Swing and a Miss!

Took a quick trip down to Pueblo to do some research for the upcoming Angler's Covey streamer class and was pleasantly surprised to learn that the fish are healthy and looking for some big bites. This was the biggest one I hooked into that morning and would have liked to have gotten a closer look. I'm thinking this fish was a good 20" and FAT. I was fishing a 7wt and it put a nice bend in it. End of the video shows NOT how to net a fish. Should have been below the fish but you live and you learn. Just happy to have a close encounter with this meat eater.

Pueblo Streamer Bite from Jamie Roth on Vimeo.

2015 Frostbite Fish-Off

Well its been a good stint since the weekend of the 2015 FFO and I think it's all finally sunk in. All in all it was just a fantastic day of family, friends, fun, fish, and unexpected twists of epic proportion!

This year was the third year Ben and I have fished the tournament as Team Chuck and Duck. For those of you that might not be familiar with the name, we named our team after my casting style. Especially when hucking slabs of mojo mud and rabbit.

Before I start reminiscing, I just want to thank everyone who is involved with putting on this awesome tournament. I don't know of too many events that are this much fun AND support such a good cause. Everyone at the tournament from the beat controllers to the meal volunteers did a fantastic job and they were all a pleasure to spend time with. Ben Wurster and Lou McCullough did an awesome job as our fearless leaders again this year. Always good catching up with those two. I've learned a lot from them over the past three years about fishing this river. Any time you can help someone catch and release a true gem of nature, you have done the world some good and I am indebted to you both!

I also want to thank all of the sponsors who stepped up. Every year there are a ton of cool prizes for the grab bags, raffle, biggest fish, and top teams. I can't remember how much Ben Wurster said the total amount of sponsor donations came out to this year but the amount of goodies up for grabs this year was incredible. Ben and I had no idea what we were in store for. On to tournament day!


It was good catching up with everyone Sat morning before heading out to our beats. I've "met" a lot of folks through social media over the past few years and its always cool to actually meet some of my cyber friends in real life. Sat morning I finally met Jim Browning and his Son Kevin. Two of the nicest, most down to earth, talented Dudes you could meet. We all hit it off right away. It was like seeing an old friend you haven't seen in years. Strange feeling when you just met someone for the first time. Nice to finally meet you guys and hope we get to fish together soon!

I was also able to catch up with an old high school buddy. Chris Ramos and I have known each other for a long time. We didn't run together in the same crowd in High School but we somehow quickly discovered that we were both fly fishers. It's amazing how this sport brings people together. Always good to catch up with Chris and see where he's been guiding. If you are looking to fish Cheesman Canyon or any water for that matter I would highly recommend going with Chris. He would wind up catching the biggest fish of the tournament this year. No surprise to me. Congrats again Dude!

Ben Lewis and I missed the beat drawing the evening before so we showed up the day of the tournament wondering where we would be fishing. We've had pretty good luck every year we've fished this tournament and this year was no exception. We drew beat one for the morning and beat seven for the afternoon. Two good beats but we were a little nervous since we had never fished the beat one stretch before.

After sucking down a fat pill and a few cups of coffee we headed out to our first beat. We knew it was going to be a beautiful day so we were a little worried about what the crowd would be like on the river. We got up to the dam and I decided to walk up around the bend to see what the water was like just below the dam. W! T! F!!!! I couldn't believe what I was seeing. This has got to be some of the nicest water on the entire stretch of Ark in Pueblo. It looked like the Toilet Bowl on steroids! I couldn't believe we had never taken the time to walk up to the dam before.

The only drawback was that it was a TON of water to cover and a good part of it was pretty much unreachable. Just like fishing the Toilet Bowl it would take some time to figure out how to dial in to the fish. Time is something we didn't have a lot of. We decided to hit the low hanging fruit and started at the tailout where the river narrows and drops into a nice bouldery cut. Ben hooked up almost right

Dramatization. Thanks Marty!

away. I grabbed my net, took two steps, and went for a swim. I emerged rod and net in hand to see our first fish of the tourney in Ben's net. A dink, but we were on the board! Lucky for me it was already starting to warm up. As Ben Wurster would later say, "We may need to change the name to The Banana Belt Fish Off"!

I wrung out my sleeves and cast just upstream from where Ben hooked up and had another dink in the net in a cast or two. It was good to get some fish in the net right away but everyone knows what can happen when you catch a fish right off the bat.....

We went the next fourty minutes or so without a hit..... I was worried. I was thinking we had the first cast fish stink on us and that we were going to post a few dinks for our morning session. Our goal for this tournament has always been to not finish last and I was thinking we might be in some trouble.... I knew there had to be monster fish in this stretch but we were not dialed in and we didn't have time to figure it out. We decided to head downstream.

How many nets does a guy need?

Our luck changed when Ben hooked and landed what would wind up being the nicest fish of the morning, a sorely needed eighteen inch bow! Now we had a descent fish on the board. We continued to hook fish for the rest of the morning session in the lower stretches of beat one but we didn't hook anything big. I'm not sure how many dinks we wound up catching but they were all in the ten to twelve inch range.... Most of them we didn't record. We did wind up posting four fish for the morning session though which we had learned the year before is really one of the best things you can do, even if you're not posting four monsters. Big thanks to Richard Purcell, our morning session Controller, for running all over to measure the dinks we were pulling in. He got his exercise for sure!

Lou at his last BPOE dance

Back to the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks (BPOE) for lunch. The BPOE was a change (for the better) of venue this year. Really thought they did a good job and provided a nice facility. It was a little further from the river but it was close enough to get to the river in ten to fifteen minutes depending on what beat you were on. The only strange thing was that I think they still had some decorations up from what looked like some sort of prom.... Kinda weird seeing a bunch of trout bums hanging out on the prom dance floor....

