BE CAREFUL OUT THERE!!!!

Hi all,

I just saw this and I wanted to put out a friendly reminder that Mother Nature can be a bitch from time to time.

Up in Sheep Canyon they had a little rain last week, July 25 to be exact. There are no measuring stations up there, but in Canon City they had over 2" of rain in less than 45 minutes. As you can see the water rose dramatically!!

If someone had been wading mid river when this hit it could have been bad.

So, BE CAREFUL and keep your eyes open!!

Morain Park, July 25, 2009

Saturday was a fun day for us. We attended a lunch and gathering of our favorite conservation organization, the Rocky Mountain Nature Association. If you have never heard of them, check them out at www.rmna.org. It's a great organization and does a lot of good work in the Rocky Mountain National Park and surrounding areas.

The conditions could not have been better. Temps were in the lower 70s. It was mostly cloudy and the winds were moderate. We got some sprinkles early and a BIG rain later in the afternoon. There was some lightening around but nothing close.

After the picnic we drove into the Park and fished the Big Thompson in the Morain Park area. It was a bit more crowded than I expected at 3:00 in the afternoon, but we were there and decided to fish a bit just to enjoy the area. We broke out the bamboos and rigged up with the standard dry fly rigs. We fished hoppers, crickets, Yellow Sallies and things like that. There were a few caddis in the air as well as some yellow mayflies and MILLIONS OF MOSQUITOES!! The biting bugs were limited to the shady areas so, for the most parts, we avoided those areas. The backs of my legs look like polka dots because I forgot to wear repellent. I won't do that again and neither should you!

We caught several fish ranging from a few inches (very few inches) up to about 12". I even had one small fish grab my Yellow Sally three or four times on the drift but he was not big enough to get it. Pretty typical for that area at this time of the year.

Things are great in the Park now, so get out and enjoy!!

Arkansas River, July 19, 2009

Back on the Arkansas!!!

So, first, the facts. Water temps in upper 50s, air temps in the upper 80s. Flows were around 875 cfs. We got run off the river around 1:30 by thunderstorms and VERY heavy rain, so we just packed up and came home.

Other than that, see last weeks report.... Really.

We used the same flies at the same depths in the same places and caught, I would guess, some of the same fish.

The Arkansas is dropping daily and getting better as the days go by. The "rubber hatch" (slang for rafters) is out in full swing and, if you fish the lower section of the river, you have to contend with that. I kind of enjoy talking to the folks as they drift by and some of their reactions are priceless!!

So, get out and ENJOY!!

Arkansas River, July 11, 2009

The 4:30 alarm sure was annoying.....

We got up in the dark and headed for the Arkansas and the usual spots. We spent most of the day around Spikebuck. It was all sunny in the morning and changed to partly cloudy later in the afternoon. Temps were HOT and winds were light. Water temps were in the high 50s. There were some PMDs and a few caddis around but the fish were not really looking up. The flows dropped from 1800 to 1500 during the day, so we expected things to be a bit slow.

We started off with a hopper-dropper setup with the dropper just a couple of feet below the hopper/stonefly. We picked up several fish but they were small. A little experimentation paid off and we started picking up bigger fish deeper. We had our big stonefly nymph about 4ft-5ft deep and the dropper a bit below that. The fish started getting bigger but a little less frequent.

We fished 3/4 of a mile of river all day long and never felt the need to move. I did make a run to the store for some cold water since the water we had brought with us got a bit hot in the car. The next time, we'll take a cooler with some ice to keep things cool. After 50+ years, you would think we would have learned that.

Friday July 3rd.. Big Thompson River.

What a beautiful morning!!!

First, the facts.... Temps were in the 50s and 60s early in the morning and climbed to the mid 70s. Skies were mostly clear with just a few puffy clouds floating around. That would change....

Fishing was sporadic below the dam... Well below the dam for us. We started out looking for a rock to stand on close to the dam. No luck there. We wound up WAY down river but finally found some solitude. It lasted for about an hour when several more folks showed up. We decided to hole-sit for a while since we were wedged in between some private property. Fishing was pretty slow for the most part. There were several PMDs hatching and most of them were size 16 or so. I fished a PMD with no luck and I noticed the fish were not feeding them actively. That was strange.

Then, mid morning, it got very cloudy and started to rain. Fish started rising and the BWOs started popping. They were really after BWO emergers!! So I tied on a favorite emerger and it was like a switch was flipped. We caught, and missed, a bunch of fish. Then, about an hour later, it stopped raining and sun came out and fish turned off. It was, once again, like someone flipped a switch.

All in all, it was pretty good for a holiday and we WERE on a river with our favorite bamboo rods. What more could we ask for?