Time: 10:30AM – 2:30PM

Location: Buena Vista area

Arkansas River 07/02/2025 Photo Album

Having fished the Eagle River on 06/26/2025 and 06/30/2025, I was kind of burned out on the dropping freestone along Interstate 70. I was, however, interested in pursuing a freestone in declining stages, where the flows remained comparatively high. The Arkansas River was my answer. The flows at the Nathrop gauge remained in the 750 CFS range, and I knew this would be manageable for wading in pursuit of mainly edge fishing. I made the trip.

High and Clear

The air temperature, as I embarked on my day of fishing, was around 74 degrees with highs projected in the low eighties. It was a hot one. Very little cloud cover developed to mask the sun’s intense rays. For a fly rod I chose my old Sage four weight. I did a ton of casting on Monday on our float trip, and I selected a lighter rod in order to provide some relief to my elbow and shoulder joints and muscles.

Typical

To begin my day I rigged with an amber ice dub chubby Chernobyl, coffee and black size ten Pat’s rubber legs, and an iron sally. A dark olive rubberlegs was effective on the Eagle on Monday, thus my choice of that fly, and I was certain that yellow sallies would make an appearance which led to the iron sally.

Next to the Large Round Rock

The river was in fantastic shape, as I plunged into my day of fly fishing. Flows were indeed high, but the river was exceptionally clear, and the left bank provided numerous spots, where the river residents could escape the faster mid-river currents. Unfortunately my three fly offering went unmolested in the early going, so I revamped the lineup. I removed the rubberlegs and switched the iron sally to the top fly and added a salvation nymph as the bottom fly. Finally the flies clicked, and I built the fish count to six, before I broke for lunch at 11:45. The action was decent, but the size of the fish was disappointing with no brown trout exceeding eleven inches. The salvation nymph did most of the damage, with a fish or two showing a preference for the iron sally. The chubby was an obvious distraction, as quite a few fish surfaced and refused the large attractor.

Nice Close Up

After lunch I removed the iron sally and replaced it with a beadhead hares ear nymph, and this combination resulted in a couple more smallish fish. The frequency of refusals increased, so I decided to respond to the signal being provided by the trout. I removed the dry/dropper configuration and converted to a peacock yellow stimulator trailing a gray size 14 deer hair caddis, It was a double dry set up in response to observed yellow sallies and sparse numbers of caddis. The duo enabled me to increase the fish count by a few, but the yellow stimulator seemed to be close to the preferences of the fish but not close enough, thus a flurry of refusals.

Slots to Explore

It was during this time that I made a downstream drift to the deflection off an exposed boulder, and a fish grabbed the trailing caddis. I set the hook, and the fish was instantly gone. I was confused over what transpired, until I tried to strip in my line and discovered that the only remaining component was my fly line. Apparently the loop I tied on the end of the seven foot tapered leader slipped out, and the entire tapered leader was now absent. I was not a happy camper. Fortunately one nine foot leader with 5X at the end remained in my front pack, so I took the time to unravel it and completed a loop to loop connection to the fly line. In this case, the leader came with a loop already tied by the manufacturer, so hopefully it will be more trustworthy.

Fourth Double of 2025

Once I was back in business, I used the break to substitute a classic size 10 Chernobyl ant for the yellow stimulator. I was going for buoyancy and visibility, and I allowed the deer hair caddis to remain on my line. This combination yielded one trout on the caddis, but then a long drought ensued. I once again swapped the top fly, and in this case I replaced the plop-generating Chernobyl with a peacock body hippie stomper. These flies enabled the fish count to climb to fourteen by 2:30PM, and most of the trout favored the caddis with only a couple trout hungry for the hippie stomper. Toward the end of this period, I broke off the deer hair caddis, and I replaced it with a size 16 deer hair yellow sally. The yellow sally, however, did not prove productive.

Second Click

Along the way I leaned on my newly constructed wading stick with all my weight, and one foot of its length broke off. It did not break off clean initially, so I continued to use it with the end protruding outward at a 90 degree angle. Eventually the entire section broke off, and I was forced to used a short stub for stability. It was better than nothing, but it prevented me from getting into my normal rhythm. I am once again in need of a new wading staff.

Nice Water Ahead

Wednesday was an average day of fly fishing; however, it fell short of my expectations for edge fishing, under what I felt were favorable conditions. I lost my tapered leader, and I felt worse about the fish attached to a seven foot length of monofilament. I broke my natural branch wading staff. The size of the fish was subpar, with no fish stretching the tape to twelve inches. The air temperature was toasty, and I was hot and weary by mid-afternoon. I probably should have returned to the Eagle River, where I knew decent insect activity prompted the fish to feed. It’s early July, so additional opportunities will likely present themselves. It seems that everything is two weeks ahead of schedule in 2025.

Fish Landed: 14