Nathan Flowers turned his head slightly to avoid direct eye contact as I came out of a crazy slip, sliding dance that saved me from falling into the Arkansas River. I think he was trying to soften my humiliation of what could have been a fully observed header into the river. I’m at the point in my angling life where occasionally falling into the river is a fact of life rather than a humiliation, but Nathan didn’t know that.
He’s guided fly fishermen on the Arkansas for a number of years, and I probably wasn’t the first gray beard he’s seen struggle to remain vertical. Some probably take falling into the river differently than I do. I’m just glad he was there to fish me out of the water if I had gone in. I once heard a fisherman describe wading the Arkansas as akin to walking on greased cannon balls.
This was the last day of a junk food fueled fly fishing blitz with my friend and euro nymphing guru, Jason Randall, that included an early morning on the South Platte River, where we fished to a plentiful spinner fall of tiny black, white-winged mayflies known as Tricos that unfortunately didn’t include a lot of rising trout. Later that same day we met up with our mutual friend, Landon Mayer, on the Abel Ranch stretch of private water downstream from Elevenmile Canyon.
We left the next morning at 5 a.m. to meet up with Nathan in Buena Vista in time to get up to the Hayden Meadows section of the Arkansas River to witness and fish to the Trico spinner fall that reportedly occurs there. I didn’t know Tricos even existed in the Arkansas River until Nathan said he sometimes sees spinner falls in Hayden Meadows. I was all for checking it out.
When we arrived in Buena Vista, Nathan and his son Eli wasted no time leading us to a turnout downstream from the Hayden Meadows sections I’d fished in the past. It’s structured with a few small pools, gentle riffles and numerous slicks of slower moving water up against the banks. The river wasn’t very wide and lined with willows.
Before we started fishing, we walked out on a bridge that crossed the river to watch a pool for any trout that might be rising to Tricos. We didn’t see any, but it was early and the sun hadn’t hit the water yet. Nathan and I decided to head upstream and fish dry flies. Eli wanted to get some euro nymphing tips from Jason, so they headed downstream with their nymphing rods.
Nathan pointed me to a gentle riffle bordered by a seam that separated it from the faster moving water. I knotted a size 18 Parachute Adams to my leader and cast it a few feet inside the seam. I was staring up into the sky admiring the beautiful morning when Nathan hollered “strike!” I knew what that meant and set the hook. I felt the weight of the trout for a moment after the strike, but the line quickly went slack when the trout shook out the barbless hook. That’s the price you pay for rubber necking when you’re supposed to be fishing, I thought. I also thought that I’d surely get at least another strike in that riffle. I then covered it thoroughly, but to no avail.
As we waded upstream, I experienced that little tinge of guilt you sometimes get when you miss a trout that you would have caught if you’d paid attention. Nonetheless, I took it as a good omen. There was bound to be more strikes before the day was done.
Nathan had taken the day off from guiding to fish with us, so I motioned to him to fish his way up the other side of the river. From that point on, we both methodically fished our sides of the river. Neither one of us got a strike.
You can come up with all kinds of reasons to explain why a morning that clearly held promise for good fishing goes bad. Maybe you’re early and the water is too cold. Maybe when the sun finally does hit the water it’s too bright. Maybe the insect hatches are off. Maybe you are off.
Needless to say, this is not the time to obsess over missing a strike on your first cast of the day. I managed to release the thought from my mind every time it crept in with the efficiency of a meditating Zen monk. I’ve had plenty of practice over the years.
Meanwhile, Jason and Eli were nymphing their way upstream toward us. When they caught up, I asked how it was going. Jason said he’d hooked one trout. That’s significant when you consider how effective euro nymphing is and how good Jason is at it. It’s even more significant when the water looked ideal for euro nymphing.
By noon Nathan had managed to catch a couple of trout from a pool formed along the bank upstream from a man-made rock dam. He caught the first one on a dry fly and the second on a beadhead nymph trailed behind the dry fly. The rest of us blanked. It wasn’t hard to agree when he suggested we head downstream.
That’s where I gave Nathan the dance performance we talked about earlier. We didn’t talk about the encore that quickly followed. I’ll save that for another time.
I did finally catch a trout on a dry fly. There were a few caddisflies in the air and I saw a single rise and cast a size 14 Yellow Stimulator to it. The trout took it without hesitation. I thanked the fish by gently releasing it back into the river.
Visit EdEngleFlyFishing.com to see Ed Engle’s blog, “The Lone Angler Journal.”
IF YOU GO
Nathan Flowers guides out of Noah’s Ark White Water & Adventure Company in Buena Vista. For more information, visit noahsark.com/fishing.html.
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