10/10
Two beautiful days on stream in one week. What a week. We started out at the Arkansas in Pueblo but it was a chalky green off color. So off to the Arkansas River in Canyon City. Yes right in town.
CFS ranged from 260 to 225 toward the end of the day. Water clarity was good. I could see bottom on the runs that were 2 feet or less from 20 feet away. Runs over 2 feet, the bottom was visible but you had to be in them to do it. There were lots of holes over 2 feet deep to maybe 8 feet deep with moss on the bottom. I could not see bottom on these.
Air temp was in mid to high 70′s all day, cloudless sky until about 4 p.m. then some clouds and gusty wind came up.
My friend Larry drove so this trip was a treat for me. This was my third test of a furled nymphing leader with a built in strike indicator. I started out fishing the seam along a deep pool straight out from where we had parked. I had a 3 nymph rig with a #14 pheasant tail on top, a #16 beadhead goldribbed flashback hare’s ear middle and a #18 gray RS2 on the bottom. This was the rig I fished most of the day.
Moving to the far side under the bridge we were by, I fished a fast run some 3 feet wide and about 18 inches deep. Several drifts, I had a nice 13 inch brown on the hare’s ear. Several drifts later, same thing. Some 10 drifts later, a fat 15 inch rainbow hit the hare’s ear but I lost that one. I got one more brown out of the run before fishing tapered off.
Rather than change flies, I moved upstream. I waded carefully into my casting position for quartering upstream casts along the near seam where the water formed a seam, then a slick and a far seam from pouring over a couple of rocks. Second drift a nice fat scrappy 14 inch brown hit the hare’s ear as I worked the drift along the near seam. Got 2 more out of the near seam and one out of the slick. Lost a small one about 11 inches long from the far seam.
In my first hour of fishing with my furled nymphing leader, I hooked up with seven or eight fish and got 5 to the net. During the rest of the day, I hooked up with several more fish including a rainbow by the bridge which I think may have been the one I lost earlier. Lost him this time too. He was doing head shakes so violent that his tail was hitting his head to get off the hook.
Larry hooked and landed about 10 fish over the course of the day including this beauty of a female brown. Larry got this one from the tail of the big pool where we had started using a #16 beadhead hare’s ear on top and a #18 beadhead hare’s ear on the bottom tied on a scud hook.
Larry with his 18 inch Arkansas River brown 10/10/08
Tom, one of the HPD members with us, caught 3 or 4 nice fish over the course of the day. Tom hooked up with 2 nice browns out of a run that I had fished 3 times with no luck. He caught his fish on what looked like a thread body pheasant tail nymph. (interesting fly)
Lessons: This year there are lots of wood case caddis on the rocks. The beadhead, gold ribbed flashback hare’s ear works well over a light colored bottom when these wood case caddis are in abundance. Try tying some up on a scud hook for a trailing fly. Try tying your pheasant tail nymphs with a thread body to reduce the abdomen size. The fly Tom used had an extremely slim body profile with a dubbed thorax and 3 pheasant tail fibers for the tails. (The body profile was thinner than the traditional pheasant tail nymph.)
See you next time.
Tight Lines and Good Fishing,
Marshall, Editor
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