I decided to ring in the new year with another day on the Ark. I met up with Dave and we decided to hit the spillway in the morning and move to Valco in the evening. Get our numbers in the morning and some bigger fish in the afternoon.
Temps were around 50, but the wind was bad. Really bad. 70 mph winds weren't uncommon and the gusts were almost blowing us off the rocks that we were standing on.
Besides the wind, it was a wonderful day. We were able to make casts between the wind gusts and actually got into quite a few fish.
At the spillway, we ended up fishing around the foot bridge and found a honey hole of suckers! It wasn't our intention to catch them, but they were there eating anything we drifted in front of them. They were fun for a while, but having to untangle our rigs was a pain in the butt and getting the slime off the line was almost impossible.
Of course fishing in the spillway was good as usual, the stockers were taking barr's emergers, two bit hookers and blue poison tungs on almost every cast. A few bait fisherman moved in around noon, so we decided to move over to Valco to see if we could find some bigger fish.
At Valco, we had the river to ourselves. Even though the lot was full of cars, most people were fishing upstream or at the deep hole dunking bait. We made our way slightly downstream to Dave's favorite spot and he immediately picked up a fish.
We were even able to manage a double!
At the end of the day, I managed the biggest fish with a 16 in. Certainly not the biggest I've caught down there, but it does make for a great ending to a good day.
So we braved the winds and caught fish all day...how can you be disappointed with that?!?! We didn't change much in the way of flies. Mostly leading with a two bit hooker followed by a baetis or midge pattern. We didn't try eggs or worms, but I think san juans will still catch a few, but I think we'll wait on using eggs again until the spring spawn starts for the rainbows.
Where am I headed next? I haven't fished the Blue as much as I would have liked...I've spent a lot of time down in Pueblo but now that the holidays are over, I probably will be spending a few more days on the Blue. I do have to head to Steamboat for work, so I might try the William's Fork or Yampa below Stagecoach, but if the snow is too deep, it won't be worth the hassle of hiking in to these tailwaters. I do want to get to the Frying Pan again, since winter keeps a lot of fisherman off the water, getting into the toilet bowl isn't a wait or a hassle and even if there is someone in the bowl, the flats fish well with 7x and size 22 midges!
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