We headed out to beat seven in fourth place. Like I said, you don't have to catch monsters all day long but you do need to post four fish each session. Makes you appreciate a twelve inch trout like it was your first trout on a fly rod. We were not in last place, I had dried out for the most part, we had fresh rigs, and were feeling pretty confident going into the afternoon session.

Pump house is open?!!??

We decided to get there a little early to see if we couldn't claim a stretch of water for the PM fishing. It was REALLY starting to fill in. Beat seven is a pretty popular spot for fly fishers, hardware guys, and bait casters alike. We walked up the stream a bit and the best run by the pump house was OPEN. Bubbas everywhere up and downstream but the run we wanted was OPEN. We did some range walking in the waders and were out standing in the river, fly rods in hand, but unable to cast until the afternoon session started..... What made it worse is that I could see at least four trout and two of them were in the twenty inch class.

It was hard staring at them for a while before the afternoon session started but it was good in the sense that it really gave me some time to study them. I could tell how they were moving and I could pick out how the biggest fish in the run always moved to the same two places moving in and out of her preferred feeding lanes at will. The others were happy to move out of the way. Interesting thing to watch. I should probably do it more but I'd need to leave the rod in the truck.

We started whipping the hell out of them as soon as the whistle blew so to speak.... Poor trout.... Of course just because you know where the feeding fish are and what is hatching it doesn't mean that you are going to just start hooking up at will and it took some indicator/weight/fly size/pattern changes before our first take. These fish see a lot of flies and they weren't making any concessions... tournament or no tournament these fish denied our best on multiple occasions. It didn't take too long though and we had two nice fish on the board. Not too long after that we had four fish on the board.

That was a great feeling! Having eight fish posted for the day took all the pressure off. Ben and I have always tried to keep this tournament fun but we are the type of guys who can't help but get a little competitive and we knew we had posted a respectable day of fishing. Everything from that point on was icing on the cake!

Now it was time to dredge for the big boys. The sun was getting lower and the hatch had died off. The feeders moved into deeper water and out of sight. It was time for the fatties to wake up to steak and eggs. Say what you will but when I have 4x, a BB covered in Mojo, and my favorite leech and egg pattern on I feel like every cast is going to be a big fish.

Steak was eaten right away. I've been tying leeches with hobby lobby necklace leather and red GSP and they have been getting destroyed just about everywhere I've taken them. No love on the egg though so I started going smaller until I got a bite on the egg. Had a killer rig at this point, the sun was getting low, and the action exploded. For a little while it was almost every other cast. No better feeling than getting dialed into a run. You can taste the expectation of a take. They all had their noses on the drop off and you could almost call exactly when the take was going to happen. Serenity. Another huge thanks to our afternoon controller, Bill Straight. I swear the fish knew exactly when he had made it back to the bank and sat down. That usually was good for a fish :-)

We finished with four nice fish on the board for our afternoon session. My Old Man totaled up our trout from the morning and the afternoon and we thought that we might have a chance of grabbing third. We knew the caliber of sticks on the other teams and we knew it would be hard to place at all. I knew Jim and Kevin were in the running for sure if they had a good afternoon. We also knew the Blue Collar Fish Bums, Pat Thurman and Manual Losoya had absolutely killed in the AM session like they always do and would be extremely hard to catch in the afternoon. Then you had the Scott-Costa Fish Daddies, Frank Smethurst and Nate Bronson who are more like fish magnets who had a rough morning but could always come back big on a good beat. Team No Name (common Chris! You can come up with a better name than that with that Liberty HS diploma!), with Ramos  and Kevin Egloff would be in the thick of it for sure if he got a good beat in the PM. These were just the teams I knew about. Who knew what the Trout Ninjas, Big Uglies, or Catch-N-Repeat were up to..... Yep, just having a shot a placing was a great feeling.

Back at the dance floor we had a nice dinner and unwound talking to our friends about how the PM session went. Sounded like the fishing, for the most part, had been good in the PM. Lot's of smiling faces. I met Kyle Beasley on the High Plains Drifter Team who mentioned that he read the journal and that he actually caught a fish that day on a purple egg sucking leech!! Very cool!!

It was incredible to have my Family there to enjoy the day with me. My better half Alicia was there the whole day taking pictures and my Mom and Dad were there cheering us on. For some reason the kiddos didn't want to come down to Pueblo and watch us fish all day though....The time had finally come to see where the pieces had fell for the day.

I was thrilled when third place was announced and it was Team Trailing Edge with Jim and Kevin Browning. Awesome! This was the first time these guys had fished this tournament and they placed third! Again guys, Congrats!! Couldn't happen to better Dudes..... Then it dawned on me that we were going to come in second! No friggin way. When the total was announced for second place, I turned and looked at my Dad in disbelief who was staring right back at me with the same expression. I couldn't believe it. What???!!! no way did we do better than Pat and Manual. I was thinking there must have been a mistake or something but somehow Team Chuck and Duck edged it out for first place by four and a quarter inches! Unbelievable! The day went from great to epic. Ben and I were in shock. Ben Wurster and Lou McCullough gave Team C&D an intro I'll never forget. So glad Alicia caught it all on video. I hope I get the chance to look at this when I'm old and gray and remember what a day it was in Pueblo that day.

We had no idea what we were about to be handed. Brand new Scott Radians paired with Able Super Series! What!!!! In return for a day of fishing??? Oh and to top it off a coupon for any pair of Costa Sunglasses?  We're not worthy! We're not worthy!!!! We suck!!! LOL Just unbelievable.

