Colorado River Salmonfly Hatch Update, Monday Morning June 23, 2014
June 23rd, 2014
Plenty of action yet on the upper Colorado River to the Salmonfly, we’ll start with the stretch above Kremmling since that is the truest emergence still happening. There are still some decent numbers of adults scattered around from Sunset Ranch up to the top of Beyer’s Canyon, with the heavier numbers being in the canyon and just below into Paul Gilbert State Wildlife Area. Both dries and nymphs continue to work, but we prefer to keep at it with the dries and seem to be doing alright.
Flows have dropped to 881 at Hot Sulphur, through Beyer’s and are almost double that below the Williams Fork where an additional 750 cfs helps boost it to 1663, and clarity is very good. We anticipate the number of adults will continue to decline here now that it has been about a week and a half, but there should continue to be action for at least another week to the Pteronarcys.
On downstream, into Gore Canyon and below, amazingly we continue to find some pockets of adult Salmonflies hanging on. These are primarily in any type of canyon-type water with a strong population up in the center of Gore Canyon and a scattered amount in Little Gore. However, we are seeing plenty of other emerging insects beginning to show up.
On Sunday, there were a good amount of small, darker Stones, about a size 10, which appeared to be Goldens. Trout were definitely dialed in to these along with adult Salmonfly imitations. Hiking up into Gore and floating down below were both very productive on dries. Nymph fishing also appeared to be productive but, we just couldn’t bring ourselves to do it.
Flows below Kremmling have now dropped to just under 3,000 for the first time since May 5th and clarity is pushing 3 feet.