928 Fly Tying
Exploring the 48th state through fly fishing
Northern Promises: Day 2
Day two dawned a little colder and we rolled out to a slow start, more under the mentality of “I’ll wake up when its warm” compared to “First cast before dawn”. Our goal was to fish a high elevation creek, so often times a slow start is the same thing the fish and bugs on the creek are doing.
We drove a winding road through huge stands of aspen with the ground carpeted in neon green grass. What a difference this was from the dry pine forests of home. We came to trail head, or the end of the road, I’m really not sure which it was to be honest. Pretty much it seemed to became to steep to drive a car any further so they ended the road and the trail began. We walked a mile or so under a heavy mixed conifer canopy. This is one of my favorite things to hike through, trees so thick it makes you wonder if the sun ever hits the ground and the eerie calls of woodpeckers piercing the thick cover. The trail began flattening out and we started to hear a steady rushing sound, the creek was near.
The first view of the creek was small stream perfection, grassy banks and plunge pools with gradual runs along under cut banks! Not a doubt what was goin’ on the end of the line, a big, bushy, orange stimulator. One of my favorite flies there is. There is not much better than watching a colored up fish rush up and crush the 2 inch long dry.
My first cast I messed up, the fly line immediately began dragging downstream, didn’t matter. A beautiful brook trout followed it the length of the pool before missing it, it was gonna be a good day. The next cast landed a little better and a different brook darted out from under the bank and swallowed the fly. Shortly after I had the little 9 inch brook in the net, beautifully colored with a bright orange belly.
Kayla began working the next run up. We could see a good sized fish holding low in the fast current. The dry was not enough to get him to the top and we fixed a small prince nymph under it and in short order her rod was bent in half with the fish in some pretty significant current. Luckily the creek was free of logs in this section and she pulled it in to the side.
Her next cast in the same hole had a fish completely annihilate the stimulator. A beautiful fish with an orange belly and more yellow than I’d seen in a brook trout before.
We moved off the creek and continued up to the higher reaches in search of some of the cutthroat trout rumored to live in this drainage. Turns out the rumors were true.
This fish was a stunner, possibly my favorite trout I have had the privilege to land. A fiery red belly and gills paired with a brown/gold back and big spots. The big headed and thick bodied fish plucked the dropper so casually if I hadn’t seen it take it I would not have noticed. I saw the small pheasant tail disappear into the big trouts mouth and was shocked when I felt a weight on the other end of the line. I had seen a few of these in the water and they were very spooky fish. I quickly got the fish into the side and netted and after a few quick photos it rocketed back into the ice cold waters of its home. Somedays you just get lucky and today I definitely felt that I had.
The day was only half over though and we had a lot more water to cover!
The fishing was lights out, a stimulator either floating or sunk caught brooks and cutts with alarming regularity. The tumbling creek and thick forest was incredible with its looks only rivaled by the gems we were catching out of all its little pockets and runs. It seemed wherever our flies hit the water a fish was game for the chase, and the creek held some good sized fish. Almost all in the 6-12 inch range and colored up beautifully.
However in classic high mountain fashion it went from shorts and short sleeve weather to snow in the afternoon. This brief little snow shower had us shivering and was enough to coat my bag in a quarter inch of icy debris.
My last fish of the day was a hard fighting cutthroat that emerged from the edge of some shallow water and bullied some smaller fish trying to eat right out of the way. It was pretty awesome to watch!
What a day.. some of my favorite fish I have ever caught, one of the most fun creeks to toss a fly into. Makes me feel incredibly lucky to live in a country where there are gems like this to be found on our public lands. Not much more you can ask for and about as much fun as you can have waving a stick around in the woods.
Northern Promises
This trip has been coming for quite a while. I have been planning on coming to this area pretty much since I found out research and fly fishing were one in the same. I have probably combed over this area on Google Earth for hours and spent even more time reading old stocking reports and fish studies, the Shangri-La of southwestern trout fishing (in my opinion) with hundreds of lakes and streams spread across a relatively small and accessible area, and I had finally been able to get a trip together, the excitement was very real!
I had convinced Kayla and Ryan to join me on this trip and spend their holiday weekend in pursuit of trout. We left after work on a Friday afternoon and sped off into the high desert of northern Arizona. As we approached the the AZ/Utah border we had a decision to make, we could continue the conventional route (167 miles) or take a “shortcut” (46 miles). With just those numbers it seems an obvious choice however the shorter route was lacking pavement, but if it was a nice dirt road would save us an hour or so. We decided on the dirt road, topped off the tank in Page and headed off into the desert!
The road was good for the most part and we were racing the sun through an amazing canyon. The walls almost constantly changing and the road wove between giant fins of rock like the vertebrae of some massive animal half buried in the ground. Before long it was dark, but a full moon kept the area illuminated and threw wild shadows off of the canyon walls. Other than quite a few cows (thinking we were the feed truck), countless jack rabbits and one pair of dog walkers we had the road to ourselves and made good time.
