Back In Big Horn Sheep Canyon ~ Quick But Good Day Double 28May26

Though foggy in the Springs it was nice past Canon City on the Ark in BHSC. I was slowed a smidge to 10:15am by construction but got a couple of good hours in @ Pinnacle Rock today. The river was off color from recent rains but I caught a half doz fish by noon with 13"-14" browns and 15"-16" rainbows/cutbows. Every fly worked: MHFBPT, oil can Perdigon, red squirmy worm, and rainbow warrior. I tied on the rainbow warrior due to the low visibility; I tied on the squirmy 'cause of recent rains. The fish are smaller now here at Pinnacle Rock but at least the fishery is back from the Hayden fire.

Fishing The Ark In BHSC ~ Greg Met Me Half Way For Decent Fishing Among CoWWs 08Apr26

BHSC... Greg & I hatched a plan to meet in Big Horn Sheep Canyon (BHSC) for a fishing day on our classic freestone section. BHSC has recovered since the Hayden fire years ago but sports many more rainbows than prior to the fire, when it was almost exclusively a brown trout fishery... both co-exist now (and of course both are exotics as the Ark should hold cutthroats in CO) and that's fine, 'cause humans disrupt ecosystems all the time. We arrived at Pinnacle Rock (thx GL) about 9am and quickly donned our gear and weapons ~ we went to the east end of the section to make a full run. Greg had his custom built rod and I presented with the RF Diamond Blaze 4wt.

I dropped in immediately and GL wandered downstream to his 'special spots' on the Ark. His home water is this fine freestone river. My 3rd cast yielded a small brown on the oil can Perdigon ~ it's kind of a mayfly but more like a FOMO (fear of missing out) fly tossed in faster moving water; it sinks like a demon and is regularly my weight now. Landing the tiny was netless; yeah, I'd forgotten it... trudged back to the car and back downstream.

North Bank Pass @ PRock... I headed across the river to fish the north bank... I prefer it on this stretch as fewer folks dare the cross. It was fine at 250cfs today. I had a good morning with a number of good browns and rainbows behind structure. I didn't even try the mid-stream structure as most of the fish in my experience (IME) are <6' from the bank on the Ark in spring. The Perdigon, a #18 MHFBPT, and a #20 Purple May Reign took the fish this AM. Got some 'bows as expected but thankfully scored mostly browns (flashback). Nobody hit the caddis despite my seeing plenty along the bank timber and rocks and on my clothes as I trodded past. The 'bows were bigger, like 14"-15" and the browns were thinner.

Fine Dining On The Ark... I completely lost my rig 5/6 of my pass at PRock and signed to GL I'll be heading over to the south bank near our cars for lunch. That was directly after scoring a sucker ~ he 'threw' the rig and was tail caught. GL & I communicated. I enjoyed my home built turkey sammy and a Red Leg hazy from an ethereal picnic spot ~ I noted too that mine was one of few tables to have already been deployed this season by CPW. I really like being out in BHSC.

Moving Ahead... We didn't go far upstream but hit a favored curve and river split a mile ahead of PRock. It's not named but we all know it. I often cross and encounter longhorns but left that for the return ~ I fished the left bank up to the split and watched Gregger again head downstream to secret spots. I was warm at heart after a good 7 fish in the AM, and started again with a decent brown soon along the left. Nice. Then I wandered across and through the 3 channels of this section without much take. Yet I settled in coming through the biggest water of the channels and scored another 4 fish for the PM! The fish are not generally large out here, but they are less discriminating and a blast. I was wandering in less trodden parts and came upon a mom goose on her nest, eyeing me intently as I backed away. And yeah, on the return to car, there were huge longhorns pooping in my way.

There's nothing to not like about SoCO on the Ark with a CoWWBoy and plenty of fish. We don't adhere to the "Madison Mantra" of "don't dare tie on a nymph" ~ heck, that's our jam in CO.

