Where to Go Arkansas River – Pueblo

  The flows absolutely plummeted over the last 24 hours. Flows were at 500 cfs for about a week before the drop. Fishing was good and should be good again, but we would suggest giving it a day to recover.

Hatches:

 Midges and BWO's are the main bugs right now. We have seen fish eating all of these insects both subsurface and on top. The dry fly fishing can also be good if you catch one of these hatches just right. Mix in some "junk" with the usual smaller patterns.

Tactics:

 With the warmer weather, we have seen the fish become a lot more active. Its still a good idea to cover ground and really make sure you are efficiently fishing your spots.  Dont be afraid to fish some of the faster and skinny water as we have seen a lot of fish feeding in areas like that. During times where there are no hatches, focus on the slower and deeper water. Nymphing will always be the most effective, but the dry fly fishing here can be good as well.  Streamer fishing has been okay later in the day.  Its not a bad idea to add some leech, cranefly larva, scuds, leeches, or worm patterns to your rig with the flow increase. The fishing has been best from about 9am to 3pm.

Weather:

Short Term-  We are having some very nice weather up this way this week. Temps will be in the 70's through the week. Wednesday will be fairly windy so keep that in mind. As we head into the weekend we will see the warmest temps of the year. High temps will be in the upper 70's. Sunday will be nice but we will see some intense winds return. In all, its absolutely beautiful right now!!

Long Term-  Long range forecasts are not in agreement on anything right now. As we go into next week we will have the possibility of a front moving through the area. Right now it does not look to impact this are a whole lot besides lowering the temps about 10 degrees. Some forecast are pointing at some changes around the 20th, but we will have to wait and see. We have had a pretty warm and dry end of winter/beginning on spring. Luckily things arent warming up too fast yet. Lets hope that remains the case as we roll through April and into May.

The Arkansas basin has been holding pretty steady over the last week. We have seen some higher elevation snow and that has helped things. As of today, the Arkansas basin is looking OK at 72% of average snowpack. Its likely the median peak has already happened and we should start to see the snowpack decline from here on out.

Tips:

With the drop in flows, things will likely get a bit more technical again. We will have to wait and see what they do with the flows in the near future.  We would suggest keeping an eye on the flows as well.

This is an area we offer guided walk/wade and float trips, please give us a call if you are interested!

For a custom fly assortment for this location, click here!