Posted By: kdub#1
Arkansas River - 03/18/24 06:45 PM
I spend the last week fishing the Arkansas freestone and camping with my Chessie Chico. The fishing was good. Nymphing I did well with a 2 bit stone trailing a pt frenchie over the first few days. We had a pretty good snowstorm come in Wednesday afternoon. Thursday morning I emerged from my camper shell to about a foot of snow and it did not quit until Friday afternoon. My basecamp was pretty remote and I was stuck there until the Sun peaked out Friday afternoon for a few hours and melted the snow enough for me to make a quick escape to a lower elevation campsite where I was able to resume catching fish. As the front came in on Wednesday afternoon I got to experience the start of the "St Patricks Day" blue wing olive hatch. This was one of the most amazing things I have experienced on the water. The trout were rising like crazy and I got into a bunch of fish, most notably 2 really nice browns caught on a size
24 parachute bwo that I tied myself. Saturday was my last day before heading home and I lucked into a little hatch and managed one brown. From there I headed up river to some boulders where I spotted a nice rainbow chilling behind a boulder. The hatch had pretty much ended by then and fish were not visibly rising but I drifted a parachute adams past it several times before it rose in slow motion and the chaos ensued. Man, I love Browns, but there is something about the fight in a rainbow, taking 25 yards of line downstream in a split second after the hookset that makes them exciting to catch. I am lucky to have had the chance to get into some dry fly action. I caught the most numbers and biggest fish on small dry flies. Fun!! March is an unpredictable time to fish in Colorado weather wise. I woke up at 4 am Sunday morning to drive home with another inch of snow on my truck and another snowstorm coming through the Sangre De Cristo range and threatening to close Raton Pass. As I drove through the Pass the roads were already starting to ice up, another few hours and who knows. Going this time of year, you might have an entire stretch of river to yourself, just go prepared with flexible plans, extra food, water, fuel, and warm gear.
24 parachute bwo that I tied myself. Saturday was my last day before heading home and I lucked into a little hatch and managed one brown. From there I headed up river to some boulders where I spotted a nice rainbow chilling behind a boulder. The hatch had pretty much ended by then and fish were not visibly rising but I drifted a parachute adams past it several times before it rose in slow motion and the chaos ensued. Man, I love Browns, but there is something about the fight in a rainbow, taking 25 yards of line downstream in a split second after the hookset that makes them exciting to catch. I am lucky to have had the chance to get into some dry fly action. I caught the most numbers and biggest fish on small dry flies. Fun!! March is an unpredictable time to fish in Colorado weather wise. I woke up at 4 am Sunday morning to drive home with another inch of snow on my truck and another snowstorm coming through the Sangre De Cristo range and threatening to close Raton Pass. As I drove through the Pass the roads were already starting to ice up, another few hours and who knows. Going this time of year, you might have an entire stretch of river to yourself, just go prepared with flexible plans, extra food, water, fuel, and warm gear.