Weekend Warriors
July 15, 2016
Happy Friday Everyone! Just returned from a nice walk along the river from the Trumbull fire house, up to the wire in Decker’s. It was a much warmer early morning today with temps already in the 50’s when I left at 5:30. It’s going to be another hot weekend here in the valley, but more on the impact of the heat a little later. The current flow out of Cheesman is 169 (cfs) and 229 (cfs) in Trumbull, putting Decker’s, from what I saw this morning, at about 180 or 190 (cfs). The big difference I noticed this morning from yesterday, was the return of the BWO’S. I saw a few sporadically along the walk to Decker’s, but upon my return home,at about 9:30, I saw a large hatches about six feet above the water, along the banks of the second bridge and downriver through Trumbull. On my walk this morning I also saw several fish rising on the early morning dries that haven’t been so present the last two mornings . I spoke with two Anglers this morning that were both having similar success with a Black Beauty trailing a grey RS-2. Last night I had good success throwing a two-bug rig with a size #20 Hares-ear and trailing a size #18 brown RS-2. I took both the fish I caught in faster water on the smaller of the two bugs. Looking into the weekend, I think the heat is going to bring on the hatch, however, we are now only getting the cooler water off the bottom of the reservoir instead of the spill-over water, which carries a higher temperature. Aquatic insect that haven’t reached the adult stage require a specific cumulative thermal regimen to attain maturity. This is customarily measured in degree-days. Without getting too crazy technical, each day the water temperature averages above the minimum threshold for growth, an aquatic insect living in it is considered to accumulate the number of degree-days by which the average temperature exceeds that threshold. For example, if the threshold were 34 degrees, and the average water temperature for the day were 39 degrees, any immature insect in that water would have accumulated 5 degree-days. So, if a particular species were to require 500 degree-days of cumulative thermal regimen in order to attain maturity, it would require 100 days at that average temperature to do so. Of course it would be nice if there were a cumulative degree-days requirement published for every insect, but most of the data provided pertains to the life-cycle of terrestrial insects. If you would like to read more about the temperature effects on trout, please check out this link http://www.troutnut.com/topic/1297/Water-temperature-effect. It’s going to be another busy weekend on the South Platte River, so make sure to stop in the Decker’s Country Store and South Platte River Cabins to pick up all the necessities for your weekend with us!! Visit http://www.southplatterivercabins.com to reserve your cabin today! Well, that’s it for now folks! Heading out to fish a little later this evening and will be reporting again soon! Have a great day and be safe out there!!
Chris
