High Water and Salmon Flies

It’s that time of year again, the first hatches of the season are happening around Colorado. 

The first Blue Wing Olive hatches started a couple of months ago on various rivers and then shortly after that the famous ‘Mother’s Day’ Caddis hatch started its migration up the Arkansas and Colorado Rivers.

Now, the mother of all insect hatches the ‘Salmon Fly’ hatch has begun on the Colorado River. Some years this can be a tough one to hit, with high and off color water.  This year however the water levels have been down. Much of our snowmelt is being held back by our reservoirs as we replenish their levels for the year to come.

What this means, is better than normal opportunities to hit this hatch.  That being said, this hatch does move fast and always seems to be a bit fickle.  If you get a chance in the next week or so, I would definitely try and get out on the Colorado for this experience.

Spring and early summer is also the time of year when many rivers are swollen to their banks and the thought of crossing a river is a ‘death wish’.  Some anglers call it quits for a couple of weeks, waiting for the flows to come down. Many think fishing is out of the question with the high flows and that fish just cannot be caught.

This idea is quite to the contrary.  If the water is up and has some visibility, there can be some very good fishing along the banks with some large nymph patterns.  The key is to fish the quite areas along the banks, in back eddies and along undercut banks.  These areas offer the slowest moving water in the river and sometimes offer the only holding water for the trout. 

Being that the holding water is limited, you may find many fish in one small area.  Using the larger and heavier stonefly and attractor nymphs patterns is key to get your flies down and visible to the fish.

You will need to use various methods of attaining a ‘dead drift’, from ‘high sticking’ to ‘stack mending’.  The important thing is to makes sure you’re snagging bottom from time to time.  This is a good indicator that your fly is heavy enough and most importantly, that you are actually getting a ‘dead drift’.

Fish these ‘pockets hard and slow and I promise you there’s a good chance you’ll land a fish in almost every pocket.

Don’t let this time of year keep you off the water longer than you already have been. Get out there and go fishing!