Frank Smethurst came over and congratulated us and we thanked him a few times for the unbelievable prizes. I've since used the rod/reel/sunglasses a few times and am hooked.

What an unforgettable experience. A once in a lifetime sort of day. This tournament has blown our minds for three years in a row now. Each year something exciting and unexpected happens. Each year we meet new people and learn new things. This has become an annual tradition for Ben and I and we're already looking forward to next year.

I'll wrap it up by sharing Jim Browning's thoughts on the day which I thought provided a perfect summary.

"Yesterday I had the opportunity to participate in the 2015 Frostbite Tournament as Team Tailing Edge ... For six hours, Kevin and I drifted our very best bugs, and when the day was over, we stood proudly next to these amazing anglers. So honored to compete, and share life with each of these great men. Thank you for taking the time to speak into my life, with kindness, and grace as we share a passion for the river"!

FFO Practice Round 3

Made it down to Pueblo with Marty to check out another beat or two for the upcoming tourney. We decided to park at Osprey and walk down to the carp hole and then work our way back. We got just below Valco Bridge a few bends and saw several people already fishing that run.

Plan B - fish the first bend below Valco.... Plan B turned out to be a pretty good alternative. I think I hooked up four times in the first six casts. Found a really nice seam and a pod of aggressive little trout.

Seems like there are always hungry dinks  hanging around Valco. Didn't take Marty long to hook up either. I have no idea how many fish we pulled out of the run but we whipped it to death. Before we left Marty was able to get a rig below the layer of little guys and stuck a nice bow. Biggest fish of the day and really put up a good fight. 

Nothing really surprising on this trip. One new leach pattern worked out really well but the larger fish in the group were definitely eating midges. I tossed some baetis  in the afternoon but didn't get a lot of action. Everything hit the black midge trailer. 

The main pattern I've seen over the past three trips is that black midges get bit hard early and then taper off around 11. Haven't found a consistent afternoon fly. Still have some time though.... I'm sure that once I get close to figuring it out it will all change :)

FFO Practice Round 2

Put another day of tough work in on the Ark in Pueblo. It's a grueling practice schedule but we've been down to Pueblo twice now in order to give ourselves a chance at not finishing last in this years Frostbite Fish-Off. This river has always been a challenge for me and that didn't change on this trip!

The challenge of this river though is what makes it so rewarding when you do hook a trout. I know everyone has their own idea of what a "smart" trout is but for me, some of the smartest live below Pueblo Res.

We convinced my Dad to come along for this trip. Always nice to fish with the Old Man. Pueblo has always been tough for him too and on this trip it was especially tough. Some days just don't work out the way you plan but as he reminded me this day, fishing is called fishing and not catching for a reason.  On thing he did catch was a stunning view of a group of deer crossing the river just downstream from him. How can anyone be really bothered about not catching a lot of fish in this sort of environment? I think it would have bothered us a bit in the 90's but we've both mellowed out a little since our days of hiking into Cheesman Canyon in rubber waders.

Early fishing was pretty productive. I had a few in the net within the first half hour on some test midge patterns I've been playing around with. Nothing special or different really than whats been out there but just different tweaks and different materials. I tied a size 18 black beadheaded wooly bugger sort of fly (black ostrich herl body)and that seemed to really work well as an attractor for a small black midge on point. No split shot needed on the rig which I think can make a difference sometimes.

We headed downstream and really got pinned down where we were fishing. BIG crowd moved in and just about every piece of water was taken. We had some good takes at first in the run we were fishing but things slowed down quite a bit. It was a long deep bend run and I think the trout know how to get out of the way of flies in these type of runs. I did manage to get one really good hook up at the tail end of the run in about 8 feet of water. Super deep dredge rig with small flies so the hookup was probably super late. Only had him on for about 5 seconds but it was heavy. Probably a thirty incher.

Things really died down after that. I decided to see if Ben wanted to try another test pattern. This one was basically a size 18 black RS2 only tied with a marabou tail and with gator hair for the wing. I figured it would look great once it was in the water. Not the best looking fly though when it's dry and when I handed it to Ben I don't think he was too thrilled to tie it on. But being the good fishing buddy that he is he did and it paid off with this nice bow. REALLY colorful fish in person.

Another good day on the river. A few clues as to what the fish were doing that day. They for sure switched off of midges onto something else in the late morning. I couldn't figure it out though. Tossed a lot of tricos and BWOs without much luck. I think we moved the fish out of their normal feeding lanes since there was three of us dragging two or three nymph rigs through the bend. I did get a descent grab on a white slump buster just before we left but I really wasn't ready for it and missed the set. Always worth tossing a streamer before you leave a run.

FFO Practice Round 1

Hard to believe but the 2015 Frostbite Fish Off is right around the corner! Ben and I are going to be back this year as Team Chuck and Duck. This will be our third year fishing this tournament. It's always a great time and last year we actually placed 3rd!

It seems like we have an exciting tournament every year. Last year we needed one more fish to win the tournament. I hooked something heavy during the last minute of fishing and pulled in a sucker. The year before that a big rainbow broke my rod during the last minute of fishing! I'm almost a little gun shy for the last minute of fishing this year.

We didn't fish the river much this summer. Flows were very high for most of the summer which I think was great for the fish. I would imagine that pressure wasn't as much as it has been in resent summers. I did make one trip down at the end of August. Water was way up but a few hours of dredging produced this nice bow. This fish was healthy and strong! Very good sign. Hopefully those kinds of summer flows will continue. I think that a few years in a row like this past summer will grow some true pigs.

Ben and I decided that we better get our act together and get a few trips in before the tournament. We are going to try and fish as many beats as possible before the tournament. This trip we fished around the hatchery outlet and anticline bend. The hatchery outlet was tough first thing in the morning. I caught a few dinks but nothing sizable.