It seemed like no time at all and we were in a grove of aspen setting up a hasty camp and going to bed. On a side note the shortcut actually worked and we saved about 45 minutes! The next morning we were greeted by sunlight filtered through aspen leafs and a little creek tumbling down the valley. One look at the creek showed there to be fish in it, but it was not what we were after. I had a goal of catching some Colorado River Cutthroats in their native waters and we drove just around the corner to a little tributary.
The flow was not quite clear and the brush thick but those are often the best waters. We rigged up a variety of dry flies and pushed into the brush. It wasn’t long before Kayla shouted she had caught a fish! Always good to get on the board early, it was a beautiful little 8 inch cutt that had taken the dropper.
Shortly after Kayla got her first fish I was on the board with my first of the trip. I must have missed 5 or 6 fish in the little pocket I was fishing before hooking my first fish. The very thick undergrowth and fast current was giving me a heck of a time. The fish I managed to land was very pale, but seemed to match the sandy creek bottom almost perfectly.
Shortly after we decided to drive to the next area we wanted to fish, a lake which was a short mile and a half hike off the main roadway. Upon reaching the trailhead we found that the hike would be a little longer than expected, mainly because it was straight uphill the whole way. But the worse the trail, the better the fishing! Right?
After finishing the relatively short be steep trail we came to a clearing in the aspens, a perfectly still lake with little rings popping off everywhere! I was the only one who had left a rod set up and immediately began fishing the same dry-dropper set up I had in the morning. In short order I had caught a few little brook trout and a small cutthroat! What a pleasant surprise, everything I had read about the area said this was brook trout only lake but we ended up with a third of our fish being cutthroats. The fish had yet to take the dry but seemed to love the red pheasant tail suspended about 8 inches under the surface.
Ryan and Kayla had taken a different strategy than the dry dropper, they had just gone straight to the leech and man did it work. They both set out around the lake stripping their flies along the weedy edges and before too long Ryan gave a shout he was on a big brooky. As soon as I got over to him from the opposite side of the lake Kayla gives a shout she had caught another big brook, looks like its time to switch to the leech! I had limited success on the leech but enjoyed a gorgeous afternoon at this mountain lake.
The whole mountain seemed to be coming alive after winter with so many swallows around the lake they had us worried we may accidentally hook one. Late in the afternoon we even had a show when a Peregrine came rocketing through the air looking for a swallow lunch only to be disappointed by the agile little birds. The lake also held the most snakes I have seen in a spot for some time, it seemed every 100 feet or so one of them would spook from the lake edge.
After a stellar afternoon fishing we headed back to camp talking a little bit in awe of how well the lake had just fished. Camp was wonderful, with a nice calm evening and a few brook trout for dinner (at the urging of DNR, too many brook trout in a lake makes for tiny, unhealthy fish). A full day of fishing high mountain lakes, good company, and some well seasoned fish for dinner, tomorrow has its work cut out for it to top the day we just had.
Hard Sayin’ Not Knowin’
Bass fishing is not something I’ve done a lot of. Often they were not what I was targeting, but they were there. Don’t get me wrong I was happy to catch the occasional 6 inch bass, however I had never gone after a full sized bass, large or small mouthed. That changed this spring when a friend and I decided to venture to a spot his friend had let him in on. His friend hadn’t been in years and we really were not sure what we’d find. Good water, bad water, a mud puddle or a deep pool. At first we couldn’t even figure out how to get there, completely blocked in by private land we wove our way around ranchettes until we found the sweetest sight in fishing/hunting: “Entering USFS Public Lands”. At this point we knew we were in. Where the road ended looked like a popular party spot for the locals and the evidence lay strewn around the banks, or it was a bud light spawning ground.
We headed away from the parking lot, heading towards a (hopefully) lesser trafficed area. The day did not get off to a fast start, the biggest thing I caught was a fairly massive bull frog tadpole while Nelson managed a little smally. A good sign the fish we were targeting were actually here!
We moved down towards some deeper water and Nelson managed to get into a good sized (bigger than we expected from the area) largemouth hiding by some reeds.
Now that we knew the area harbored some larger fish we excitedly moved on. We poked through some shallower water and located a good sized smallmoth feeding behind a rock and Nelson was kind enough to give me a shot at my first fish of the day. I cast my popper directly into the reeds around the rocks and got stuck. The bass was still there though. Nelson dropped a crawfish imitation just upstream of it and it was on! Two big jumps and a spit fly.. So it goes, but what an exciting fight! We moved further along and found a drop off into some deeper water and began prospecting for some fish. As my fly was sinking a smallmouth darted out and inhaled the fly! Two strong runs and a few jumps later and I had it to shore! First fish of the trip for me and a dandy at that!