Nice Day On The Ark In BHSC ~ Beat The Boats & Beat Them Home 27Apr25

As bizarre as it is, today is the first time I've fished this year in April! Yeah, with the West TX outing and camper prep I just didn't go in this the best fishing month of the year around here... I'll try to make up for it. So today I headed out the Ark into Big Horn Sheep Canyon and fished for several hours. I did fine at Pinnacle Rock. It has recovered but the fish are smaller in general yet than "the old days." I dropped in about 9am and fished till ~noon. I caught 15 or so fish with 70% of them rainbows, like the last time I was here last year. Weird in my mind as the Ark freestone is a more notable brown trout fishery. Unfortunately my Hero cam was in backwards and didn't catch the two larger fish: one, my first today, was a 17" brown and the 2nd also early was a 17" rainbow. I missed filming the entire south bank pass. Oh well, after I took the selfie (at the end of the pass) I realized it had been reversed and I fixed it for the second pass... I did south bank first and then reloaded below the state park area and crossed for another go on the north bank. The south was better, or earlier, or less crowded, or shaded, or whatever. After crossing to the north side others in kayaks, and rafts, and some fishermen showed up. Best bug was the black ice perdigon but the RS2 took some too. I saw egg laying caddis but the caddis larvae I tried attracted nothing. Here are a few fish from the south bank pass as well as a nice "fail" pic, and my selfie. I tossed the 5wt 8.5'  RF Ghost Bomber and it cut the wind nicely and easily landed everything I hooked.

Arkansas In Late Summer 20Aug18

With cooler days on the WE I was hopeful the Ark in BHSC would fish well. I headed out but had to add 30 min to the drive as the lower canyon was chocolate milk from Hayden fire runoff - above Coaldale the river was nice at 300 cfs. I went all the way to Rincon and caught a gob of browns and one rainbow on nymphs: stoneflies, psuedo baetis mayflies and black midges. I tried a couple big top flies but got no action there. The water felt the right temp but I really don't consider it epic by any means - are the 50 fish days on these waters over? It's been several years for that kind of action for me - plus the fish seemed smaller today. I left pretty early after lunch as the mid-day action slowed.

CoWW Spring @ BHSC (Brrr...) 14Apr18

We fared poorly overall @ Rincon and Lone Pine on the Arkansas River in BHSC. The wind continued fairly strong and the river was a bit stained after flows were doubled to a respectable 400cfs. The overnight was low and the daytime, while sunny, was cold & windy - the best part of the day was Brantley & Haine's brats & beer lunch on the river. We caught a few fish and headed back to Greg's Poncha Palace for a great evening of Cuban food after a fine stop @ Elevation Brewery in Poncha Springs. Cool.

Jack On The Ark 06Apr18

I went out to BHSC section of the Arkansas this morning. There were surprisingly quite a few fishermen along the lower BHSC pullouts. The weather was decent at 55° and partly sunny & windy - but that changed quickly over the 90 minutes I fished one pass at Pinnacle Rock. It dropped 15° and got windier. I caught nothing; I had no strikes; I didn't even see any fish. Perhaps in my defense the weather shift was toying with me. Anyway... while it was nice being in the canyon again, it felt too early for really good fishing there to me.

Browns On The Run 08Oct17

Yeah - sing it like McCartney. All the devices @ the Nest fell off the net so I needed to head to Summit into the teeth of a storm. Solace: going the back way to the Ark headwaters. Despite the ~600cfs flows still from new Twin Lks releases and recent rains, I set out for fall Arkansas River action. I intended to just try Pinnacle Rock and then head through Hartsel but flows and color had me heading upstream. I wet lines at Rincon and caught all browns like these, including a nice (for here, IMO) 16" Scottish variant who ran like a rainbow downstream and jumped a couple times. Effective flies included stones: BH prince & Pat's Rubberleg, rainbow warrior and a red head mojo (like zebra) midge. I hit the Chaffe Co line area for lunch and then a pass at the CG area - flies that worked on the 'bows were the Pat's Rubberleg, the rainbow warriro and the mercury RS2. Though, I didn't see much fall baetis action yet. Here I caught some smallish browns and some modest rainbows like these. Decent day but I am pining for the low flow, warm day, 50 fish days on the Ark.

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....