We worked our way upstream and saw that the anticline bend was open so we hit that. There have been some improvements made on this bend and this was the first trip Ben and I had fished them. VERY nice bend run. We hooked up right away on black midges and continued to have action for a while. This would be a sweet beat to get during the tournament.

After fishing this run for a while we made our way to the Nature Center and fished for another hour or so. We hooked and landed a few more nice trout to wrap up the afternoon.

Not a bad first trip. Good to get a few fish in the net and find out a few midge patterns that were hot. Hopefully we can get down to Pueblo at least half a dozen times before the tournament. As in our past FFO appearances our goal is to not finish last!

A Bird, a Bass, and Two Dinks

They aren't lying!

Ben Lewis and I decided to do something a little different after having to postpone a guide trip due to a crazy Colorado spring snow storm. We were going to hit the Dream Stream with Landon Mayer but with a forecast of over a foot of snow we decided to reschedule. This left Ben and I with a free Monday. We decided to head down to Pueblo in two trucks and cover as much water as we could with only streamers.

I've tried to do this a few different times but had always switched to nymphs as soon as I thought I knew what the trout were feeding on. It really takes patience to fish streamers and that is something I've always been short on. This time I only brought my streamer boxes so I'd be forced to stick with the plan. All of the bigger fish that I've seen come out of Pueblo have been taken on streamers. Ben has stuck some serious pigs on streamers and I broke a rod on one at the end of the 2013 Frostbite Fish-off. With the flow around 300 (down from 900ish) I figured the fish would have been used to seeing some bigger prey items. What the hell, it was worth a try.

We parked Ben's truck up at the dam, loaded up in my truck, and drove all the way down to reservoir road. I figured that would be a good day's worth of fishing if we kept moving. We got out and took one look at the water and it looked great. Perfect flow and a lot clearer than I thought it would be. The long channel along the near bank from the reservoir road parking up to the first bridge looked fantastic. So fantastic that I think we spend nearly an hour covering that water which, in retrospect, was WAY too long since we had to get to Ben's truck up a the dam. I had a 12-14" brown bump me and follow me in in this section but that was it.

I didn't want to think it, but from the amount of birds that were hovering over the water I knew there was a killer hatch going on. I've never seen this many birds on the water and I thought that it only made sense that this was the day we chose to leave everything home but the streamer boxes.... On top of that we hadn't seen another soul on the water the entire morning.

We kept at it though and several weirs above the water treatment plant I got a tug and was hooked up. Unfortunately my fly was nearly as big as the rainbow on the end of my line. But I held him up and thanked him for being a little skunk saver before letting him run off to get big. 

I only managed to hook one other dink until we got to the flag hole and I hit a bird on my forward cast. Luckily this little dude wasn't hurt and once I unwound the line from around his wings and neck he was good to go. Neither one of us liked the whole experience and he let me know! Didn't know a little bird could get so loud.

That was it till we got to the hatchery outlet and finally had a good tug. I could see a shadow following my streamer and at the last minute it darted up and grabbed it. I really didn't know what to think of the shape that grabbed my fly.
At first I thought it was a short, fat little brown but it was way too dark. After an initial run it came right in and realized it was a bass. My first in Pueblo. I've heard that they are in the river but had never caught one. I have caught a walleye before so the bass makes for my 5th species on this river (rainbow, brown, bass, walleye, sucker). Would be sweet to do that in one day!

Tough day and a lot of walking but it was still nice to cover all of that water in one day. We didn't see another person on the river which was another first. If we had fished the midge/baetis hatch we would have probably landed a few more but we stuck to the plan (mostly because we had no other choice). We were exhausted by the time we got to the truck. We probably should have started at Pueblo Blvd and worked our way up. I'm thinking this day counts for some time in the trenches and hoping that pays of with a pig at the Taylor next weekend :-)

Frostbite Fish-Off 2014

I remember hearing about the Frostbite Fish-Off in Pueblo Colorado just before the 2012 event. It was either too late for registration or I was too chicken to sign up so I didn’t get to fish but I did show up the day of the tournament and walked a few beats. The tournament looked great. Unfortunately walking along beautiful trout water without a fly rod in your hands is not natural. In fact it is as wrong as..... well I won't finish that thought but it's wrong!

The Frostbite Fish-Off is run by the Southern Colorado Greenback Chapter 509 of Trout Unlimited. An entire Army of volunteers make this tournament happen. Ben Wurster and Lou McCullough from Steel City Anglers walk point in this effort and they have done an outstanding job to make this event a fun but competitive event that raises a good amount of money for Chapter 509. All of the proceeds from the event go directly to improving the fishery and many stream improvements have happened and continue to happen due in part to the money raised by this event. Lou McCullough provided a little history on the event.

One example of recent stream improvements

 "Ben and I started the FFO after Ben was a controller in the Carp Slam in downtown Denver organized by the Denver Chapter of TU.  I knew a lot of guides and people in the business and we had the support of Team USA, Rob Kolanda and company.  I sent out hundreds of e-mails and we had 23 teams the first year.  It was an insane experience, with over 100 people at Garlic and Onions, the venue for the first year.  The money we netted over the first 2 years went into a total contribution from Cheyenne Mountain Chapter of $11,100.00 which was doubled by a GOCO grant. Coupled with a Packard Grant and $100,000.00 from CPW and other sources we totaled $340,000.00 for the Arkansas River Legacy Project Phase II.  It has been a real adventure, meeting new friends and spreading the word about the Arkansas River tail water.  Now the river is one of the top ten tail water fisheries in the country, thanks to Pete Gallagher of Fin-Up Habitat Consultants and his incredible design for the structures".

