Christmas had come and gone, the celebration of the holiday weekend has come to a close, it was only Sunday with sunny weather and I had a day to play. What else is one to do? I took off early in search of that one last gift. I headed south driving on freeways and through cities. This is not my average start to a day on the river, but being the middle of winter and BWO's hatching consistently, it was well worth it. Besides I had some new fly patterns to test.
I pulled into the parking lot not far from the Pueblo dam before anyone else. This was surprising to me as this once secret spot is far from secret anymore. If it was, I would not be openly giving up exact locations. Regardless, I was glad to find the place to myself for the short while I did. This allowed me to fish some of my favorite holes before the fish have seen a thousand flies before mine. The flip side is I found myself breaking ice out of guides for the first hour or so. My first rig quickly broke off to a rock partially due to gauging depth and structure in the water being difficult with no sun on the water. I quickly re-rigged with a gold cdc emerger I received from Avril at Reel Sisters Colorado and hooked up my first fish of the day on the next cast.
By 10:00 the sun was bright and good hatches of midges starting coming off followed by consistent rising. It was also around this time when I looked around and found myself surrounded by at least 6 other anglers and a steady stream of anglers still showing up. I took off walking to escape the crowds and hopefully get some circulation back to my feet which were numb. There was no way to get away from people as there were always a half dozen anglers in site at all times no matter how far I walked. I decided to jump in and fish the less desirable water that has seen fewer anglers. The good thing is there seemed to be fish every where I cast. During the warmer part of the day a good number of BWO's that hatched earlier returned to the water to lay their eggs. The fish were eating on the surface consistently. I was able to fish a size 16 BWO dry with a dropper and fool fish one after the other for the next 2 hours until the sun got low and temperatures started to drop. I re-rigged to a nymph and caught fish on the way back to the parking lot ending with four fish in the last few minutes.
Overall it was a very good day with at least a couple dozen fish to hand. Most of them were in the 10 to 12 inch range (hence no fish pics) making for an action packed day on the water. I didn't hook into any of the larger fish, but I wouldn't want to eat either with people walking in and disturbing the water every couple hundred feet most of the day. A great conclusion to the holiday weekend and that one last gift to myself.
Flies: They ate everything I threw at them including streamers, Czech's, BWO's, midges
Water Flow: ~90 cfs
Weather: Mid to low 50's, mostly sunny
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