What Happened to Denver?

I weekended in Denver this last weekend before a work trip out to New York this week. And what else is there to do in Denver than fish? Well, certainly lots of stuff but fish are on my brain lately, probably because of the looming summertime that keeps faltering in Portlandia. With fish on the brain I had to think of places to go chase fish around, and those places are aplenty. 

The plan was to hit up some northern pike at the Arsenal Saturday morning, then go in search of some carp in the chemical-smelling Denver South Platte in the afternoon. Sunday was going to be something in and around Boulder, quite possibly my old home waters. Then I looked at the weather. Snow, and possibly quite a lot of it. Excuse me Denver, don't you know that it's May now? And not even early May. It should be 65 degrees, sunny, and just generally awesome. I should want to get out on my bike, not hunkered down in front of a heating vent.

Well, Saturday worked out all right, to start at least. We headed out to the Arsenal at O-dark hundred, paid our $3 and went to find a spot to try and toss flies into the lake over or through the cattails since there is no wading there until the end of the month. The fishing was a little slow, but only because I'm comparing to when you can wade and fish huge portions of the lake in an hour rather than fishing one little narrow section for 45 minutes straight before giving up and moving on. Either that or combat fish from the damn and I have no interest in combat fishing.

I managed to nearly catch one early, but in a spot where there was virtually no chance of bringing the fish in through 20 feet of cattails and other weeds. Why fish there? Cause it looked like a fishy spot, regardless of the impossibility of landing a fish. A little while later I did manage a fairly tiny pike to at least wipe the skunk off for the day.

And that pretty much ended the decent weather for the trip. The rains rolled in and ruined our chances for catching carp out of the South Platte, although we still tried. The next day was snowy and cold. And mother's day. Nonetheless a few hours out at the Arsenal and a few more fish occurred to finish off what could have been a bust of a fishing weekend. Instead it ended up being pretty fun since there aren't many fish more enjoyable to fish for and to catch than pike. I don't know what it is about them, but they are a blast. A mix of aggression and elusivity I suppose, along with the intrigue of newness since I have never really fished for them until recently.