Ben Lewis and I joined “forces” and created Team Chuck and Duck for the 2013 tournament. At that time, neither one of us had fished in a tournament before so we didn’t really know what to expect. Ben and I had drawn two good beats the night before (a fun event in itself) that we had both fished before so we were feeling pretty confident the morning of the tourney. As we walked to our first beat with a dozen tangled rods however, I began to question my confidence in two dudes with way too many rods who could only come up with “Chuck and Duck”.

When it was all said and done fish were caught, old friends were caught up with, new friends were met, and Ben and I had an absolute blast. We endured paparazzi, mobs of crazed female spectators, fish that ignored us the entire morning save our last THREE MINUTES of morning fishing, and a last hour of the day, buzzer beating, jaw dropping, ROD BREAKING fish hook up! Fun was to be had each step of the way. 2014 had big shoes to fill.

Feeling the pressure just before the morning session

The 2014 Frostbite Fish-Off did not disappoint! The tournament this year started off with the news that we were going to fish two outstanding beats. We were going to fish beat 4 in the morning which had recently been worked on through the ongoing stream improvements and featured several beautiful weirs, a long deep run with large submerged boulders, and a run fed by the hatchery outlet. In the afternoon we had beat 2 on tap that featured a long riffle that tails out into a deep pool with a gradual drop off toward the north bank along the entire run. We would not be able to blame our beats if we didn't post some respectable numbers. The pressure was on!

Ben got us off to a great start with a 19" rainbow within the first 10 minutes of the morning session.  I was able to post 17" of rainbow trout about 45 minutes later. We had two fish on the board and needed two more to max out our morning session. We needed to keep up the momentum. At that point Ben stepped in and turned it to 11.

Ben is starting to make a habit out of pulling absolute slabs out of Pueblo on the biggest nastiest flies that have survived since his Alaska days in the deepest recesses of long forgotten fly boxes. Good for Team Chuck and Duck that Ben sticks to what works!  I don't want to give away his secrets but I'll say that he was chucking a purple leach type pattern that almost looked as though it was sucking on a hot pink trout egg. Almost as if a leach was swimming around sucking on a leach. I'd probably call it a huge purple egg sucking leach..... and it's awesome.

Ben Lewis winner of biggest fish 14' !

This awesome. When combined with the correct retrieve of course. This fatty could not resist the purple nightmare dangling in front of its face. Getting to net this thing was a treat enough. When it kicks in that you get 21" out if this beauty since you are fishing in a tournament, the world is yours. But it got better.

While I was dinking around with midges and leaches, Ben was dredging away to seal the deal. And it turns out our 21" slabba had a friend that also had an eye for purple. He held out as long as he could but not long enough. With 10 minutes left in the morning session, his glutinous Prince loving friend (the trout's not Ben's) let loose and bit down hard on the purple dancing dream that had been swimming around his head for the last 20 minutes. No way! Catching two trout over 21" in that short period of time is no small accomplishment folks. There was no way we weren't winning.

Are we friggin winning!?

And we were! This was crazy considering our main goal going in was to not finish last. Lunch was fun and all but it took an eternity. We were looking to get back in the water. Our normal lunches on fishing trips take about 4 minutes. We were winning a fishing tournament! Crazy...


After a quick wardrobe change, we kicked off the afternoon session. Ben hooked up quick and landed a 16" bow. We were on the board in the first half hour. So far so go. Then I was lucky enough to hook and land a 17" bow about a half hour after that. On a good pace! 20 minutes or so later I hooked up but felt the dreaded release and hook. I knew he came unbuttoned and my second fly found his tail. Foul hooked trout don't count so after a quick net and release Ben was fishing again.

Love this part

We needed one more fish! We got down to two minutes when Ben hooked up! I told Ben that I would get in position while he netted. I tied on the nastiest egg cluster pattern I had and threw a slab of mojo mud on the line. I told Ben that as soon as the fish was landed I would cast. I kid you not, with less than a minute left I saw a nudge and set the hook to a solid pull. Jim Good gave me a heads up that I had 10 minutes to land it. A nice 10-15 yard run of line and I was living the dream. Then my monster trout started coming right in.

No...... please no...... not now.... please not now. I've felt this fight before. I've been burned by this fight before. Yes, it was...............a sucker. A beefy egg faced sucker! Last year I broke a rod on a huge last minute bow.... And now a sucker burn with the clock at zero...... terrible 1st world problem to have.

BUT,...... we had put three descent fish on the board. We knew not posting four fish in the afternoon would make it very hard to place but we also knew that the conditions on the water were tough.

I think both of us figured we'd done well but didn't know if we did well enough to place. I couldn't believe that we were even considering the thought of placing. We have a LOT of REALLY good fisherpeeps (cannot forget our ladies) teaching our trout lessons year round in our great state of Colorado. Just to be close was a great feeling.

Team Chuck and Duck Bronze 2014 FBFO

Lou provided a really nice introduction welcoming Team Chuck and Duck up front to accept Third Place at the awards dinner! Bronze Baby! And Ben gets the Biggest Fish award and a new rod to boot!

I've never won an award for fishing before. This was sweet! Bringing home hardware from a hard days fishing. Life is really good. I'm making Ben Most Valuable Fisher (MVF) for the 2014 FBFO. Thanks buddy! Can't wait for next year.

On a very personal note, I would like to thank my Dad who introduced me to fishing at a young age. I learned from the get go that fishing isn't all about catching fish. Thanks Dad! Looking forward to many more write ups.

