08-18-2004, 03:05 PM
South Platte River - Cheesman Canyon - August 15th, 2004
supplied by: [url "http://www.fisheyesoup.com/redir.php?recKey=92,re"]Blue Quill Angler[/url]
FISHING: Fair
River Flow and Gage Height [[url "http://waterdata.usgs.gov/co/nwis/current?type=flow&group_key=huc_cd&search_site_no_station_nm=south+platte"]click here[/url]]
Flow: 207
Clarity: Poor
Water Temperature: Mid 50’s
Major Food Organisms: Midges, baetis, pmds, yellow sallies, and caddis
Hatches: Midges, baetis, pmds, yellow sallies, and caddis
14 Day Forecast: Now that Cheesman Reservoir is full, expect average flows (around the 250 cfs) for the remainder of the summer. As of last week the lake was spilling over the top.
Tips and Other Information: Last Thursday’s guide trip was one to remember, and, not for reasons you might imagine. Around 3:30 p.m. a storm was setting up over the Schoonover Gulch area, and I looked at Chris Wells, my partner, and said “this does not look good”. The sky turned black, it looked like the sun was setting. Within 30 minutes we experienced one of the hardest rainstorms I’ve witnessed in the “canyon” in twenty years—it was ugly! Flash flood doesn’t explain what Chris, and I witnessed that day. I watched the river raise to 800-900 cfs in a matter of minutes, trees, debris, and ash-blackened water rushed through the canyon. I almost cried, the canyon had been fishing so well. We knew; this was the nail in the coffin. Above Cattle Crossing a washout was depositing huge amounts of sediment, in fact, there was so much debris (ash, burned bark, pine needles and so on) you could comb it with your fingers. The water was a thick as hydraulic oil. I could only think about the huge number of brown trout that now resided in the middle canyon. What was their fate? There is no doubt this was one of the most depressing moments in my thousands of hours in the Cheesman Canyon area. Currently the water is off-colored, the stream-bed is clogged with debris, and to make matters worse the Denver Water Board dropped the flow to 200 cfs. Needless to say, fishing is extremely poor, and no one is certain what the fish loss is from this horrible incident. We’ll keep you posted, and in the mean time you’ll see my truck parked on the Blue, Williams Fork, and Arkansas Rivers.
Effective Patterns: #14 Pink San Juan Worms, #14 Nuclear Eggs, #20-22 Mercury Midges, #22 Mercury Baetis, #18 Mercury PMD’s, #22 Black Beauty, #20-22 Churhill’s Sparkle Wing RS II’s, #18 Micro San Juan Worms, #22-26 Parachute Adams, #20-22 Mathew’s Sparkle Dun, #24 Top Secret Midge, #20-24 Hi-Vis Baetis, #20-22 Matt’s Midge, #16 Sparkle Dun, #22 Cannon’s Suspender Midge, #22-24 Z-Lon Midges, #22-26 Griffith Gnats.
supplied by: [url "http://www.fisheyesoup.com/redir.php?recKey=92,re"]Blue Quill Angler[/url]
FISHING: Fair
River Flow and Gage Height [[url "http://waterdata.usgs.gov/co/nwis/current?type=flow&group_key=huc_cd&search_site_no_station_nm=south+platte"]click here[/url]]
Flow: 207
Clarity: Poor
Water Temperature: Mid 50’s
Major Food Organisms: Midges, baetis, pmds, yellow sallies, and caddis
Hatches: Midges, baetis, pmds, yellow sallies, and caddis
14 Day Forecast: Now that Cheesman Reservoir is full, expect average flows (around the 250 cfs) for the remainder of the summer. As of last week the lake was spilling over the top.
Tips and Other Information: Last Thursday’s guide trip was one to remember, and, not for reasons you might imagine. Around 3:30 p.m. a storm was setting up over the Schoonover Gulch area, and I looked at Chris Wells, my partner, and said “this does not look good”. The sky turned black, it looked like the sun was setting. Within 30 minutes we experienced one of the hardest rainstorms I’ve witnessed in the “canyon” in twenty years—it was ugly! Flash flood doesn’t explain what Chris, and I witnessed that day. I watched the river raise to 800-900 cfs in a matter of minutes, trees, debris, and ash-blackened water rushed through the canyon. I almost cried, the canyon had been fishing so well. We knew; this was the nail in the coffin. Above Cattle Crossing a washout was depositing huge amounts of sediment, in fact, there was so much debris (ash, burned bark, pine needles and so on) you could comb it with your fingers. The water was a thick as hydraulic oil. I could only think about the huge number of brown trout that now resided in the middle canyon. What was their fate? There is no doubt this was one of the most depressing moments in my thousands of hours in the Cheesman Canyon area. Currently the water is off-colored, the stream-bed is clogged with debris, and to make matters worse the Denver Water Board dropped the flow to 200 cfs. Needless to say, fishing is extremely poor, and no one is certain what the fish loss is from this horrible incident. We’ll keep you posted, and in the mean time you’ll see my truck parked on the Blue, Williams Fork, and Arkansas Rivers.
Effective Patterns: #14 Pink San Juan Worms, #14 Nuclear Eggs, #20-22 Mercury Midges, #22 Mercury Baetis, #18 Mercury PMD’s, #22 Black Beauty, #20-22 Churhill’s Sparkle Wing RS II’s, #18 Micro San Juan Worms, #22-26 Parachute Adams, #20-22 Mathew’s Sparkle Dun, #24 Top Secret Midge, #20-24 Hi-Vis Baetis, #20-22 Matt’s Midge, #16 Sparkle Dun, #22 Cannon’s Suspender Midge, #22-24 Z-Lon Midges, #22-26 Griffith Gnats.