GONE FISHIN’
Arkansas River’s tale includes remarkable comeback from earlier dirty water
Part 2 of the series looking at the state’s love affair with the Arkansas River.
B y 2 p.m. last Sunday afternoon, Vlad Amani felt like he’d discovered a lost treasure. ¶ Brown trout nosed to the surface of the Arkansas River in the hazy shadow of 14,433-foot Mount Elbert, Colorado’s highest peak. Swallows swooped above the sprawling Hayden Meadows to gobble up the same caddis and green drake mayflies alternating between wind and water.
Amani pulled an elk-hair caddis from his fly box and surveyed the scene before offering it to the trout tailing in the current.
“I saw one other guy here, but I think he left. So I’m happy,” the Denver resident said between casts. “I’m definitely going to come out here more often. It’s not crazy far, and you can definitely escape the crowds. Plus it’s such a scenic place to fish.”
With Amani dressed in the attire of a seasoned angler and placing his casts with precision, it was evident this wasn’t his first time on a river. Just his first time around here.
“I woke up this morning and just wanted to fish somewhere. I heard it was pretty good up here and thought I’d check it out,” Amani said. “It was a mob scene at Deckers (last Saturday). The South Platte was still running at 1,000 cfs and anywhere you could fish had people in it.”
Although it shares the same Gold Medal fishing designation as the South Platte at Deckers, the setting could not have been more different on the upper Arkansas. Much less the saga that brought that designation about.
Where Cheesman Canyon, just upstream of Deckers, became the first section of river in Colorado to be protected with catch-andrelease regulations in 1976 (and Gold Medal designation shortly after), the Arkansas during that era was hardly fishable. Heavy metal contaminants from upstream mines near Leadville took a toll on the Arkansas River that lasted for decades. No one was interested in keeping these fish.
“When I was a kid and we used to come out here fishing, we skipped over the Arkansas and went to the Taylor and the Gunnison,” said Stu Pappenfort, 64, now a river ranger with the Arkansas Headwaters Recreation Area (AHRA). “The heavy metals really impacted the size of the fish. There was a good number of them, but not the ones you wanted to hold up in the picture. So we skipped over it.”
Much has changed since, and in 2014 the Arkansas River through the majority of the 152-mile AHRA became the longest segment of Gold Medal trout water in Colorado. That means that the 102-mile stretch from the confluence with the Lake Fork downstream to the U.S. 50 bridge at Parkdale consistently supports a standing stock of at least 60 pounds of trout per acre and at least 12 trout longer than 14 inches per acre.
The Arkansas has met those standards since 1999, and exceeded the requirements in 2012 with an average of 170.3 pounds per acre and 75 trout longer than 14 inches per acre. However, consecutive years of high-water runoff in 2013 and 2014 have since had a negative impact on insect hatches and trout feeding ability, reducing trout biomass and the number of large trout to just above the Gold Medal standards.
“Water flow is the single most important habitat variable affecting fisheries in the Arkansas River, whether by itself or in combination with other factors,” said Greg Policky, Colorado Parks and Wildlife aquatic biologist for the region. “Regardless of life stage, the importance of managing flow to protect and enhance the fish population is critical, particularly fall through spring.”
The river and surrounding recreation generally benefit from a uniquely managed voluntary flow program coordinated to release water stored in upstream reservoirs at Turquoise, Twin Lakes and Clear Creek during the peak whitewater rafting season of July 1 through Aug. 15, while reducing river flows for young brown trout minnows in the early spring and fishermen angling to catch the adults in late summer, fall and winter.
“It’s been a real godsend to us as far as the rafting industry is concerned. And also for the fishery, I think, that we have those flows,” said Bill Dvorak of Nathrop-based Dvorak Expeditions. “It pumps cold, clean water into the resource. Cold, clean water dilutes the agricultural impacts of fertilizer and phosphates and keeps the fishery as strong as it is.”
From the angler’s perspective, the strengths of the fishery are many.
Predominantly a brown trout fishery (about 75 percent), rainbow trout have made a comeback through a stocking program dating to 2009 that is now nearly selfsustaining. Fishing access is plentiful throughout the river valley with more than 80 miles of public access for wade fishermen and numerous boat access points managed by AHRA. All told, nearly 70 percent of the river from Leadville through Cañon City is open to the public along what many consider the state’s premier brown trout stream.
As a result, fishing use reached the dubious milestone of more than 100,000 anglers on the water between Leadville and Parkdale in 2012, up from fewer than 70,000 anglers in 2007. The Arkansas ranked as the favorite river fishing destination in Colorado, according to 2008 and 2012 angler surveys conducted by the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point.
The majority of float fishing traffic flows through Bighorn Sheep Canyon from Salida down to Texas Creek, while wade fishing guides tend to congregate between Salida and Vallie Bridge. The headwaters area between Crystal Lakes and Granite is also attracting more attention in recent years, since natural resource damages for mining pollution awarded in 2007 were used for instream and riparian habitat improvement completed last year. In 2014, the area measured the highest for biomass on the river and was second only to the Coaldale area of Bighorn Sheep Canyon for trout over 14 inches per acre.
Yet, if your timing is right, you can still have this treasure all to yourself.