For more information on fishing the Arkansas River Tailwater in Pueblo Colorado check out my blog at http://jamiesfishingjournal.blogspot.com . To book a trip to this great fishery head over to http://www.steelcityanglers.com/ and talk to Ben and Lou.

Breezy on the Ark

Mr. Greene with a nice little bow

I had my eye on the weather last week and Saturday's forecast was pegged as awesome by several people on TV that guess weather for a living. If more than two guesses on different channels happen to be identical then you can be 100% sure that 60% of the time they're right every time. A little Anchorman humor there for you.

Mike, Ben, and I also had the pleasure of having my better half, someone that actually knows how to take a picture, out with us for a little fishing and picture taking. Not only did Alica take some great pics, she managed to get out of 8th St. Walmart on a Saturday morning with a fishing license in hand before the bus left the station (10 minutes, which was announced by some ahole as Alicia was getting out of the truck).

Again, my fellow Colorodeans did not disappoint and were out in droves taking advantage of another beautiful sunny, warm, winter day in Colorado. The only catch was the gale force winds that came along with that warm sunny weather. I always learn something new when I fish and this trip it was not to tell someone how good a run is if it requires them to cast directly upstream into 40 MPH winds! Mike didn't think the run was that great :-)

We weren't on fire by any means but we all caught fish and had a good time. Main thing that came out of this trip for me is that it seems like on descent days in the winter you can pretty much set your watch to the midge hatch that seems to be heaviest around 12:30 - 1 PM. I've tried a bunch of test patterns based on samples I've taken, but to be honest with you a black beauty is hard to beat. Mike did find another midge emerger pattern that was also pretty hot which I will share with you all after the Frostbite Fish-off!

Location:  Anticline Bend
Time: 1:00 PM
Water Temp: 40
Weather: Sunny / Windy 58
Hatch: Midge (fair)
Stage: Pupa/Adult
Size: #18-22
Abdomen Color: Olive / Brown
Thorax Color: Black
Head Color: Black
Wing Color: Clear / Dun
Shuck Color: Light Tan
Sample: Yes

Notes: Sample contains an big adult midge as far as midges go. It was pushing a size 18. Big damn midge!

Arkansas River (Pueblo)

Ben and I decided to get in a few hours on the Ark on Christmas Eve Day. We are trying to get an idea of the current situation on the Ark in Pueblo before the Frostbite Fish-Off in Feb. I didn't do great on our last trip but I took some insect samples and had a few patterns to test drive. I figured things would start to heat up a bit.

Well..... it was another tough day. We started off at the Nature Center and ran into Ben and Lou padding up. We hit the rock pile and worked our way upstream. Ben Lewis managed to hit one right at the Nature Center drop off on a red annelid. I came up empty all around the Nature Center. Not even a hit in the riffle above the rock pile.

We worked our way upstream to the Flag Hole and pretty much finished up the trip there. I had to WORK for the only fish that I caught all day. I knew I was in front of fish but couldn't put the pattern together. This bow hit a 22 Black Beauty which I tied on after Ben and I saw a midge crawl out of it's shuck and fly away on my seine. Awesome thing to watch. It really surprised me how fast it took off after crawling out of the shuck. Ben grabbed it and we saved the adult and the shuck which is a pretty cool thing to have.

After landing the bow above I figured I was on to something but that would not be the case. I wound up with a single hit and a single fish for the entire day. Hmm....... Need to learn a few new tricks before Feb!

Speaking of new tricks - Ben learned that if you don't flip your old man magnifying glasses up after tying on a fly, it'll burn your lips. LOL!! Hilarious.

Location:  Nature Center
Time: 10:45 AM
Water Temp: 41
Weather: Sunny / Windy 40
Hatch: N/A

Location: Flag Hole
Time: 12:00 PM
Water Temp: 42
Weather: Sunny / Windy 40
Hatch: Midge (sparse)
Stage: Pupa/Adult
Size: #22
Abdomen Color: Cream / Grey
Thorax Color: Black
Head Color: Black
Wing Color: Clear
Shuck Color: Light Tan / White
Sample: Yes

Notes: Sample contains an adult midge and the shuck it hatched from. Did see a single BWO Dun at this time.

Arkansas River (Pueblo)

It's been a while since I've fished the Ark! Too long! And Team Chuck and Duck need to knock the rust off our Pueblo skills!  (I need to knock the rust off my blog skills as well - still working on my RF wrap up) Man I'm excited though. This tournament is going to be fun (unless we place last). This year is about trophy fish and we hooked a not my rod breaking fish last year!

Ben and I decided to hit one of the beats if there was some open water. It was an absolute blue bird day and people were taking full advantage as they should as any respectful Coloradoan would.

Turns out the rust is pretty thick. I think it was a pretty slow day but we have some figurin out to do before Feb. We managed to catch 5 or so and miss a few more but it wasn't our best day on the water. We did catch some pretty ones (shown above slightly enhanced :-) The one on the right (majorly enhanced) hit on the edge of the hatchery outlet and looked like a mini hog. STRONG little dude.

But... he only ate after finally going to an egg. I have decided to start paying more attention to the bugs instead of jumping into patterns that have worked before. Everyone knows you should do this but not everyone can stop fishing long enough to do it. Anyone who has figured some of this fly fishing stuff out will tell you to know your bugs. I want to understand my hatches a lot better and come up with, or start using again, a very few simple, durable, fast to tie patterns and tie them in lots of sizes and colors.  I will always have some crazies in the box though because it's fun to make up your own stuff. The more crazies I try though the more I realize how good some old standbys really are. Why has it been so long since I fished a standard brassie?

