Let the river games begin.
Whether through the penstocks of water providers or the vicissitudes of nature, many Colorado streams already have assumed a jaunty bounce whose tempo will increase through what promises to be the most profound runoff season in more than a decade.
All across the state, water volumes increase almost daily, a state of affairs that will dictate fishing decisions for the next three months or more. Anglers who want to make the most of what will be, literally, a moving target should hone an information network tied in large part to what certainly will be a hyperactive manipulation of water releases during a season of heavy snowmelt.
Putting things in a ballpark context, you won’t be able to tell the rivers without a program. No trip should begin without consulting the WaterTalk system provided through the Colorado Division of Water Resources. After obtaining a listing of station codes, call 303-831-7135 to obtain up-to-the-hour flow recordings.
A visitor to the Blue River late last week saw the process already at work. With Dillon Reservoir mostly full and a deep blanket of snow covering the upper basin, Denver Water ramped the dam release to a brisk 180 cubic feet per second.
The result was threefold. The increased flow flushed mysis shrimp through the dam, turning trout on to a morsel that makes them fat and easier to catch.
“About half our action is on mysis right now,” said Andrew Petersen, a partner in the Cutthroat Angler shop in Silverthorne. Petersen also noted that some of the larger trout that in low water hang in the off-limits pool below the dam now have moved into the public access zone, perhaps for the start of spawning activity.
A third notation involves the movement of trout out of the heavy flow into slack side waters, where they are targeted by sharp-eyed anglers.
The Blue is ice-free all the way to Green Mountain Reservoir, but anglers find tough walking through deep snowdrifts just to reach the river.
This leaves us with those rivers unencumbered by dams where water levels perform a daily ebb and flow tied to temperature and cloud cover influencing low-level melt-out.
Bill Edrington of the Royal Gorge Anglers shop in Cañon City reports seeing the first “renegade” caddisflies on the lower Arkansas.
“Just a few bugs living on the edge,” Edrington said of the first halting steps to the famed hatch.
He expects more caddis this weekend to go with the current blue-plate special of baetis, both nymphs and dries. Subsurface efforts should include an offering of caddis larvae. A full-blown caddis hatch could begin inside 10 days, when water temperature hits the magic 53-degree mark. Flow already has pushed above the 700 cfs mark.
Any prerunoff report must include the Roaring Fork, where an insect bounty always triggers an April surge.
“That temperature change from longer days always has a big impact on bug activity,” said Will Sands, manager of the Taylor Creek Fly Shop in Basalt. “That abundance after a long, cold winter always gets the trout going.”
An intense baetis hatch on cloudy days spices activity on the lower Fork, where daily concerns over muddy water from the Crystal River sometimes dampens spirits. Above Carbondale, midge activity predominates. Sands believes the Fryingpan will light up in the next couple of weeks prior to what promises to be a huge May release from Ruedi Dam.
The Eagle River, another free-flowing favorite, boasts good fishing for baetis and midges above Wolcott, with a flow bouncing under and above 100 cfs. Cool nights have curtailed melting, but the river has begun to turn brown below Wolcott.
