Author: Hayden Mellsop

As the days grow shorter and the nights grow colder, a fisherman’s mind turns from the river to contemplating a crackling hearth, family time and the anticipation of two feet of fresh powder at Monarch. To be sure, there is still some great fishing to be had before we usher in 2010, but fall is the season to reflect both on the immediate past, and also the great circle of time that rolls on, ultimately impervious to our tales ‘full of sound and fury, signifying nothing’, if I may paraphrase the Great Bard.

For this fisherman, the past year has been a banner one on the Arkansas and surrounding waters. Many are the highlights. Easily topping the list was watching my elder daughter land her first river fish from the boat as we floated through town on her tenth birthday. Following close behind is getting snowed and hailed on as I managed to land my first fish on a particular high lake after three years of trying – I say this even though it was tail hooked. I am not a purist, I’ll take ’em any way I can get ’em. The there was the perfect day spent on Antero Reservoir in South Park, catching big fish with nary a breath of wind to ruffle the feathers all day. [How many times can you say that happens in South Park? ]. And so this video is largely a salute to the best of the year.

Against this backdrop has been the Arkansas itself, confirming its status as one of the West’s finest dry fly rivers. Things got off to a great start this spring, where a closer to average snowpack meant there was no nervous desk jockey at the Bureau of Reclamation messing with the water levels. The resulting steady flows and water temperatures meant a great caddis hatch, unlike last year, when wild fluctuations prevented the bugs from hatching consistently.

After runoff, the summertime dry fly action was excellent. Hoppers, caddis, pale morning duns and stoneflies were all prolific, and the fish made pigs of themselves as they should. The yellow sallies and pmds in particular seem to get more and more numerous as the years roll by. Mayflies such as pmds and blue winged olives are the canaries in the coal mine as far as water quality is concerned, so this bodes well for the future of the fishery.

But of all the seasons, fall is my favorite. Fall is the time of the year when we come face to face with our own mortality, and realize that time is inexorably advancing. Much like the days of youth, spring and summer have slipped by at an unbelievable pace. It seems only yesterday buds were blooming, birds were chirping and the grass was greening. Fall completes the cycle, and reminds us that despite our over inflated sense of self importance, we are really still a part of the great cycle of life, death and rebirth.

Far from being depressing, this I find comforting. Fall is a yearly reminder of life’s ephemeral nature, a reminder to not take any time for granted. With the onset of the cooler weather, and the knowledge that cold and snow are on their way, comes gratitude for a warm safe house and a well stocked larder to see it through- not to mention the prospect of those vintage powder days at Monarch where you collect a covering of snow riding the lift to the top of the run and the trees materialize from the mist as you drop in and ride the clouds back to the bottom.

A few days ago, I was fishing a beautiful stream far up in the La Garita Wilderness area. Already, with the sun arcing lower in the sky, ice had formed along the northern banks of the stream in places. Here and there the odd aspen was clinging to the remnants of its foliage and the fish were feeding hard, sensing the limited time available to them to fatten up before winter’s enforced slumber. Two emotions were foremost – a certain melancholy, and also a sense of privilege at being witness to it all.

And so, as another year hastens to its close, there are many reasons to be thankful for the change of season. Just as without pain in life we have no measure for joy, so too does the cold winter give extra reason to value the balmy days of spring and summer. A special thanks to all those who have expressed words of support, encouragement and appreciation for these reports. I for one am looking forward to many more.

Living in this town, sometimes I find I have to pinch myself to make sure it’s really me, and real life and not a dream. Such a time occurred the other day, when I floated through town late one picture perfect fall afternoon. I pinched myself for a couple of reasons. Firstly, because it was literally another beautiful day in paradise, and secondly, because it is worth reminding myself that I live in a place where I can decide at two in the afternoon to go for a float, call a couple of friends, and half an hour later be floating the river with a fly rod in one hand and a beer in the cozy.

Right now is the time when the brown trout in the river have their minds on their own bit of pinching, biting, teasing and possibly spanking. I am speaking of course of the fall spawn, when a healthy brown’s mind turns to the procreation of the species. The females will seek out places in the river ideal for preparing a spawning bed, or redd. Usually they choose places where the river is one to three feet deep, with a slow, steady current and a gravelly bottom. The female will sweep the stones of the redd clean of algae and silt to provide a suitable surface for her eggs to adhere. Once she has laid her eggs, the males, who have been jockeying for position at the downstream edge of the redd like cowboys lining up at a one room whore house , will release their milt over the eggs, hopefully creating a new generation to carry the torch.

Once you know what to look for, a redd is easily identifiable. The clean rock bottom will often stand out from the surrounding riverbed vividly, whiter patches distinct from their surroundings. This time of the year I like to make sure I am not casting anywhere near a redd, to ensure that any fish I catch are not actively involved in the love game. After all, how would you feel if someone kept throwing things at you while you were between the sheets so to speak? Hardly sporting.

For this float, we chose to throw single dries, with small caddis and humpies being the best producers. From tha boat, casting to the shallower edges and away from the redds ensured the fish we caught had their mind on feeding, not romance. The wind made things a little tricky at times, but most times you got a good drift in the slow, shallow edges, there was some kind of action. Getting a fish to take is one thing, hooking him is sometimes another, as witnessed in the video. But I have always maintained that if you were to hook them all, it would get pretty boring pretty quick. And let’s face it, who among us is averse to a good spanking every now and then, right?

