Buena Vista – Amid the seemingly conflicting current created by a steady stream of white-water rafters on one hand and the dramatic admonition of a Denver TV station to not go near the water on the other, a strange scene unfolded on the Arkansas River on Memorial Day.
Near mid-morning, a motorist driving from Leadville to Buena Vista sighted not a single fisherman on a 30-mile section of river rife with public access.
The dichotomy lay not in the fact that anglers watch TV and rafters do not. Rather it’s because, as nearly everyone believes, snowmelt season signals an end to fishing on free-flowing streams.
Big mistake. For anyone willing to make a major adjustment in mind-set and a slight shift in tackle, there’s no reason to run from runoff.
“It’s really easy fishing,” declared Pat Bassett, a longtime Buena Vista resident whose eyes light up when the river starts to rise.
Bassett, who modestly disclaims exceptional fly-fishing skill, routinely caught 30 to 40 trout after work at a peak of runoff 10 days ago while barely getting his feet wet.
“I haven’t seen another fisherman in five days,” Bassett said, plainly amazed at whatever muddleheaded misconception keeps others from joining in the fun.
Bassett, along with certain others who don’t subscribe to media hype, knows fish don’t stop eating when rivers turn high and muddy. To avoid the pounding current, trout simply migrate to slack-water pockets near shore where, lavished by worms and insects dislodged by the torrent, they feed even more vigorously than before.
The Arkansas, with no dams on its main stem, serves as a perfect laboratory for this runoff experiment, about as close to a natural flow as you’ll find in these parts.
Two weekends ago, when soaring temperatures began squeezing water from the headwater snowpack, a deluge the color of a Starbucks mocha swelled to 1,500 cubic feet per second at Buena Vista – just about perfect in Bassett’s way of thinking.
Using a highly visible Prince nymph on a dropper about a foot beneath a bushy dry fly, he found trout where boulders and other current deflectors formed quiet nooks near shore.
After a week of generally cool weather that dropped the flow by one-third, another group of valley enthusiasts Monday descended upon a river that had changed character yet again. Although still ripping along at a pace sufficient to satisfy rafters, the Arkansas provided a full 2 feet of visibility and a slightly different angling challenge. The resident brown trout – mostly 10 to 14 inches – now had nudged out a bit farther from shore. Carol Neville of nearby Nathrop, who instructs and guides anglers out of the ArkAnglers Fly Shops in Buena Vista and Salida, had a ready solution to the shift. With a No. 12 PMX dry fly as an indicator, she doubled the dropper length, adding a Copper John as a second nymph.
Neville quickly hooked five fish in a span of 10 yards, mostly on the Copper John, then skirted a turbulent area to find an equal number a short distance upstream. When the water is less murky, fish also rise occasionally to the PMX, a consideration when choosing between a standard indicator and a dry fly.
“The water is almost too clear today,” Neville observed. Rather than plucking trout from beneath the rod tip, she now had to cast a few feet ahead to avoid spooking them in the shallow water.
On an earlier visit, she connected with one of the river’s lunker browns, a bronze torpedo that streaked off on a rod-bending run into the current before slipping the hook.
The winning runoff strategy is to quickly pick the prime pockets, moving briskly along from one likely spot to the next. Wading safety isn’t an issue. It’s rarely necessary even to put a toe in the water.
Lest anyone think there was some special magic in the choice of places where this minor miracle was performed, it must be identified as a highly public stretch of river adjacent to Buena Vista River Park.
This parcel, part of the upcoming South Main residential and commercial development, will be joined to the River Park this fall to form, at a mile and a quarter in length, the largest white-water play park in the world. The area will continue to accommodate public fishing.
Runoff fishing fun isn’t the exclusive province of fly-fishermen. Anglers using small spinners or spoons that deliver an enticing action from short casts into slack water can enjoy comparable success.
As Neville observed, “You’ll have to do a certain amount of bushwhacking above the high-water line, but it sure is fun.”
Nor is the delight likely to end soon. Another month of runoff remains in most locations and, as
ArkAnglers guide Stuart Andrews promises, “We’ll get another stage of really high water as soon as the weather warms up.”
Anglers who know how to go with the flow can hardly wait.
Listen to Charlie Meyers at 9 a.m. each Saturday on “The Fan Outdoors,” radio KKFN 950 AM. He can be reached at 303-820-1609 or cmeyers@denverpost.com.
