Arkansas River Below Pueblo 4-2-2012

My buddie Tyler and I went to the Arkansas River below Pueblo Reservior on Monday. We braved the hurricane-like winds and we were the only people on the river. It was an awesome day. The fishing was spectacular and we both caught some big rainbows, browns, cut-bows and cutthroats. We used 3x tippet all day and we could not keep the fish off of our size 18, PB Pheasant Tails. The Ark was flowing at 320 cfs (cubic feet per second) and the fish were everywhere and the best fishing was in the fast moving riffle water. Here is a picture of me with a nice rainbow.

 

The very next day there was a customer in the shop very early in the morning. I was bragging to him about the day we had and he immediately said, “Well, let’s go!” He turned out to be a very interesting guy! He was the creator of CDnow.com. He flew in from Lynchburg, TN and he now owns a screen printing company that supplies the NHL with their uniforms. Great conversation aside, I was expecting an outstanding day on the river. I checked the flows on the Ark and I noticed that they dropped down to 130 cfs. I immediately thought, UH OH! Whenever the flow drops or goes up rappidly it always puts the fishing off. The biggest reason is because the fish are no longer concerned with eating and more concerned about weathering the storm, so to speak. We ended up catching 5 fish and we worked extremely hard for those fish. We caught them by floating RS2’s in the surface film. We looked for fish hitting the water and tight lines to know when we had caught one. Here is a picture of Jeff with one of his hard earned trout.

 

The next day Steve took out a client and they did a lot better. The fish were back to feeding on their normal fare. This teaches us a very important lesson: We need to consider all of the factors in a fish’s environment. Water flow might be the most important factor on whether you will have a good day or a tough day on the water.

 

Tim Hannan – Manager