Spring CoWW Outings 13May21-15May21

Wow-wow-wow, we had a great several days on the Front Range waters fishing, solving world issues and sharing again with good friends. Different groups of CoWW fishermen grouped to fish the 11 Mile section of SPlatte, then the PT section of Arkansas and finally the BHSC section of Arkansas. We (Rob, Dave & Jim) started at 11 Mile and completely crushed it. Everybody had many cutbows & rainbows, some cuttys and a couple browns, including some larger ones like my 22"er or Jim's big fish. I had the best day ever on @ 11 Mile with over thirty fish! I had so much Hero cam footage that my battery died and I had to use a camera and one-hand the shows. We had a blast fishing the last "campground" section (though it's not open yet) of the river here, all armed with Rodfather builds. Flows are still just 63cfs and bugs were evident but not epic - midges worked best in the AM and the BWOs worked best mid-day, then we were back on the midges later in the PM. We capped the gr8 day at Cerberus meeting our MIA CoWW, DD, there - great food & brews. Yeah, the brewery pic is a bit fuzzy - as were we.

 

 

After sleeping very soundly we hit it again on Friday - this time with Rob, Jim, Dave and Andy Holley all riding in the Crusher Too to Pueblo Nature Center, and meeting us there from Salida was the mighty Lehmann. Flows were up 3 days ago to over 350cfs but holding pretty steady, and the water was oddly gin clear at the new levels. Despite the good viz and decent later spring flows, we saw just AM midge sign and sighted not as many fish as typical for this area. Greg caught the most by changing tactics all day and oddly the rest of us had a very high number of remote releases. Andy won the best plan well executed with a nice targeted cutbow catch on the way back to the car ~ well done. While it was kind of frustrating with a modest catch, there was other stuff going on. We competed with a giant raptor at one hole and I swear he was yelling at us to move on on occasion. We also were treated to a gaggle of goslings (16 kids). We even crashed the Pueblo nursing school graduation event at Brue's while we waited (a long time) for our table. Another good beer and bar food venue (green chili sloppers were the ticket).

 

Undaunted by the thin Fri catch and bolstered by a full evenings' rest, Rob, Greg & I hit the freestone section of the Arkansas while Jim & Andy played golf. We started below Coaldale at Lone Pine and moved up to Canyon Trading, still below Coaldale. Everybody was blanked that morning in fairly stained water; flows were fine @ ~260cfs but what we saw while passing Hayden Ck told the tale of runnoff as this tributary is running very chalky. Frustrated with the AM result we headed to the always tasty Amica's pizza in Salida for an early lunch - and then even stopped at Salida's new brewery, Tres Litros, for a good hazy IPA. Re-invigorated we headed down to Salida East determined to right our wrongs, and at least I got a couple standard browns on my full pass of the area. While the CG is open, there weren't many fishermen at all and the sites seemed more filled with kayakers. Rob & I closed the day with many beers in the Blodgett theater room and playing "YouTube music & comedy education challenge" between revealing thoughts. A weakish day closed strongly.

What a blast it is to go fishing with the CoWW.