Fishing Reports

The pike are on it. They can be found anywhere you're willing to slowly walk the bank with your hard core peepers on. Pilar, Velarde and JDB are hot. Fish them slow. 

Wigglers for pike. Do not fret if you're not seeing them in the sunniest part of the day. They are there and they will bite, but they have been more inclined to get interested in the shady hours. Or not. It's been a bitchy week. Run through your colors. Explore all the areas: John Dunn and Velarde in addition to Pilar. In fact, blow off Pilar. Waiting for someone to find some action out a Buckman.

Still decent in the racecourse area, and awesome in the crack.  If you're in Pilar, set up on the riffles, and you should do fine with medium sized nymphs, keeping an eye peeled for subtle bumps made by rising noses.
In the gorge, the Red confluence is a good place to go, but don't rule out the Little, Big Arsenics, and Chiflo. Crane flies, Gonga streamers, double browns, bacon worms, and heavy Bird's Nests are but a few of the bugs that will work for some pretty nice fish.  Make sure you're presenting to the upstream faces of rocks, and for big rainbows, make sure you're running flies in the whitewater chutes.  Detours up the Red and Pueblo will likely be productive with the same flies.

From County Line to the state line, what I usually write this time of year.  Streamers in the darker hours, craneflies and small nymphs throughout the day.  You shouldn't fish the whole day without at least trying an egg pattern.  My hunch is that the big fish will come out in the open more, especially if they've found a sweetheart to make sweet spawn to already.  Sculpzillas, Barr's cranefly, micromays. Mix it up. 

Right now, it's probably pretty gooey after the big rain.  Pity because the baetis are making fish a bit silly in the racecourse area.  Banker's hours, ending in early afternoon. This is when the water's of fishable clarity, which may be not for a few days.

I'd left my fishing bag at home, and only had a streamer box and a lanyard that were fortunately left in my duffel.  I scrounged some more and found a few splitshot on the floor. I was on the trail before sunrise to Little Arsenic, the mission being to get some fish to bite and be back to the rim before the rest of the gang and kids arrived in the afternoon. My first choice was a yellow Craven's Gonga.  I was all, "Take that fish," and they were all, "yah", and I was all, like, you know?
Awesome morning.  The Gonga, out of which the bejesus was smacked, wasn't getting the hookups too well, so I switched to a white Sculpzilla and began getting some nice browns and quite a few more rainbows than I expected.  Then the sun hit the water, and it was over for streamers, so it was over for me.
At Chiflo the next day, nymphs worked well.  They need to have some flash it seems, or size, and they need to be near the bottom.  Dries didn't perform, I think because the water was a little dirtay.