Right now, the flows are low and clear, and will probably remain so throughout the winter. I would expect the fishing to stay strong throughout October, and even into November provided the weather stays mild. So my advice is to get out there,enjoy the fall colors and the last vestiges of summer before winter lock us in its grip. But once again, I have to pinch myself, for then its away with the fly rod and hello to Monarch and the snowboard.

A while back I wrote about the reasons why fishing with sheilas was generally more fun than fishing with blokes. One of the reasons was that with blokes, conversation rarely rises above and beyond football, beer, and which Baywatch babe has the biggest assets. Of course, I hadn’t figured on fishing with Bill and Scott. Now, maybe in part it’s because Bill is from Canada, where people tend to be a little more widely read. And besides, being all tucked away down there, only about one village in a hundred has a TV set, so discussing Baywatch is something most Canadians can only dream about.

Scott, on the other hand, is a bit of an enigma. All American boy, product of the public school system, and so one would expect, raised in the firm belief in the power of log cabins, Mom’s apple pie, and secure in the  knowledge that if it didn’t happen within the borders of the continental US then it probably isn’t worth knowing about. And yet here we were, floating down the river, catching a bunch of big fish on a windy day, and discussing instances of schadenfreude in fly fishing, and the struggle of the Luddites in 19th century England and it’s analogies to today’s dry fly fishermen in the face of the advancing hordes of technologically advanced nymphomaniacs.

Fishing conditions out there are kind of tricky right now, what with the low, clear water making the fish a bit nervous, but it is by no means doom and gloom. A light touch on the oars, and a fisherman who can cast delicately well away from the boat, will be rewarded. The fish seem to be hanging out in the faster riffles, in water about a foot or two deep, rather than in the shallows along the edges. The cooler, cloudy afternoon brought with it a pretty good blue winged olive hatch, although the fish were only keying in on the dries sporadically.

What impressed us most about this day was not the quantity of fish we landed, because numbers-wise it was good but not spectacular. What really impressed was the size of the fish we caught. Pretty much each one landed would have been  fish of the day on a normal day. Maybe the big boys are preparing to sow their oats, packing on the pounds before they are called upon to do their annual Mandingo impression. Although a decent number of fish took dries, in particular hoppers and pmx’s, the good old bead head pheasant tail worked the best.

I love fall fishing, and I would expect the action to stay strong through the end of October at least. So don’t believe the naysayers and ne’er-do-wells who say the river is too low, and the fish too spooky. There’s still plenty of good fishing left in the river yet, so get in touch if you’d like to get out there and see for yourself.

We are each born with an account from which we can all make withdrawals, but never add to. That is the account that contains the hours of our lives. Choosing to spend a portion of those hours in the service of others is perhaps the most noble thing a person can do. Last weekend saw Salida host the second annual Double Haul Celebrity Fly Fishing Event. The event is the brainchild of Chaffee County resident Dave Moore, and organized and conducted by the combined Rotary Clubs of Salida and Buena Vista. The concept sounds simple. Get a group of celebrities together, bring them to town for a weekend, set them up with a boat and a guide, and get locals to bid for the second fishing seat on the boat, and donate the proceeds to kids causes in the County.

The reality is an organizational feat a year in the making, with countless hours of time, effort and execution by dozens of local volunteers. This year, as with last, the core of the celebrity make up was formed by the Broncos Alumni. In this era of overpaid, over hyped and self centered sports stars, it is heart warming to see these guys selflessly giving back so much of their time and energy to causes such as this.

This year, I had the pleasure of spending a couple of days on the river with Mark Cooper. Mark played for the Broncos and Tampa Bay from 1983 through 1989, starting in Super Bowl XXI. Now, being a Kiwi lad raised on rugby and hence relatively ignorant of American sporting traditions, it never occurred to me that Mark might have been in his playing days one of those huge guys who stands in front of his quarter back and pushes other huge guys the size of Mack trucks out of the way for a living. Normally, this wouldn’t be an issue but with the river running at around 250 cfs, you can be in for a long day when your fisherman’s weight exceeds the river flow.

Fortunately Mark turned out to be such fun, in addition to a skilled fisherman and low maintenance kind of guy, that the time just flew by. Also on the boat the day this video was taken was my friend and Salida native Lee Graf. Lee has generously donated two Broncos tickets to a Land Trust of the Upper Arkansas fundraiser to be held later this year, so as way of saying Thanks, I rowed them down the river the day before the Double Haul. How Lee and Mark first became friends I have no idea, but I suspect college bars and seedy frat houses played a part.

To be sure, we had a great day. The beer was cold, and the fish were active. For some reason, there seems to be a lot of rainbows being caught at the moment. On this day, we actually landed more bows than browns, which is the first time I have seen that happen. I know the Division of Wildlife have been stocking the river with a strain of rainbow resistant to whirling disease, and when these guys get a little bigger, they will be a handful on a fly rod.

And so the planning begins anew for next years Double Haul. To all those , famous, anonymous, and infamous, who helped to make this year’s event a big success, Thank You. Roll on 2010.