Karma and The Catch - Repost - Spring CoWW Outing 20Apr17-23Apr17

The annual spring outing of the Cult of the White Wing convened on several waters in SoCo these last few days - the Arkansas @ the Pueblo Tailwater and in Big Horn Sheep Canyon and the South Platte in Cheeseman Canyon. The awards ceremony, accompanied by a case of beer, recognized the accomplishments of recent fishermen: author Tom Wilke and wise Karma sage Scott Brantley. Tom proclaimed he'd catch 3 fish since this was his third year and that was an established trend - after a dubious snub on the freestone Ark he proceeded to get his 3 on the PT. KarmaSage, also on a dubious start where Rob snapped Scotts pole in half on its maiden stringing, proceeded to land fish, including a very nice PT brown, on every day we were out! Great weather, great friends, great times. The cool weather has delayed the caddis hatch and new cool weather may indeed again make it a Mom's Day thing. We found plenty of good fishing anyway as the PT was in prime, if not a smidge high & colored, condition. Y'all know the players in the pic (L to R): SuperFly Haine, KarmaSage Brantley, GR8FishMan Coffin, Yoho The Magnificent Yohanan, Cerevisiaevelo Piscator Lehmann, and Author Tom Wilke. We all met objectives and all caught good fish. On Fri we stopped in Pueblo since the BHSC Ark and weather looked iffy for the caddis hatch. We did very well on the PT with all players on fish - Jim & Rob caught big fish. We moved out to BHSC that night and coordinated with Wilks to come to 5 Points instead of our target in Hayden Ck (thinking the caddis were closer to popping lower on the river). Fri was Haine's Gumbo and we decided to invite him back again, and Scott's wines and we decided to invite him back again. We fished tough conditions near 5 Points in the AM and some caught some small fish. The rain and cold had delayed the hatch again so fishing was slooooooooow - after lunch we headed upstream above Hayden to find clearer water - and take some nice group pics at Rincon. The rods were prepped (where's Greg's?) but the freestone Ark was still not offering much - some caught fish and I was lucky to get a decent brown. Our evening back at camp featured dinner on Dave's Fajitas and copious beers including Yoho's selection of crowlers from Epic, err Equinox - nobody got a clean crush on those cans. Poor conditions forced us out of the canyon and back to the PT on Sunday. Again on this water the team crushed it - SuperFly landed fish after fish, KarmaSage caught a big brown, the Author backed up his proclamation, Jim landed more big fish, and Dave & Greg did their thing too. Notable super-coaching award goes to SuperFly who got Tom and Jim on hot water and into very nice fish. We capped the weekend with celebration and brews at Brue's in Pueblo - good food and a swell IPA. No fish were killed during the making of this event. Greg sustained a massive blowout on the way home - two trips in a row we had camper damage - I sure hope that's not a trend. On to Cheeseman for a few....