When the Mountains and Canyons are on Fire, Where do you Trout FIsh?

In Pueblo, of course!  With our top fishery, 11 mile canyon closed due to a fire, ironically, the best place to catch big feisty trout right now is the Arkansas River below Pueblo dam.  Yes, Pueblo, the steel city where temperatures are approaching 100 degrees.

Normally, this time of year this fishery would be blown out by high runoff. But not this year; not during this drought.  So while fires rage in the mountains and temperatures sore , the Pueblo dam tail waters flow gently and cool. And the fishing has been spectacular.

With a guided trip being cancelled today, I decided to spend some time fishing with my “other” daughter Sophia, Chloe’s younger sister. We went to Pueblo. It has been years since Sophia has fished but she is a very talented young lady and either remembered the fly fishing skills I taught her when she was young or simply figured it all out again rather quickly. She had 4 hook ups before I had one! She landed one rainbow that was 18-19 inches. We both continued to hook up fish for 2 hours.

Sophia, (her name means ‘wisdom’) is one of those individuals who can think on the edge of the mainstream. When she landed her big fish she was intrigued by the thought of what caused this particular fish to bite. She asked, “Of all the fish in this hole, why did this fish bite”? I did not have an answer to her question. While she was battling another fish she asked me, “I wonder if they know what is going on. I wonder if they can think”?  (when they are hooked). Once again, I did not have an answer for her.

These kinds of questions are very characteristic of my daughter and as I thought about her questions more, I realized that perhaps they are pertinent to ethical issues involved in the protection of trout and particularly during a dry and hot season. Maybe we need to ask ourselves, “What is a trout thinking? Does it know what is going on? What is it thinking and feeling”? (And by extension), “What is a trout feeling and thinking when it is fighting for its life during a drought and rising temperatures?  Does it know what is going on?” 

More importantly, as fly fishers do we know what is going on?

Specifically, do we know the stress that we are putting on fish in these conditions? If we do, then perhaps we should know when enough is enough. We should know when we have caught enough fish. We should know when to stop.

Sophia and I ate a lovely lunch at the Pueblo Nature center at 11:00am. We had caught enough fish. Temperatures were still rising.

It was wise to stop fishing when we did.  It was wisdom that told me to stop.