So a few weeks ago I decided to make a little waterproof hook chart that I can look at bugs on to see if my fly size guessing needed some calibration. Yep. Way off. By two sizes in some cases.  I also decided to stop asking my fishing buddies to kick rocks up when I seine. I figure if I'm kicking stuff up, I'm looking at bugs that in some cases won't hatch for a year or more (I know that because of this and this and these guys). So even though I don't seine nearly enough, meaning rarely, I decided to make the hole process take longer.

I have taken Robert's (The Bug Guy) class and know how to collect and identify aquatic insects, plus I've read a few books that connect some dots. I need to stop being lazy about it. Plus it's fun. Just a hard activity to start. Especially when you start seeing bugs popping up. And since I'm going to attempt to be studious why not through in water temperature for the hell of it. Seems important......

So here it is. What I gathered during a few time outs from the whipping. Could be right, could be wrong. Use at your own risk :-) - Cool macro pics by my better half!

Location:  Anticline Bend
Time: 10:57 AM
Water Temp: 39
Weather: Sunny 40

Midge Emerger

Hatch: Midge (sparse)
Stage: Emerger
Size: #26/24
Abdomen Color: Chocolate / Cream / Flashabou Rib
Thorax Color: Black
Head Color: Black
Wing Color: Clear / Light Brown (case)
Sample: Yes

Caught 2 small bows just upstream from mid bend sand bar on #18 Red Hook
Hooked one on #22 Two Bit Hooker (w/ red beads). Missed a few on #22 Dorsey brown Top Secret Midge (looked like the perfect match for the midge emerger I found but I think I need them in #24-26 - maybe add the Flashabou tail). Decided to head downstream to join up with Ben at the hatchery outlet. 

Location:  Hatchery Output
Time: 1:10 PM
Water Temp:41 out of Hatchery
Weather: Sunny 40

Hatch: Midge (sparse / fair)
Stage: Adult
Size: #26/24
Abdomen Color: Chocolate / Cream / Brown / Rib
Thorax Color: Black
Head Color: Black
Wing Color: Clear
Sample: Yes

Location:  Hatchery / River Channel
Time: 1:20 PM
Water Temp: 44 main channel
Weather: Sunny 40
Hatch: Same midge seen at 1:10

Caught 1 small bow on #18 Red Hook. Caught 1 15/16" fat bow on 4mm yellow Otter Egg with yellow bead

Notes: Sample contains various midge adults / emergers, a baetis nymph (I think), and a caddis larva. One midge in sample is just emerging from the shuck. You can see a clear shuck hanging off the abdomen (shuck is same length of abdomen). Shuck looks exactly like a single strand of clear Flashibou. Very cool to see.

Test Pattern / Shotglass

I've been playing with a few patterns and this is the latest. Needs to be thinner though. Actually looks like a good baetis emerger. Pretty much the same thing as Shea's Shotglass as my buddy Justin has pointed out. After checking out that pattern again it is spot on for what I found in the water. No shortage of brilliant fly designers out there!

Flow: 61. fs

Arkansas River (Pueblo)

Poor little guy lost his lower lip somewhere in the bait section.

With a late night trip to RF the evening prior, Ben and I got a late start on the Ark on Saturday. We decided to fish up towards the dam. The water was dirty and warm. I NEED to get a thermometer. I've been saying that for years. Need to just make it happen. I'm not sure how warm the water was but it seemed noticeably warm. I'm going to go ahead and blame the fishing on the warm water. I've never done great in dirty water but have certainly had better days than we did on Saturday in it.

The flow was in the mid 200's. Great flow for that river. It was harder to find the deeper runs below the dam with the dirty water. I have a general idea of where they are at but without being able to see the bottom they were harder to find. We sort of worked our way down the north bank to find the drop off. I did find one pod of fish but only managed to snag one brown and a sucker. Ben pulled probably the biggest sucker I've seen come out of the river. Now he has the record for trout and suckers between us! Show off.

After fishing this section for a while we went down and hit the Martini hole off of 4th street. We fished it hard and Ben fished the nice runs above it but we didn't have much luck. 4th street section seems to either be great or terrible depending on the day. 

It's been a tough October fishing so far! We are putting in our dues for sure this month. But you know what they say about a bad day fishing....

Arkansas River (Pueblo Piggy)

"Oh  my God" is what Ben Lewis managed to get out after hooking the nicest fish I've seen come out of the Arkansas in Pueblo.......

More on that later. Check out this sweet pic of the trout I caught. This thing fought like a mad man! I couldn't believe the runs this thing took. Ok..... it came right in and this was like the first fish I hooked after a few hours of whipping the water.

But Marty. Marty on the other hand had to chase this one downstream for a good 200 yards before bringing him into the net. Marty had to stop fishing for a half hour just to catch is breath. The tail walking this thing did was just incredible. This was after hooking two dozen in a row. ....... Uh.... not really. Same Same. First fish Marty hooked all morning and it came right in too. WTF.... This section (clearly identified in the picture) is usually one right after the other. Flows were up, plenty of water, and three guys trying every trick in the book wound up landing 4 or 5 total in 3 and a half hours of fishing. And then......................

