Time: 10:00AM – 3:30PM

Location: Lunch rock and then upstream almost to the county line.

Arkansas River 07/08/2016 Photo Album

After spending a day with Jane hiking and biking in the Monarch Pass area, I scheduled another day of fishing for Friday July 8. I hoped for another day of edge fishing and the concentrated population of hungry trout that found large foam attractor patterns irresistible. Since I spent Wednesday in the Smyth Lease section above Salida, I chose to visit the stretch of the river downstream from the Fremont-Chafee county line on Friday. The river between Salida and Wellsville is my favorite, and I believe that it harbors more and larger fish than any other portion of the Arkansas River. Could I capture the magic of edge fishing one more time?

As I documented in my post of July 6, I was frustrated by my inability to land fish that chomped on the large foam attractors such as the Chernobyl ant and fat Albert, and I planned to test the idea of using a single large fly without any trailing leader that might affect the willingness of a fish to commit. Since Jane and I camped at Angel of Shavano Campground on Thursday night, I was able to reach the Lunch Rock pullout along the Arkansas River by 9:30 on Friday morning. Once again the air temperature was warm at 9:30, and as the day evolved, the thermometer reached ninety degrees. I did not check the stream flows beforehand, however, upon my return to Denver I discovered that they were in the 1200 cfs range on Friday. In an effort to rest my arm and shoulder somewhat I selected my Sage four weight for a day of constant casting.

 

Given my desire to test the single dry concept, I began the morning by tying a yellow Letort hopper to my line. I gave this fly and approach ample opportunity to convince me that it was the solution to long distance releases, but the fish never showed interest. I could not convince myself to spend a day casting 100% dry flies, so I added a beadhead hares ear beneath the hopper, and this move allowed me to land a small brown trout on the nymph. Perhaps the Letort hopper was not the correct choice for my unscientific experiment? I clipped off both flies after a reasonable trial period and knotted a size 8 Chernobyl ant to my line by itself. After all, this was the very fly that failed to hold three decent trout on Wednesday. The Chernboyl offering represented some progress, as a refusal resulted. My standard first response to a refusal is to downsize, and I followed the script by replacing the size 8 with a size 10 Chernobyl, but this fly created no interest.

I had now fished for over an hour, and I was convinced that the fish were not recklessly looking to the surface for large morsels of food, so I defaulted to my most productive technique…dry/dropper. I attached a fat Albert to my line and then added an iron Sally and salvation as droppers, and this combination of flies enabled me to increment the fish count to four by the time I broke for lunch at 11:45. All three of the landed fish were small browns that chowed down on the salvation nymph.

I packed my lunch in my backpack, so after a brief break along the river, I resumed my upstream quest for trout. I prospected all the attractive edge locations, but nothing seemed to be working. At one point I observed quite a few yellow Sallies above the surface of the river, and the iron Sally seemed too large to imitate the nymphal form of the small stoneflies, so I exchanged for a hares ear. This move was soundly ignored, and by 1PM I paused to assess. It was very warm and the river seemed dead with no obvious food source present. I began to write off Friday and reprimanded myself for choosing to fish on the Arkansas River again. These early July days were too valuable to waste on an unproductive major river.

As these thoughts were passing through my brain, I spotted two pale morning duns fluttering up from the water, and then shortly thereafter I saw a fish flash near the surface in the hydraulic cushion in front of a large submerged rock. Could the fish be tuning into pale morning duns? I already had a salvation nymph in my lineup, and it normally serves as a solid representation of a PMD nymph, so I drifted my flies near the spot where the fish flashed four or five times, but I saw no evidence of interest from the fish. I tried a dead drift and a lift, but none of these techniques were effective.

I now reconsidered my options. Despite the lack of rising fish, would they recognize a pale morning dun dry fly and respond? Given the lack of action, I decided I had nothing to lose, and I converted to a size 16 cinnamon comparadun. I am happy to report that this ploy was a winner, and I landed four additional brown trout between one and two o’clock. All the fish were in the 12-14 inch range, and I celebrated my persistence and willingness to adjust to stream conditions.

At two o’clock the hatch seemed to wane, but I observed another wave of yellow Sallies, so I knotted a size 16 yellow stonefly to my line. I cast the new offering to a riffled area at the beginning of a small pool and a twelve inch brown responded and took my fish count to nine. Perhaps I had another winner in the yellow Sally? Unfortunately I moved on, and the neighboring trout of the Arkansas did not recognize the yellow Sally as a tasty menu item.

I desperately wanted to reach double digits, but I was skeptical that I could reach this goal in the face of the high sun, warm temperatures, and the absence of PMD’s. It was at this moment that I arrived at a large rock that was similar to Lunch Rock. The main current swept down the center of the river and passed the point of the large rock that jutted into the river for twenty feet. Once the heavy run passed the rock it curled toward my bank and then slid back to the nook of the eddy directly behind the protruding rock. I carefully positioned myself on the angled rock near the nexus of the eddy, and I could readily observe three nice fish hovering a foot or two below the surface, as they occasionally plucked an unknown form of food from the area were the multiple currents converged.

Would these fish respond to a yellow Sally? I made multiple drifts, but the small yellow stonefly imitation was soundly ignored. Were the fish continuing to feed on a stealth pale morning dun hatch? There was only one way to find out. I tied my cinnamon comparadun back on my line and flipped it into the eddy. On the sixth dangle one of the hovering fish slowly approached my fake PMD and sucked it in! I instantly set the hook and Mr. Trout was not happy. It streaked down the river like a silver missile and quickly reached some fast current. This act continued for thirty yards, as I simply allowed my reel to zing at a high pitch. Eventually the torpedo stopped, and I began to reel line. I thought I felt throbbing from the fish, but it could have just as easily been the current pushing against my long length of unspooled line. Was I still connected to this freight train?

In order to gain line more rapidly I began to strip in a hand over hand manner, and quickly I realized that the weary trout was still attached to my comparadun. I managed to slide the net beneath a sixteen inch rainbow, and I silently celebrated my good fortune. I was most proud of allowing the rainbow to streak and pull line without any interference on my part. I paused to photograph my prize and then I released it to test other fishermen in the future. After this exhilarating episode I inspected the eddy once more, but the commotion put down the remaining fish.

I resumed my upstream progression while prospecting with the size 16 comparadun, and I added three more browns to my count before I called it quits at 3:30. On the day I landed thirteen fish, and amazingly nine responded to dry flies. These results are quite unusual for the Arkansas River, but I was very pleased with my fun day. I expected to edge fish to dumb starved run off fish that viewed big foam attractors as a nourishing source of food. Instead I adjusted to the conditions and used some subtle clues to salvage the day by prospecting with a small pale morning dun comparadun despite the absence of rising fish. Fly fishing is certainly a thinking man’s game.

Fish Landed: 13