Arkansas River (Pueblo)

Damn it was hot in Pueblo today! We got to the river around 8 and it was already hot. I didn't even stand in the parking lot to get rigged up, I had to go stand in the river. The fish felt the heat too. Pretty slow day as far as the Ark goes but it wasn't without it's excitement.

Marty and I met up with David and Stephen behind the nature center. I fished the bend hole for a while and might have missed one but things started off slow for me. Marty started on some pocket water behind a boulder diamond (seen behind Marty in this pic) and almost instantly hooked into this nice 17" rainbow. He took several nice runs but eventually came to the net. Good start to the day!

We worked our way upstream but didn't make it too far up from the Nature Center. The heat made walking upstream very unattractive so we stayed planted in a long run just down from the first weir for the rest of the morning. We each landed a few trout but things were pretty slow. The pics to the left here are two out of three trout that I landed all morning. Marty had the suckers dialed in though and that at least kept things interesting between trout. I hooked probably 4 or 5 more but just couldn't get a solid hookup for some reason. I'm thinking that the heat makes the trout lazy because the takes were very subtle. Or the heat just  made me zone out and miss the take. Either way it was frustrating.

After Marty took this last picture here we heard David say, "Marty I'm really sorry man". We turned around to see him holding two pieces of a fly rod up. "I didn't see you had left your fly rod on the bank over here". You could hear our jaws hitting the water.... Very awkward moment... I could feel the tension building when David put his rod back together and said, "just kidding". So WRONG but hilarious at the same time! He had both of us hooked good! Unfortunately for David we were the only things he hooked into that day. (Sorry David, pay back is a bitch!).

Even the deer were hot yesterday! We saw this guy crossing the river just upstream from us. He really took his time getting across. I expected him to roll over and float down the stream on his back.

We decided to work back toward the Nature Center because the girls were meeting us for lunch. I landed on small bow on the way back. I got all the way around the bend just below the Nature Center. I fished there for a few minutes and when I got back around the bend I saw Marty just upstream. He said, "Dude I needed you!". I'll let him tell the story from here.


"Anyway, around 2:00 or so Alicia and Laurie joined us at the Nature Center for lunch and some wading to cool off. Was about 103 * On the way down to meet them, I hit the same hole I had fished this morning and BOOM. A really nice 25" Brown took my blood worm pattern. I immediately looked for Jamie, I was gonna need help with this monster, and he was way down stream around a bend and I couldn't see him. To make a long story short, the Brown cut across stream my reel screaming with him. This is the first time I've ever had a fish on that took me to my backing on my reel. After about 20 minutes of runs, head shakes, jumps, etc, we had fought about 50 yards downstream from where we started. I had made it into shallow water, and was actually backing up the bank, when the Brown saw three big rocks and made a bee-line into them. SNAP. No more trout, and minus one Bloodworm, :( Witnesses wading behind the nature center were also yelling OMG ! ! ! ! That is a monster fish. The ones that get away are the ones that haunt our dreams."

Another big one that got away. Story of our lives!

Gunnison River (East Portal)

We decided to try some new water this weekend and I am sure glad we did! We decided to hit a tailwater on the Gunnison river under Crystal Dam. This is in Black Canyon National Park. This section of river is about a mile above the famous Black Canyon which we've fished years before.

We got to the river just after daylight. The road down into the canyon is about a 17% grade! Makes for some great views while driving in. You can see the road in this picture that I took while driving out. They close this road in the winter which is about 5 miles long. This sounds like a great way to get familiar with a snow mobile. You'd have the whole place to yourself.

Anyway, once we got down to the river we drove up to the dam and back down to scout out the best water. This is a big river and has long sections of flat deep water. We saw a few nice runs and decided to start upstream and work our way down. The first run we fished was a long, fairly slow run that had a nice gradual drop off into the main channel of the river. The further you cast out, the deeper the water. This is always nice because you can adjust your cast, instead of your rig, to get at the right depth.

I hooked a small rainbow on my first cast but he spit the hook. We each hooked a few fish in this run but nothing huge. My Dad worked his way upstream and found a nice section of white water behind a huge boulder. He took one cast with one of the flies I tied for him for Father's Day and he hit the slab shown at the top of the page. A 20" pig of a rainbow! Unfortunately my Mom and I were down stream when he pulled this guy in and we didn't get to see it. When my Dad came back downstream he asked how we were doing. I said not bad we caught a few small ones. He said, just before I stopped talking,  "oh that's nice, I caught a fat 20" bow". LOL - The following 4 pictures are of some small trout we pulled out of the first run we fished. Even thought they were small they were still a lot of fun and STRONG. These fish are as strong as the fish in the Arkansas below Pueblo. Almost all of the rainbows we caught were bright red and in really good shape. Catching a lot of nice bright red trout rainbows reminded me of the Frying Pan river in the mid 90s.

