May 18, 2010

It's Time to Go Fishing

Some times it is just necessary to go fishing. A slow spring run-off this year is helping keep spring streams in southern Colorado fishable. Thanks  to Sawtooth (who needs to blog more) for getting me out of the house.

This is Grape Creek, which flows from the Wet Mountain Valley into the Arkansas River at Cañon City. It was Zebulon Pike's route up into the valley in 1807, which must have been a miserable trip. I wonder what its canyon looked like then.

We caught brown and rainbow trout—and saw one battered two-foot-long tiger muskie, which must have washed down from Lake DeWeese. Out of its habitat, away from its prey base, its prospects were not good at all.

Zeb would have eaten it, had tiger muskies existed two hundred years ago. So would I, but I had no net to try to grab it with, and I could not interest it in a streamer fly.

2 comments:

Isaac said...

Just got back from fishing the Arkansas myself. Unfortunately, the wind was blowing about 30 miles an hour and made casting difficult and good presentation all but impossible but we did hook a few on nymphs. Hoping to hit the river at least one more time before the runoff starts...

Chas S. Clifton said...

I fished the Arkansas at Spikebuck on Tuesday myself. It was OK. Wind not unreasonable, but yes, nymphs were the ticket.