CoWW Fall Outing To The Arkansas 25Sep15-27Sep15

Some of the CoWWs and Tom Wilke stole 3 fabulous days in Big Horn Sheep Canyon of the Arkansas River Valley. We camped in the best spots in Hayden Ck CG (#10 & #11) and fished the Ark every day with good results supported by great fall weather. Highlights included Rob's swim and pole toss - though Dave found and recovered his rod downstream sans reel, Tom's 11+ mile hike up 4700 feet elevation past Bushnell Lks on Rainbow trail - recon suggests the middle lake had the largest cutthroats, the Sagittarius Astrophysicist, fall color on the aspens, custom totties and food prep, presentation of the tactical beverage entry tools from SuperFly and new white feathers to him for full membership in the CoWW, and a general sense of very well being among friends despite some being absent. A variety of fishing techniques succeeded and failed... we had decent BWO and PMD/Red Quill hatches on occasion which afforded dry dropper fun. We did well nymphing as well with dark stoneflies, red CJs and gray RS2s doing the biggest damage - Tom Wilke even fished with us one day and caught and landed (with a bit of help from Greg's net) the first fish on fly rod of his life! What did not work were stimulators and hoppers (whaaaat?). My big fish was a 17" brown (90% of my fish were browns) caught in the riffle just above Lone Pine... I caught a passel of fish daily and the whole team typically caught some. We also fished Chaffe Co line, Rincon (more rainbows here), and a good spot 5 miles below Coaldale (a simple pull off on the river side of the road). Colorado and our CoWW outings are so cool.

The One

Dave fighting The One 

Tom with his first 22 in Trout.