We fished this area for a few hours and decided to make our way down stream. We saw a really nice hole below a small damn when we were scouting the river earlier in the morning and we decided to give that a shot. This was REALLY nice water as you can see from this picture. You had to wade across a pretty fast section of water but then you came to a small island where I was standing when I took this picture. The flow was mid 600s and if it were any higher it would be really tough getting out to this section. You could wade out just far enough, toward the damn, to cast up just below the spill way. You would get a really nice drift coming back toward you. I started on the near side and worked my way across the damn. I caught a few nice rainbows on the near side of the damn but had no idea what was in store for me on the far side. The picture to the left was one of the nice rainbows I landed on the near side of the damn. All of these rainbows were bright red and really healthy. It's a good thing to see since the Gunnison was hit so hard by whirling disease in the late 90s. It seems like the rainbows have come back strong! I made my way to the far side of the damn where the river butted up against a rock face. It was a VERY fishing looking spot as you can see here. There were two really nice currents and a deep white water plunge hole between them as you can make out in this picture. You could wade up just far enough to cast into the white water but it was NOT easy wading here. There were a ton of big mossy rocks to step over while you were in waist deep current. Getting over to this spot required that you cross a fast waist deep section over more medium sized mossy rocks. In other words it wasn't easy getting over here and  

once you did get over to the far side it wasn't easy navigating. I started hooking fish right away in this section. I soon realized that the fish knew how to handle being hooked in this run. They stayed up towards the spill way for a few minutes and if that didn't work they headed downstream into very fast white water. I actually had to chase a 16" rainbow downstream about 60 yards! I knew if I hooked a big fish it would be a very big job getting him in the net. 

After catching a few fish things died down a bit and I decided to adjust my weight. I added a bunch of Mojo Mud around my split shot to try and get the fly down as close to the white water as possible. First cast produced a hit and a fat bow over 20" rolled up on the surface and spit the hook. Ah! Tough when the nice ones get away but I hadn't seen anything at that point. Almost every cast after that was a hit. I was dialed in! Deep Tungstones! On about my 10th cast I had a HARD hit and knew immediately that I had a big fish on. I knew I had to wait for my Dad to make his way over to my side of the river so I just held him up towards the spill way without applying too much pressure because I didn't want him to run down into the fast water. I hadn't seen him yet but I could feel the head shakes and I knew he was big. Just as my Dad was making his way across the hardest section of water I saw a HUGE tail come up and break the surface. This thing was a MONSTER! Huge brick red tail! I said "Oh Man that is a HUGE Bow!" My Dad had only seen the tail too but couldn't make out that it was just the tail and he said, "I don't think it's that big". I said, "It's HUGE!". He was heading downstream at this point! Nooooooooo!!! My Dad made it over to my side of the  river just in time to have to duck in order to avoid my line. He turned around just to see this monster roll on the top of the surface as it was entering the fast water. My hook pulled out and he was off!!! Ahhhhhh ***** I yelled! Oh the pain!!!!!!!!!! My Dad said, "That was a huge bow"!  I had missed a true trophy of a trout. Probably mid 20"s and 8 pounds. A football of brick red! I've played this over in my mind several hundred times and there were several things I could have done better to land this bow. One was to start wading across the river towards the near side as soon as he was hooked to bring him above the island instead of above the white water channel. The other was to let him run through the white water and chase him like I had earlier for the smaller bow. But with a net so close to the fish it's hard not to put pressure to hold him above the fast water for a chance at the net. 

There are BIG trout in this river. I fished half heartedly for a little while after that without much luck so we decided to take a break and eat lunch. There are nice facilities at this location and we had a nice picnic lunch on a covered picnic table. After lunch we decided to head downstream further to see what it looked like. It was nice water but the bubbas had started filling in and I couldn't get the image of that trout out of my head. I was heading back to the spill way! 

Releasing a nice little brown 

I started walking up stream and noticed a guy on the far side of the river walking up stream. I knew as soon as he turned the bend he would see the spot where I missed that big bow and park himself there for several years. Just as I was figuring this out my Dad said you better hurry up. I about broke my neck getting down to the water and had to power my way through the fast current. I must have looked like Richard Simmons in waders lifting my legs to get across the river. My legs were on FIRE as I just nudged him out to beat him to my spot! He was not pleased....... He started to turn to walk away and I took one step and fell in the river.... I stood up soaking wet only to see the look of a very satisfied bubba shake his head and walk away.... Karma...... I deserved it. Should have shared that spot. Lesson learned. Oh yeah and I didn't hook another big fish in that hole.....

