PSA: Ark caddis hatch

i can't head over to the Ark today or tomorrow, but somebody should...

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Waiting for caddis hatch? Don't
By Ed Dentry, Rocky Mountain News
Monday, May 5, 2008

With the Arkansas River flowing moderate and clear in its lower reaches, warm currents stimulated caddis activity.

Advice for fans of the renowned Arkansas River caddis hatch: skip work. Run away from home. Play hooky.

Don't wait for the weekend. Go now.

The hatch stood tall last weekend, with the main Brachycentrus blizzard raging Sunday at Texas Creek. But the window of opportunity is destined to be short-lived.

Water releases from Twin Lakes, which had hampered trout fishing for weeks, shut down over the weekend to accommodate a Bureau of Reclamation dam inspection Monday.

"It was a godsend that the bureau decided to do that," said Bill Edrington, owner of Royal Gorge Anglers, in Canon City.

Sunday was boom day on the river. Moderate, clear flows of 520 cubic feet per second in the lower reaches made for good wading. Warmer currents stimulated heavy caddis activity downstream from Lone Pine access.

Fishermen who were there might have experienced the best that will be. Normally, the caddis hatch would work its way upstream to Salida. But that might be dreaming this year.

BuRec plans to ramp up the flow again, in 75-cfs steps daily, to make room for melt from a huge snowpack, which has yet to budge from Independence Pass.

Edrington predicts flows will reach 900 to 1,000 cfs again by Friday. Fishing won't be impossible, but it will be different.

A drive down U.S. 50 on Sunday revealed clear water and few to no adult caddis from Salida to Lone Pine. Just upstream from Texas Creek, caddis started bashing the windshield with a fury.

The leading-edge blizzard bracketed a two-mile stretch of river. Trout moved to their normal midstream feeding zones and executed flashy rises. Best fishing was below the blizzard to Parkdale, where more trout were rising to fewer insects.

Edrington said previously the high water and subfreezing nights had combined to stall the hatch at Texas Creek. Even where caddis swarmed, fishing had been tough.

"We had tea-green, stained water. It fished, but, boy, did it take some time to figure it out. We had a hard time understanding that these fish would not fight that current to take even a caddis hatch. They were tucked on shorelines in boulder pockets."

During high water, some trout also held in 7-foot-deep runs, which they typically use as winter habitat. Anglers likely will find similar conditions next weekend.

"The fish should be in pockets along shore by the weekend," Edrington said.

He urged fishermen to use caution to avoid spooking trout when approaching the river.

Meanwhile, at least for a few days or hours, the hatch is on and behaving classically. The insects shed their pupal shucks and pop from the water from 11:30 a.m. to about 4 p.m.

On Sunday, trout were rising midstream, in shallow runs and eddies, as if this were a normal spring. Downstream of the blizzard zone, sporadic miniblizzards erupted in spots.

"It was beautiful. I wish we could have three weeks of that instead of a day," Edrington said.

It will take a few days for the offending river rise to make its way downriver. Until then, catch those rising trout while the catching is good.

I caught 3 brownies in about 10 minutes with a caddis variant dry early this week on the Eagle in Colo. After no success in nymphing, I put on one of my favorite surface patterns. Just as I was about to snip the fly clean, a lonely caddis landed on my arm. Good intuition I guess.

Dry fly time finally! I do enjoy fishing woolly buggers, but I'm ready for some surface action! Now, if I can just find the off switch for the wind...

The Caddis hatch on the Ark is one hell of a hatch. Wish I could be there!