In a quicksilver springtime of sun and snow and computers, timing for a stream fisherman is everything.
Take, for example, a Monday on the North Platte River where it either dribbles or gushes from Glendo Reservoir. Here, beneath a buttermilk sky, four anglers from Denver had made the journey north through the Wyoming prairie to sample one of the most unusual river experiences in a region that, because of the proliferation of dams, has more than its share.
The thing about the Platte below Glendo is that, between Sept. 30 and May 1, the flow is reduced to barely a trickle, a measured 25 cubic feet per second in a channel that during a long bygone free-flowing runoff might be 10 times that.
Thus we find water barely flowing through deep, slender pools that resemble nothing quite so much as elongated lakes. The notion — at a time when most Colorado rivers are running amok — is to find quiet, clear water, even if the setting seems a little strange.
When the promise includes the chance at some truly righteous rainbows, along with an occasional bully brown, the long trip dissolves into a sort of dreamy state with bent rods and surging trout.
It continues in real time when a midday emergence of midges brings good fish to the surface and, not long after, the hatch morphs into a blizzard of little mayflies, the ever-popular blue-winged olive.
The result is a deliciously maddening scenario in which small pods of free-rising trout cruise the pools slurping BWOs from the blanket of naturals coating the surface. An angler trying desperately to gauge this erratic pattern watches 20-inchers repeatedly grab flies inches from his own, an action that always prompts a rapid sucking in of breath.
Now for the real lesson in all this, that part about timing. No sooner had we left the river than a call from irrigators farther downstream caused the Bureau of Reclamation to accelerate the dam release a week early. Had we delayed a day, our casts — and the hatch — would have been drowned beneath a flow of 1,000 cfs, going to 2,500 in early May. Flip a computer switch and the whole game changes.
This brings us back to Colorado and the early runoff that has already begun on several key rivers. The Yampa, running above 1,000 cfs through Steamboat Springs, has been described by one fisherman as “scary.”
The Roaring Fork has turned the color of cream as it courses at 1,100 cfs through Glenwood Springs. The Colorado, too, has burst past four figures near Kremmling, muddy some days, less so when colder temperature slows the melt at middle elevations.
Perhaps the Arkansas, where the celebrated caddis hatch is poised to pop, holds the most intrigue. The river is running 780 cfs and relatively clear at Wellsville, just downstream from Salida. Trouble is, the higher flow slows heat percolation of the water and thus, the blossoming of the hatch.
“The caddis still are hung up around Cañon City,” informed Greg Felt at the Arkansas River Fly Shop in Salida, where 48-degree temp remains 5 to 6 degrees too cold for an emergence. Adding to the confusion is the possible release of more cold, clear water from Twin Lakes, further delaying the warm-up.
Felt remains optimistic that a full-blown, muddy runoff won’t occur until mid-May, when both bugs and fisherman have done their thing.
Trapper Rudd, who operates the Cutthroat Angler shop in Silverthorne, believes the elevated 400 cfs Blue River slow actually helps fishing.
“We’re throwing seafood omelettes — San Juan worms and all sorts of big stuff. The hooking is good; it’s the landing that’s the tough part.”
Rudd believes that a wide variety of food washing off banks and from feeder creeks provides a fresh opportunity for anglers working the calmer water near shore, where visibility permits.
Charlie Meyers: 303-954-1609 or cmeyers@denverpost.com
