Time: 10:30AM – 2:30PM

Location: Poudre Canyon

Cache la Poudre River  07/27/2022 Photo Album

After some comparatively slow fishing on the Arkansas River last week, I vowed to redirect my fishing efforts to smaller high country streams or tailwaters. These two options avoid catching and handling trout in dangerously warm water temperatures, and the fish are simply more active due to ideal temperature ranges and more insect activity.

Wednesday was my second visit to a Colorado stream since making the vow referenced in the first paragraph. Since the Cameron Peak fire in 2020, I avoided the Cache la Poudre River, as I suspected that sediments and ash from the burn scar impacted the fish population. Prior to the wildfire, July was my favorite time to make the trip to the brawling river west of Ft. Collins, and I typically bumped into green drakes and pale morning duns. These remembrances along with favorable flows and optimistic reports from the local fly shop motivated me to make the two hour drive on July 27. As it turns out, I disregarded my pledge from the previous week, and that oversight essentially cost me a day of fishing and half a tank of gasoline.

A Good Place to Start

I departed the house at 7:35AM, and that enabled me to arrive at a pullout along CO 14 next to the river by 9:45AM. Several traffic tie ups slowed my progress along with some slow moving camper trailers and raft carriers. I pulled on my waders and assembled my Sage four weight rod, and I ambled downstream for .2 mile to a spot, where I could negotiate the steep bank to the edge of the river. The river was very clear, and the flows were high but not adverse for wading and moving about. The air temperature was in the low seventies.

What a Surprise

I tied a peacock hippie stomper to my line and then added a size 16 gray deer hair adult caddis. I was hopeful that the hippie stomper could perform triple duty as an indicator, attractor and green drake imitation. Within my first ten casts, the flies touched down at the head of a long seam, and I was surprised, when a nose broke the surface to engulf the trailing caddis. I was even more surprised, when I began to play the fish, and within a few minutes I recognized a sixteen inch brown trout in my net. This was easily the largest brown trout that I ever landed from the Cache la Poudre River. My optimism soared; but, alas, it was unfounded.

Fat by Poudre Standards

For the next two hours I progressed upstream along the right bank, and I failed to generate the slightest bit of action. I never saw a rise, a refusal, a look or a temporary connection. In fact, I was unable to sight a fish or even spook a trout, as I waded through some very attractive water. I covered areas that were teeming with small brown trout during my visits to the upper Poudre in July in years prior to the fire. In an effort to change my bad luck, I switched to a dry/dropper with a tan size 8 pool toy hopper, and I dangled a prince nymph, salvation nymph and beadhead hares ear nymph beneath the large foam terrestrial. Nothing. After lunch and toward the end of my time on the upper Poudre I reverted to the double dry fly approach and featured the hippie stomper and a parachute green drake. The green drake was ignored, so I experimented with a purple haze and light gray comparadun. None of the combinations resulted in so much as a look. Not only did I not observe any fish, but I also saw very little in the way of aquatic insect activity.

Lunch Spot

At 1:30 I tromped back to the car, shed my gear and drove eastward, until I stopped .1 mile above Hewlett Gulch. I was hopeful that if the lack of fish was related to the wildfire, being farther down river might translate to less impact from the burn scar. In forty-five minutes of focused fly fishing above Hewlett Gulch, I resumed my futility, until I called it quits at 2:15PM. I gave a solid test to the double dry fly set up as well as another dry/dropper trial, but fruitless casting was the only outcome. Before I quite at 2:15PM, I submerged my stream thermometer in a relatively deep fast pocket near the bank, and after two minutes it registered 66 degrees. With this red flag in front of me, I climbed the bank and returned to the Santa Fe for the return drive.

Ironically I landed the largest fish ever from the Poudre in the early going and then never witnessed a sign of trout thereafter. What is the explanation? I tend to blame the wildfire and not the water temperature. I am certain that the water temperature was in the low sixties during the morning, because I was farther west and, therefore, at higher elevation. To me the most concerning information was the lack of smaller trout in pockets and riffles along the shoreline where a preponderance of such fish existed during my pre-wildfire visits. Not seeing even a spooked fish darting for cover, as I waded upstream was a sure sign of low fish density. The lack of insect life was also disconcerting, and I remember reading articles about the South Platte after the Heyman fire that stated that aquatic insect larva and nymphs were smothered by sediments and ash that washed into the river from the burn scar. Having said that, I never observed gray sand or mud on the streambed. At any rate, I will not return to the Poudre this season, and perhaps not in 2023, unless I obtain more information to convince me otherwise.

Fish Landed: 1