This is Great News for Colorado Fishermen !
For warm-water enthusiasts, keeping an eye on weather patterns becomes especially important in the fall. Passing fronts, followed by returns to warm days, can quite literally bring more ups and downs than usual, and fishermen who adjust their tactics accordingly will improve their odds for success. This is Great News for Colorado Fishermen !
The pattern will prevail through early fall, but the season is fleeting. When water temperatures approach the mid-50s, the shad activity pretty much is finished. Fish become progressively less active and return to deeper water for ever-longer periods.
Trout fishermen also keep an eye on the changing seasons. Though the main summer hatches are pretty much finished, blue-wing-olive mayflies have reappeared on many streams. Fly fishermen still enjoy excellent action on hoppers and other patterns that suggest terrestrial insects, but that will end with the first heavy frosts of the season. Midges will provide most of the activity later in the year.
The Colorado Division of Wildlife (DOW) will soon take to the skies in an effort to boost the state’s cutthroat trout populations. very year DOW pilots fly specially modified Cessna 185s to many of Colorado’s high mountain lakes as part of the effort to stock fish to enhance conservation cutthroat populations and create recreational angling. This year 325,000 1.5-2 inch cutthroat trout will be stocked by air. The Colorado River, Greenback and Rio Grande strains of cutthroat will be stocked in 284 lakes.
Flying these stocking missions can be difficult and take a tremendous amount of skill on the part of the well-trained DOW pilots. Many of the lakes are located in high mountain bowls where space is tight and wind currents are unpredictable.
To stock the fish successfully, the plane has to be 125 feet or lower to the surface of the water in order for the fish not to dry out before they hit the surface of the lake. The typical speed of the air craft at the time of the drop is approximately 85 mph. There is a hopper located on the belly of the plane that the pilots can load from a specially designed tank fitted for the aircraft in the back seat. At precisely the correct time the pilot pushes a button on the yoke and the fish and water are released. The planes can stock up to nine bodies of water in one trip. All DOW planes have the DOW seal painted on the outside of the plane and are white with orange/red markings.
Posted by:
Jeffery McClintock
Categories:
Recreation
Mountain Living
