DECKERS — Yet another wave of storm clouds pouring across the South Platte River Basin placed a blustery exclamation point on what is shaping up as a season of revival for Colorado’s most troubled, and important, trout stream.
More snow, more water, more potential healing for a stream still choked from the residue of the deadly 2002 fire season. With the upper South Platte system brimming from a snowpack measuring 108 percent of normal, eager anglers and the Division of Wildlife biologist watching over the river’s revival have every reason to hope that this, finally, could be the big one.
Major reservoirs already have reached, or are nearing, capacity, giving promise that all that moisture now will cascade down in the form of flushing flows to remove the burden of ash, sand and gravel that has strangled the river from Cheesman Reservoir downstream.
Dave Bennett, water resource planner with Denver Water, reports both Antero and Elevenmile reservoirs are full and Cheesman has reached 92 percent.
“We’re trying to fill it and spill it,” he said of what almost certainly will be an epic cascade of water over the Cheesman Dam to highlight a coordinated effort with DOW. “We’re looking for a big flushing flow. Hopefully, this will be the year.”
When the Hayman fire, Colorado’s largest in recorded history, blackened steep slopes for miles around, it left millions of tons of ash and unstable decomposed granite exposed to the elements. A succession of cloudbursts did the rest, washing debris down a network of gulches and creeks and into the main river.
Brown trout spawning habitat got buried beneath the detritus and the fry that did emerge got ground up by the progression of unconsolidated gravel. Rainbow reproduction already had been snuffed out by whirling disease.
Essentially, this is a tale of two rivers — one reach upstream from the hamlet of Deckers, the other below. Upstream receives less sediment loading; a steeper gradient keeps debris moving. Downstream suffered the devastating effect of the 2006 Horse Creek blowout; its soft meadow segments also catch sand and gravel washing down from above.
“Last year we moved a lot of sediment. It benefited one part of the river, but degraded the other,” said Jeff Spohn, the biologist charged with sorting out the mess.
Spohn’s statistics, obtained in an October electrofishing survey, tell the story well enough: 1,369 brown trout and 645 rainbow larger than 6 inches per mile above the hamlet, 678 and 707 below.
Virtually all the downstream fish come from stocking fingerlings 4-5 inches long of both species; Spohn this year will plant 15,000 of each from Wigwam to Scraggy View. Most will land from Wigwam to Trumble, skipping the poor habitat below.
Brown trout fare better than rainbow, surviving in greater numbers and occasionally growing to 14 inches or beyond. Rainbows rarely make it past 10.
Spohn finds reason for optimism in a pattern of recovery that saw the river regain half its population by 2005, only to be devastated by the Horse Creek event.
“After all this system has been through, it’s doing pretty well,” said Spohn, who, like everyone else, has his fingers crossed that this runoff might pack enough punch to scour the meadow sections.
Already, the river is showing a fresh blush of springtime. Feeder streams swell the release of 100 cubic feet per second from Cheesman Dam to 135 as it passes Deckers, where Danny Brennan’s crystal ball is working overtime.
After a one-year sojourn to the sea in Hawaii, Brennan returned in 2007 to operate the Flies and Lies shop, 303-647-2237, dispensing tackle and guide service just a double haul from the river bank. Even before the runoff, he sees signs of life not present when he left.
“We had a great caddis hatch last spring and last fall we saw the first tricos since the fire.” This caddis event in late May and June, rivaling some of the famous hatches on other rivers, might largely be lost to anglers from the impending water event. Of more tangible interest is the baetis hatch starting in a couple weeks.
For now, most activity involves midges on either side of the surface. Guide Jeremy Hyatt reported catching numerous rainbows during a midge hatch last week using a No. 20 Parachute Adams trailing a Fore and Aft dry midge.
Brennan maps a simple strategy for anglers working the Deckers puzzle.
“You’ll find bigger and smarter fish upstream, smaller and dumber below.”
As for his own life’s decisions, Brennan has settled into his shop to await that healing runoff.
“I’m not leaving,” he declared.
Neither, apparently, is that magnetic lure of South Platte fishing.
Charlie Meyers: 303-954-1609 or cmeyers@denverpost.com
