March 3, 2021 - Pueblo Tailwater
Flows: 47 cfs
Water Temp: 37F @ 9a
Water clarity: Crystal clear
Air Temp: 38 @ 8:30a, 65 @ 4p.
Hatches: Sparse midges – 9a to mid-afternoon
Flies: #18 Mayer’s Mini Leech, #18 Desert Storm, #18 BH Pheasant Tail, #22 Red Rainbow Warrior, #22 Mercury Red Zebra, #24 Zebra JuJubee Midge, #20 & #24 Top Secret Midge, #24 Chocolate Thunder,
Spring is here. At least according to the rainbow trout in the Arkansas River at Pueblo – affectionately known as the Tailwater. Brian and I know this because the rainbows are in the beginning stage of their annual spawn. Rainbow spawning in Colorado can begin as early as late-February and last until late-April and into early-May. A pretty wide time span. Spawning in each river can be – and typically is – at different times, effected by the river’s water temperature and other factors that dictate when the spawn occurs.
First fish of the day for me - 17" beauty.
When fish get into the spawning mode – they don’t seem as interested in eating as they normally are. They have other things on their minds. It’s fascinating watching them. They’re not hard to spot. Typically the first thing you will notice is two fish swimming together kind of fast and erratically. Then you’ll see quite a few fish congregating in shallow water either on top of a Redd – or near one.
A Redd is a spawning bed. When it’s time, the female trout move to a gravelly spot on the river and begin to fan the rocks to remove any moss. Then they lay their eggs. The male then fertilizes the eggs. It’s pretty easy to spot a Redd – as it sticks out. A spot in the river, in shallow water with no moss on the rocks – surrounded by a moss covered bottom.
Here's a Redd. It's the lightest area (directly below) on the river bottom.
Photo by Brian Kenney.
It’s not proper etiquette to fish to spawning trout. This is the part that gets a little tricky. I’ve definitely seen fish in the spawning act. And I’ve seen a bunch of fish near a Redd – seemingly eating. And I’ve seen fish just below a Redd – opportunistically eating eggs that get dislodged from the Redd. They’re fair game. But they are hard to fool.
It seams hit or miss. At times I’ve caught a handful of fish feeding at the side or below a Redd on every 3rd or 4th cast. At other times I’ve casted – what seams like a hundred times – to fish lying in the same spot with no interest. This week was the latter. Later in the day I found fish feeding in normal feeding lies. As in fast riffles below the Redd and no matter what I did they ignored my offering. And they were very spooky and would bolt at the slightest movement or when they saw the indicator.
Midges from one of the fish we caught.
Luckily both Brian and I caught a handful of fish earlier in the day. We were in the Valco Ponds Run with fish lined up in the braided seams. It could have been a field day – but it wasn’t. We caught a handful between us. But with as many fish in plain sight – you’d have thought we would have caught 20 or so. At times, fishing can be a head scratching experience. And this trip was one of those days.
We each caught our fish using standard nymphing techniques on midges. Below the sunken tree, some of the fish were sitting near the bottom. Some were mid-channel and others were in the film just below the surface. Upstream they were mid-channel in the faster water and there were a few times they moved further upstream in the shallow, slower water.
A 14" cutbow caught by Brian.
Photo by Brian Kenney.
So what do you do? Make a bunch of adjustments – that’s what. Besides the normal changes to depth, weight, and flies – I tried a couple of different Dry/Dropper set-ups. To my surprise neither one worked. My successes were upstream in the faster water and just below the sunken tree in the slower, deeper water short line nymphing. Brian got his further downstream – in the seam of the slow water.
As I was sitting on the riverbank eating a sandwich, I watched as trout would come up to the surface and sip flies. I couldn’t see their snouts, just ripples in the water indicating that they were eating emergers just below the surface. That’s what led me to set up one of my Dry/Dropper rigs. I used a Puterbaugh Caddis as my Dry and I tied on a JuJubee Midge about 6” below it. This should effectively imitate a midge pupae in the film. I got zero interest! This is where the head scratching came in. Perplexing!
Caught this 18" rainbow above the partially submerged log in the river.
Photo by Brian Kenney.
The other Dry/Dropper set-up that I used was a standard one I’ve used in the past – and with great results. I had the same Puterbaugh Caddis as the Dry. For the Droppers, I used midge larva followed by midge pupae. The first dropper was about 2’ below the dry – with about another 1 ½’ to the last midge. I was excited as I casted this to the fish – thinking it would do the trick. And it’s fun to fish because there is no doubt when you get a hit. But it wasn’t to be.
About mid-afternoon we decided to walk downstream to Tom’s Run. Maybe the fish would be more actively feeding there. As we walked that way we would stop and fish a hole if it looked promising – or if we spotted any fish. Brian was leading and I followed about 100 yards behind. I saw him cross the river and I began to do the same. Then I spotted a brightly colored rainbow in a hole behind a boulder.
I immediately stopped, then retreated back to the bank. Once there I set my backpack and spare rod down – and then went back to the hole to see if I could hook up the rainbow. He was definitely feeding and moving in and out of the hole. At one point he swam upstream and out of sight. So I followed him and came upon at least 15 fish. They were congregating near a Redd. They didn’t seem to be actively spawning and there was a really big bull rainbow who was protecting the area. He would run off all the other fish when they came close. Then a couple of fish would swim off in unison - a sure sign that they were spawning. So I left them alone and just watched for awhile.
Then I moved back downstream and came upon another 10 fish or so. Some were spawning too – and there were others in the faster water. The only reason they would be there was to feed – at least that’s my opinion - so I went after them. As mentioned above, there wasn’t a lot of interest – but I was able to get one big male to take. He was a beautiful 19” rainbow. As I was working to free him from my fly – he released milt (sperm). This is the tricky part for me. Was he feeding and fair game? Or was he feeding in between spawning runs? I’m not sure, but I didn’t like it.
A 19" rainbow caught in the fast water downstream of a Redd.
That was the last fish in the net for me. After releasing the rainbow, Brian walked up and we began to move back upstream toward the Valco Ponds Run. Once there, Brian spotted a couple of fish in the fast water and tried to get them. But they wouldn’t take and he moved downstream to below the sunken tree and I decided to give a look to the upper stretch of the run.
Often there is a fish feeding in front of the first boulder in the run. For some reason they all seam to be big ones too. And sure enough there was a nice rainbow in the exact spot. After a few casts, I had him hooked up. He ran into the deep pool created by the four of five large boulders and I went in after him. I didn’t want my line to get caught on one of the boulders and break. But the water was up to my upper thighs and I didn’t feel real comfortable. The fish was controlling the action at that point, so I decided to try to pull him out. That caused the fly to break free. Oh well. That could have ended better – or worse. I was just happy to get out and away from the boulders.
That’s how the day ended. This outing was perplexing and it forced us to try everything we could think of. I tried to learn something – and I’m sure Brian did too. But honestly, I could not – and can still not – figure out what was going on. As Brian and I walked to the car – we threw around some ideas. Was it the air pressure? How about the impending storm heading in? The low, slow, and crystal clear water? Maybe the spawn?
We decided that that’s why they call it fishing.
Comments