Halloween Cutbows On The PT 31Oct19

Wow... three big storms in October on the Front Range. These must've accelerated "winter" conditions on the Pueblo Tailwater section of the Arkansas (I thought)... question was when to go to avoid the cold but catch the front end of goodness... Halloween has often been that whether we have storms or not... I guess I'll do recon. That means hopefully finding big cutbows spread out among the features of cooler water and bug life featuring lots of midges and tiny BWOs. With flows @ 170cfs and highs of ~40° but a sunny day all I had to "fight" was serious snowfall on trails - it was gorgeous. And it was the start of "winter" goodness on the PT... I caught a number of nice cutbows on midges and BWOs including Grey KFlasher #22, Rainbow Warrior #20 (yeah, the weight), Destiny's Child #22 and Jimi's Axe #22. There were tons of fry feeding up top on midges and BWOs that I needed to avoid so I fished below all day and caught all sizes of fish, including these 17"-19" beauties. "Winter" is coming.

In my 1st field trial of some new wading boots - the Danner-Patagonia collaboration Foot Tractors, I found the footbeds wide and bit sloppy (I need to learn to tie them better for my foot) and they are HEAVY. I tired enough from the greater swing-weight that I needed to anesthetize with a keen new offer from Great Divide called Hopnaut - a dubl hazy; GD is the real deal.