A Window Of Opportunity

Hello everyone and thanks for checking in with the O’Grady Fly Fishing Adventures! Connell is taking a break from the blog today to rest his wrists, catching too many fish today wore them out. Unfortunately, that means you’ll have to get your fishing fix with me, Cat. I’m afraid the sports analogies and humor is best left to Connell…… so what I have for you is a tale of fly fishing magic.

While the rains have brought headache and worse for some, for our little family the flooding opened a window of opportunity like no other. With the fountain creek blown out, the flow of the Arkansas had to be reduced to prevent further flooding to the east of Pueblo. This meant that for the first time in over a month our tailwaters were brought down to 200cfs and this was just the beginning of a perfect storm. When the water is dropped fish react in one of two ways. They either panic and hide, or they go into a competitive feeding frenzy that can only be described as “zombie” like. Today they picked ZOMBIE and the BWO might have had something to do with their decision. The lowered flow and a warmish rain free day cause the water temp to rise and the Bwo exploded from the water. There were so many in the air that even the birds got in on fun and for hours they swarmed the surface devouring the mayflies. The birds did however have some competition with the crazy hungry fish.

Needless to say the fishing today was incredible.  Connell and I couldn’t even put a number as to how many fish were hooked and landed, the only thing we are sure of was that it was a lot. At one point I landed 6 fish, in 6 casts, and the smallest 16” and the largest was 19”.  Today was a day to remember. But…. Like all good things this window of opportunity has closed. Late this afternoon while Connell and I reminisced about the glory of the day, the flow was increase and a wall of water came down. In the matter of minutes the 200cfs became 1400cfs. We hope you got to get today, but if you didn’t don’t worry a river is ever changing and someday your “window of opportunity” will be opened too.  Thanks for read, Cat, Connell, Mr. Barn Swallow, Winston, and The Drift Fly shop.