Arkansas River - CO

Fishing Outlook & Conditions

Temp:

63°

ArkAnglers's Tip of the Week

Fishing is now excellent on the Arkansas River. Flows have dropped significantly over the past three weeks, increasing productive fish habitat along the edges and really ramping up the dry-dropper and streamer fishing. NOW is the time to be here for high octane, productive summer fly fishing. Floats and wade trips are all reporting happy fish and lots of trout willing to take dry flies off the surface. Size up on leader and tippet and work the edges with a shallow dry-dropper combination or with streamers. You're looking for any structure that slows the velocity of the river and gives the fish shelter from the fast flows. Anglers should stock up for hatches of yellow sallies, golden stoneflies, various caddis, pale morning duns, and other terrestrial food. That said, fish are also very opportunistic so rather than matching a particular hatch we can often get away with more generic, buggy patterns that stand out in the faster flows. The prince nymph is a great example, with a dark body and contrasting white wings. Rubberlegs stoneflies are also a good bet as their large, dark silhouettes present an easy, obvious, worthy meal. Heavy bullet and perdigon style flies that loosely imitate pale morning duns and yellow sallies are also deadly right now. We confidently size up on leader material to 4x or larger through the summer because the fish are not particularly leader shy and there's enough flow to make you appreciate the extra strength in your line to help land fish more quickly. The river is very wadeable, but don't try to cross. Always be prepared to take time carefully releasing fish. Wet your hands thoroughly before handling and try to minimize trout's time out of the water while releasing. Please do your due diligence giving them adequate revival time before moving on. Always be prepared to take time carefully releasing fish. Wet your hands thoroughly before handling and try to minimize trout's time out of the water while releasing. Please do your due diligence giving them adequate revival time before moving on. Always be prepared to take time carefully releasing fish. Wet your hands thoroughly before handling and try to minimize trout's time out of the water while releasing. Please do your due diligence giving them adequate revival time before moving on.

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Water Flow Data

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