05/29/12 - 05/30/12 Arkansas Below Pueblo

05/29/12 - 05/30/12
Arkansas Below Pueblo
1:00 - 5:00 PM
Flows 429

Memorial Day weekend means spending time with the family down in Pueblo.  I wasn't planning on fishing in town, and I was planning on heading to Canon City to fish the Ark, but since I only had an afternoon, I thought I'd give town a shot and see what I could stir up!

I headed to Valco and I wasn't too surprised to see the parking lot full.  But I didn't see another fly fisherman...just bait dunker and hardware chuckers.

I started off doing pretty well...just nothing of size.

I was pretty surprised since this was usually where we caught bigger fish in the winter, but with the higher water, I assume that the fish are moving around quite a bit.

After catching quite a few cookie cutters, I decided to head over to the water treatment plant since I haven't been there in a long time!

Again, picked up the usual cookie cutters down by weirs.

After catching a few of these guys, I would have been happy calling it a day, but I was rewarded  few casts later when landed this nice 16 incher.

With family obligations in the morning on Monday, and considering that the fishing was actually good in town, I decided to stick around again instead of driving out to Canon City or Salida.

I immediately headed to the water treatment plant and found my groove!  Fish were actively eating in the riffles and the tail outs.  Just about any place that looked fishy, held some fish.

I was even able to get into some bigger fish!

I capped off the day with a nice 19 incher!

 Sorry for the bad picture, a fish that big is kind of hard to hold with one hand and snap a picture!

Hot flies of the day were mayflies and caddis patterns.  Actually, any nymph will do in a size 16 or 18.  I used the same 3 flies for both days and only changed to experiment with new flies as the the ones I was using were getting too beat up to recognize.

Red two bit hookers, z-wing caddis, and olive mico mayflies.  Other flies that worked well too were copper johns, prince nymphs, and even some midge patterns and rs2's.

With the higher flows, more weight is needed so pinch on lead about 12 inches above your lead fly and run a longer leader.  5x tippet is good, and fluro isn't necessary, but I think it helps.  Fish are also eating on the surface, but they are not rising to a specific hatch.  I did see some caddis out fluttering about, and I even saw a few being slurped off the surface.  Unfortunately I left my fly box with my dries in the car...no matter, the nymphing was still great with the big guys feeding in the riffles.

Now is the time to get down to Pueblo!  These higher flows and summer bugs have the fish out and about feeding heavily.  The flows are perfect this year, and depending on snow pack and water conditions next year, it probably won't happen again.