"Oh my God". Ben is just upstream from the bridge from me. He repeats, "Oh my God". I stopped fishing immediately and started for the other side of the bridge. I know Ben pretty well and this was not going to be a small fish. I had no idea what he had really hooked though. I had to go up and cross on the bridge to get to the far side and by the time I got to Ben he was trying to stuff this toad into his net. "Oh my God" is all I could say. What a friggin SLAB!! Ben had to really put some heat on him to keep him out of the current. After a push or two for the main channel this guy just gave up and came right in. He's been through this before. Go on, measure me, take my picture, and put me back. And that's just what we did. I couldn't help myself. I had to ask, "can I let him go". I know. Save the hate mail. Ben was cool and let me let him go. What a fish! A true trophy trout. Colorful (picture doesn't come close). Dark green back and brick red sides. Perfectly defined spots. Huge snub nose. Very healthy. No real scars to speak of. Pretty much a perfect specimen. I thought I would have a minute with him while he recovered. Usually a big fish like this takes a minute to catch his breath. Not this guy. 3 seconds max and he was off! So awesome. This is why we fish. Great moment in time. The trick? A super slow retrieve with an articulated streamer. The take? A barley noticeable "tick" at the end of the line. Guess what? Streamer fishing at Rainbow Falls really pays off! Ben, would you have detected that take last summer?

Oh I suppose you want to see the fish. Try not to drool. Any guesses on length and weight? Yes Ben had good coaching on this pic but don't let that fool you. This thing was a beast.

Arkansas River (Pueblo)

Ben Lewis and I met up with Ben Wurster at Steel City Anglers for a morning of fishing on the Ark. Ben W's truck had recently been robbed and he lost a lot of his gear. He was offering up a killer deal on guided trips so we decided to sign up. We'd be able to help Ben out and we'd get a great day of fishing in return.

Believe it or not, we had never fished the Carp Hole before. I've fished all around it but have never spent any time in this run. Ben set us up along the run and we were hooked up within 5 minutes. This run is a lot of fun to fish. The flow started off around 270. The run was fast up top and slowed as it deepened. There is a nice gradual slope out from the south bank and you can fish different depths by adjusting your cast.

Ben W gave us some good tips on where the trout have been holding and he was spot on. Very counter intuitive too as far as where we were hooking up. Learned something new within the first 5 minutes of the trip. The sport that keeps on giving.

After we landed half a dozen fish or so I started noticing a lot of debris in the water. The water was clouding up and the current was picking up. The island that we had stashed our other rods was gone. Luckily our guide was paying attention and had moved them to the bank. The flow went up 230 cfs.

We worked our way back to the Nature Center and picked up a few fish here and there but the flow definitely sent the fish looking for cover. Really underestimated the current just above the Nature Center and almost went for a swim. Just a little water can hold a lot of power!

We met up with Lou and had a nice lunch at the Coyote Grill. I had the Pueblo Burger which has cream cheese and Pueblo chillies on it. Fantastic!

A great trip with good friends. Can't ask for more!

Arkansas River (Pueblo)

Back into the wild this weekend! I had to get on a river. WAY too long. I've been having a blast at Rainbow Falls but I'm a river fisherman at heart and the moment I stepped into the Ark on Saturday morning I instantly remembered why. There is just something about moving water. The flow Saturday was up (although it looks like they cranked it way back down) and the water was surprisingly clear.

Got a bit of a late start and wound up "blowing through the gate" around 8:30. At least this is how the park ranger described it.... I'm usually on the river before anyone is at the park station by the dam. I drove (slowly) past the booth and stopped to fill out a park pass. Payed our day use, parked, and started gearing up when a park ranger pulled up to give us a large ration of shit. Now I have plenty of respect for these individuals and was more than polite but getting an attitude for an honest mistake was a little unsettling. What was even more unsettling is how unfamiliar this individual was with state fishing regulations when it came to carrying two rods vs. having two lines in the water at one time. If you are going to give someone shit, at least know what you are talking about. Reminded me of Super Troopers. "Super Trooper - Where you boys headed? Me - Ah we are just going to hit the hatchery outlet and maybe get some biscuits and gravy on the way home. Super Trooper - Almost made it". Anyway.... after 20 minutes of harassment we were off.

We were planning on fishing the hatchery outlet but one of my favorite holes was open on the way so we decided to fish there a while. Action was fair. Marty and I landed 3 trout and 5 suckers in 3 hours. There was a small BWO hatch but nothing much to speak of. It was very crowded and we stayed holed up for the full 3 hours. San Juans, PTs (20), and green Forget-Me-Knots (20) took the trout. I did enjoy sight fishing to a few trout on the tail end of the run.

A little video action of the release

Quick half day trip. Sure was nice to be on the river. Heading back next Sunday morning for a half day guide trip. Can't wait to learn some new tricks!

Arkansas River (Pueblo)

Nice bow that fell for the jazzed up Copper John

Quick half day trip down to Pueblo today with Ben and Marty. We started out at the Nature Center and worked our way up around the first bend. Got to look at some of the new structures and they are awesome! Crowd started to fill in above the Nature Center pretty quickly so we headed down to the water treatment plant which was also packed. Plan C was to head down to Pillars Park and we had the river to ourselves. Missed a nice fish on the second cast in the Martini Hole. There are also some nice new structures along this stretch. We all caught fish today but nothing huge to speak of.

Brown that fell for a "pegged" egg sucking leach.

Two nice experimental flies caught fish today which is always fun. The first was a Red Copper John tied with Prismatic Pliable Peal Sheet Back and Red UV paint covering the copper. The second was more of a rig than a fly. I tied a slump buster on with a non slip mono loop knot and slid a bead egg on with the fly so that the egg and the fly were in the loop. I think this setup will work well once the flows are higher. Hoping to get a few more big snow storms this month and in April.

The Copper John and the egg rig can be seen on my FB page if you are interested.

https://www.facebook.com/jamiesfishingjournal

Next week - Colorado River!

Ben with a nice little bow right off the bat

Marty with a bow towards the end of the day

Biggest Catch of the Day!!!
BINGO Burger!
This thing put a hurting on me. Ben ordered the same thing. Mine was up first and when I sat down at the table Ben took one look at it and said, "I'm in a world of hurt". I'm not going to eat for at least 2 hours!