'll admit that in my day I've told some people to get lost when trying to fish next to me. I don't know if I'm getting mellower or if it's just the few grey hairs that are starting to replace red ones but I've learned to just let things slide and it makes for a much more enjoyable day of fishing. It doesn't matter who it is, you will always learn something new from another fisherman. I think that you just have to have the right mind set when fishing places like the toilet bowl. If you don't want to be around people when you are fishing then these popular places are not the places for you.

Had a GREAT time with Mike and Dad. This is one for the books, at least the blog. Will remember this trip for a long, long time.