Father's Day On the Arkansas River (Pueblo's Tail-water)
Faith In the Heat of Summer
When my wife and daughters asked me what I wanted to do for Fathers Day I quickly responded, "Lets go fly fish the Arkansas in Pueblo". Going to Pueblo to fly fish for trout when the temperature was going to be in the 90's seemed to be a bit counter-intuitive. The proposition brought to mind the independent film we just recently watched called, "Salmon Fishing In the Yemen" where by a Sheik has the faith and vision of bringing cold water and salmon to a desert. Those around him think he is crazy. As was shown in this movie, sometimes we have to just throw away our "facts and figures" and have faith. Fishing at least in part is about having faith and hope in the improbable.
My one daughter Sophia had to work so she would not fish today. It would be Chloe and I. It only took Chloe about 10 minutes of nymphing in the "Flag hole" to land a beautiful and strong 20 inch rainbow. We continued to catch a good number of fish on bead-head pheasant tails, chartreuse copper john's, and RS2's. The temperature rose as we approached lunch time. We took off waders and wet waded in sandals.
We then moved down to the nature center and we both wrestled with several large fish which included a rainbow trout that was 22 inches and probably weighed around 6 pounds. On the drive home I continued to reflect upon how strange it was to catch 20 plus inch trout in Pueblo in the cool tail waters of the dam even with the air temperature up in the 90's. It kind of felt like we were fishing in a desert. I thought of a verse from Isaiah, "In this place of which you say, 'It is a waste'... there shall be heard again the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness...the voices of those who sing".
There was gladness and singing all the way home and I could not think of a better way to spend Father's Day.
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