My Mom stayed on the near side of the river and had found a nice run to fish and was hooking up pretty regularly. I didn't get a picture of a nice bow she caught but I was able to zoom in on this nice little brownie. I decided to head back over and join my folks for the last hour or so of fishing. It was a nice way to end the day. My Mom and I were both  hooking fish and it had been a great day of fishing. I starting fishing a nice pocket just upstream and hooked a fish that slowly and steadily swam upstream in very heavy current without stopping. I never saw him and he hung me up on a rock. More bad Karma pay off! I took a few more casts and actually wound up landing the nicest fish I had caught that trip. Karma bank even! 

It's nice to have some new water to fish. I really like this river and will be fishing in more in the future. Great weekend with the folks! Always a good time fishing with them and we all caught nice fish. Can't beat living in Colorado!

Arkansas River (Pueblo)

Hot day in Pueblo today. Ben, Marty, and I made our way to the Nature Center and were on the water by 8:30ish. We had decided to start at the Nature Center and work our way downstream since we had never fished that stretch before. We fished the large bend hole right behind the Nature Center and the long deep runs below it. We each hooked a few nice rainbows.

We worked our way downstream and Ben and Marty found a nice seam behind a few large boulders that had trout stacked up like logs. They each caught a few and missed a few more. Ben landed a really nice 18" rainbow but forgot that he had his phone with him and didn't get a pic. The best patterns of the day were red San Juan Worms, Copper Johns, and a new Pheasant Tail variant I tied with a red tungsten bead, red copper wire ribbing, and a flashback.

We continued to work downstream and I started fishing a really nice run behind some huge boulders. I was high sticking the far side of the seam when my indicator shot upstream like a rocket. I set the hook and saw a huge yellow flash. Big fish on! I told Ben that I'd need net help with this one. He made a huge run across the stream and was headed for a submerged log. I had to put WAY too much side pressure on him to keep him away from the far bank. I was able to bring him downstream into some calmer water. I was getting ready to grab my net and he came to the surface and rolled. It was a friggin Sucker! I wound up landing him and he was about a 5lb sucker. What a disappointment!

We got downstream far enough to see Pueblo Boulevard and found a really deep slow pool. I couldn't get a good drift with nymphs so I switched to my streamer rod. After a few casts with an olive and black Slumpbuster I finally had something follow it in and hit it. I saw the flash and new it was a small fish. I couldn't believe a fish that small would hit my streamer. I got him in the net and it turned out to be a Walleye! First walleye on a fly. This little thing was a killer! All mouth and teeth.

After lunch at the Nature Center we fished upstream and hit a few holes that we had fished before. We each hooked a few more but after an hour or so of fishing a storm rolled in. The lightning started flashing and we decided to call it a day.

Another fun day in Pueblo. Love the river down there. The only thing that's disappointing is seeing all of the trash left on the river bank. It's ridiculous to show up at the river with a 12 pack of beer and a can of worms in a flies and lures only section and then to leave all of your trash on the bank. If someone ever deserved an ass kicking it's the tools that do this type of crap. 

Anyway..... always fun fishing with Ben and Marty and we had a great time. 

Taylor River

A nice 20" Cutthroat that Dad caught

What's harder; tying on a size 28 miracle nymph on 8x tippet, or removing a size 28 miracle nymph tied to 8x from a trout jaw? I did both today and I'm not sure... Both cause you to lose flies, make your eyes bleed, and can cause you to speak in tongues. Some people skip the removal part and release the fish only to hear the invisible tippet snap releasing your invisible fly to swim off (sorry Dad but this was too funny). What's the best part of using 8x tippet? Switching to 6x.

Skinny brown with a Meat Whistle 

We spent Friday and Saturday fishing to ultra pressured hogs on the Taylor just below Taylor Res. We showed up Friday evening after fighting construction traffic in the high country of Colorado. We decided to do some chuck and duck Friday evening with streamers and Rapalas. Dad and Marty did well on hardware and I  managed to land a few on streamers. I was fishing to a large brown just under the bridge with an olive Meat Whistle. After a few casts he followed it up and bumped it but didn't eat it. It was enough to get my heart to stop though.

