Hello all and thanks for checking in at The O’Grady
Flyfishing Adventures. I am sitting down to write this blog with great
trepidation. As we all know, the last several years have turned our beloved
Arkansas River into one of the most productive tailwaters in the State. With
the awesomeness of the river growing the crowds have followed. Cody and I were
reminiscing the other day about the earlier years on the Ark when you could
fish all day long and not see any other anglers. Now a few years ago when I
first began seeing the writing on the wall with the crowds, I began wondering
why the Fountain Creek never had fish in it. I live a couple hundred yards from
the creek and it does me very little good. Cat and I did some testing of the
water and secretly were able to get some stockers in it without anyone knowing.
Almost every morning on my walk with the dogs, I would go and search out my
transplanted fish. It was hard to get a real good idea as to how it was working
until just last week. It reminded me of the Ark as the fish come out of their
winter slumber. Hundreds of fish and not a sole knew they were there. I
couldn’t believe my eyes, they were even bedding up. I watched in amazement
while the fish would move from side to side and pick bugs off the surface. It
was like the videos of New Zealand with giant unspooked trout eating off the
surface. When I saw it I could hardly contain myself and went home and told
Cat. The next step was to see if we could catch them.
We
secretly walked down to the Fountain just behind the mall and could see fish
everywhere. As I looked around and no other people around and the fish
everywhere, it took everything I had to hold back the tears. Cat set up on the
first pod of fish; we were seeing a few Green Drakes and Stones flying around
so Cat put on her best imitation. First cast was dead perfect and I watched
this beautiful unspooked 21 inch rainbow turn its head and grab the fly. The
battles was intense, the fish tailwalked about eight feet before diving and
heading down the creek. A two minute chase ensued by Cat netting this
absolutely beautiful bow. As we released the bow, we stood in utter shock. It
was as if time had frozen, complete silence echoed in our brains and finally Cat
looked at me and began to tear up. We fished all afternoon and caught more fish
than we could count. As we got close to the Hwy 47 Bridge we made sure we
stayed as low as we could so no bypassers could see what we were doing. At one
time we had a few homeless people walk up on us and ask us what we were doing.
I could not lie or fib at all and I explained that we were just looking for
Zebra Mussles.
So
as you can see, it is with great trepidation that I have written this blog. On
one hand we want to keep the Fountain as our own little piece of heaven, but on
the other, how do we keep this from our friends. It may not be the most
picturesque creek in the world but it sure makes me glad I live only a few
hundred yards from the fountain. Flies that worked today were big Green Drakes
but subsurface we could only get them to eat big hooks with brown feathers and
thread on them, I know it sounds gross but it may be the result of the Springs
sewage treatment spills over the years. I will try to get with the State to see
if this can be strictly a C&R section. Personally I think for safety
reasons it should. Anyway, Connell, Cat, Winston, April Fools, Photo Shop,and
The Drift Fly Shop want to thank you for reading….
You had me at hello
ReplyDelete