We finished up Friday evening around 8 and headed into Gunnison for the night. We headed into Safeway sporting our breathable waders and picked up some doughnuts for the morning. The lady at the register gave us the "they only come out at night" look and rang us up. We pulled into the Super 8 for a quick nap before heading out at 4:30! (it was 8 before we saw the first car)

Marty with a nice brown early Sat morning

Round two of chuck and duck started at daylight. We each caught a few nice fish but nothing huge. Marty and I stayed planted in the Avalanche hole almost the entire day. Dad fished the hog trough in the morning and the speed limit hole in the afternoon. He did great in the speed limit hole catching a dozen or so to include a 20" cutty (shown above) while Marty and I continued to whip the same abused fish we whipped all morning long.

Our first attempt at underwater video. You can see 

the brown trout I was fighting towards the end of this

video. CAUTIION - Marty decided to bump this family

movie up to an R rating at the end. Thanks Marty

We all tried fishing 8x tippet and were able to land a few but all in all 6x seemed to be just as effective. I switched to 6x after setting the hook on a take just a little too hard and snapped my whole rig off. I muttered a few choice words and ditched the 8x. I was however impressed by the strength of the size 28 Tiemco hooks.

The weather moving in

The weather on Saturday was typical springtime Colorado weather. The morning started out nice without any wind. After an hour or two of fishing I looked over at Marty and said, "It's getting colder Dude". Within an hour it was snowing. The temperature plummeted and Marty and I were shaking. It actually gives your fly nice action in the water. I had my heavy coat in the car and it would have taken under 4 minutes to stop fishing and go get it but I figured 4 hours of shivering uncontrollably was a better option. My brain ceases to function in the presence of large trout.  

The biggest fish of the day weren't landed. Dad had a 22" brown up the the bank but couldn't get a net on him. I missed a very large brown in the Avalanche hole. Marty had come over to where I was fishing and I was pointing out a huge rainbow to him that I had been watching. I took a few casts to the rainbow and at the end of one drift I saw my indicator twitch and I set the hook. A huge brown came up to the surface and threw several massive head shakes and spit my fly. Marty said "oh my god did you see that fish!" I said "yeah it was on the end of my line"! I hadn't even seen the brown there. Just goes to show how hard it is to see trout sometimes. 

It was another fun but tough trip to the Taylor. These fish can really humble you. Some guys just really get this river. I still struggle with it. It's always fun though and catching 16 - 18" browns is fun on any day.

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

Arkansas River (Pueblo) 3/31/12

We had a crew out on the Arkansas today. Marty, my Dad, and I met Ben Lewis in town and we headed down to Pueblo. We met up with David Fitch and his sons Michael and Steven. We had every inch of water covered around Valco Bridge.

Clockwise from upper left - Marty, Steven, Michael, David, Ben, Dad

This area must have been stocked recently because we could not keep little stockers off our lines. Ben was hooking up almost every cast! We couldn't catch anything over 12"-14". Don't get me wrong it was a lot of fun. I like catching trout no matter the size but it's always nice to catch at least a few that are a little bigger. We fished this area till lunch and probably caught 50 fish all together. It didn't seem to matter what fly we were using. Anything was good for one or two but the main flies were the standard fare. San Juan Worms, Copper Johns, Tungteasers, etc.

 Ben and I made our way upstream and fished every nice run along the way. We had definitely made our way away from the stacked up stockers. The fishing was a lot tougher up stream. We fished about halfway back to the car when I hooked a nice rainbow. Ben grabbed the net and I was able to bring the trout's head up long enough for Ben to get the net on him. I thought he would go 20" but I couldn't quite stretch him that long. He was a nice 19" rainbow with a nice red stripe down his side. This guy wound up being the best fish of the day. Really enjoyed catching this one. This was the first descent fish I landed on my new Sage One 4WT 9' / Ross Evolution LT 1.5. What an awesome setup. Less than 7 ounces for the whole thing. Casts like a dream and the reel is smooth as silk.

We fished the next hole around the bend for a while but didn't hook up. We were in a perfect run but things sorta turned off around noon. Dad met up with us and started to cross the river downstream from us when he took a dive. It was a rerun of Marty's swim last week! He was able to grab on to a rock and save his net and rod. He was stuck in some pretty strong current  but was up on his feet before Ben and I got down to him.

I worked my way up to the head of the run and was high sticking the far side of the main channel. After a few casts at the head of the pool I had a HARD hit and set the hook. I knew this was a nicer fish. He took a nice run across the stream and I was giddy listening to my new Ross sing. Dad took a quick snap just as I was netting this guy. He wound up being about a 15"-16" rainbow. Was going to get a picture of him but he had other ideas.

We all ate lunch together at the parking lot which was nice and headed back down to the river for another hour or so of fishing. I had a good time fishing with Michael. He is quite a fisherman. I have a feeling I'll be reading one of his fly fishing books down the road. Really had a blast with everyone today. It's awesome to be able to fish on such a sweet river with such good people. Life is good!