A beautiful bronze-green fish with bright red eyes that fought like crazy, these were some fish I could keep chasing. We continued fishing the drop and Nelson spotted a tailing fish heading his way (carp?!). As it got closer we realized it was a very sizable large mouth tailing along and sipping off the surface. Odd behavior, but we didn’t stop to contemplate the complexities of bass behavior, and he cast the crawdad right in front of the fish’s path. It didn’t disappoint and swallowed the fly. As soon as it started though the bass turned its head and almost contemptuously snapped the line and slowly swam into the depths of its home. Disappointed to have lost the fish but excited to have gotten an eat from such a quality fish we pushed on. As we moved on we were able to sight fish to some truly incredible fish in some occasionally very shallow water, the only “problem” was getting the bass before an adventurous sunfish could grab the fly. I mean any sized fly, and these were not subtle nibbles, these sunfish slammed streamers longer than them and headed for the depths.
This fork tailed smally was a blast to catch, with Nelson casting and me hiding near the fish in some brush guiding his cast in until BAM! The fish crushed the streamer and began a wild jumping run before being corralled to shore. This area was beginning to be a pain to walk in but the fishing continued improving, the thick reeds, steep edges and copious thorny plants were all worth it for fish like these.
The fishing continued to be almost nonstop as we pushed further into the area.
It was one of those days where you could break off on a fish, and five casts later catch your fish and the fly back. No joke it actually happened!
This day was one of those you get but only once every year or two. Good fish, in a good spot and some good company. Not much more you can ask for, one of those areas that really makes you wonder if that day was real, or just a good dream.
A Downward Scramble
The canyon has a couple of “windows” where hiking and camping aren’t completely heinous. Spring and fall are the best windows with a couple of warm days in the winter thrown into the mix. As the days start getting longer, the call of the canyon starts to hit. If you have spent time in the canyons seemingly infinite amount of backcountry you get the “itch” every time the weather windows line up. The curiosity to check the next canyon over or the spot you hiked past last time. This trip was down a side canyon I had consistently driven past on my way to other canyon objectives. I had driven past not necessarily because this spot was any less interesting, but more so because it seemed like it was always there, so close it was easy to say “I’ll get that one next year”.
Next year became this year, which became today, we geared up to head down canyon, with the promise of a nice sunny day (ignoring that 30% chance of rain in the forecast). The drive up was easy and it looked like it would be a busy day at Lee’s Ferry, all the more reason to enjoy a nice side canyon all to ourselves. Upon arrival at the trailhead we did a final check (did I actually pack my reel and flies?) and headed out. The beginning of the canyon starts in a wide and sandy wash that rapidly transitions into pour overs and broken rock. This canyon is incredibly active, huge sections of walls crumbling off and some truly massive flows of sediment pass through it on a regular basis.
We picked our way through the rock and debris from past floods and land slides. The saying that canyon miles are actually 2 regular miles was never more true than in this canyon. After some pretty consistent down climbing and scrambling, with the middle half mile of the trail seemingly more vertical than horizontal we got to a “flatter” section of canyon. The walking got a little easier and we could move in a generally straight line.
The bottom section of the canyon had a tiny spring that moved along it, the flow in it similar to turning on the bathroom sink. The edges of the creek were an incredibly slick mud covered in a thick crust of salt. A few little salt cedars clung to the edges of the tiny creek but other than that it was a very desolate and hot spot. The 80 degree high felt like it was on the edge of triple digits and we were very glad we could hear the roar of the river echoing up the canyon.
At the end of the was was beautiful little sandy beach surrounded by boulders and any thoughts of fishing were quickly lost in the thought of cooling off in the clear water. We may have run into the water but quickly stopped, it felt icy cold! Standing in the water up to your knees was more than enough to seemingly instantly cool off.
A short bit of exploration revealed the eddy around the rocks at the beach were filled with fish, some smaller fish even rising while the big ones stuck to the depths.
We rushed to tie on some flies and started fishing. I put a pistol pete on the end of some sinking line and began casting to the edge of the current. The first cast I felt a bobble, bottom or fish? The second cast was definitely a fish and I saw a brief flash of silver before it was off of the hook. The third cast I had one on long enough to get a jump before it spit the hook and on the fourth cast I finally set the hook (I suck at strip setting the hook, I always try and lift the rod tip to early) and landed a beautiful little wild fish.
The little fish had some brilliant colors and still had par marks on it, its always good to see the young wild fish are healthy. We continued casting into the whole with lots of hits on the bugger and a few more fish landed.
I had hooked into quite a few smaller, but fun, fish before finally hooking into a larger fish. This bow fought hard across the eddy with 5 or 6 athletic jumps before it spit the hook (the curse of barbless hooks). The next cast into the same spot yielded another strong pull, after a good fight I had the fish in close to shore and on its first jump it showed off the deep red sides of a spawning Colorado River rainbow trout. While I was admiring the colors on the jumping fish it spit the hook and I had to duck as it shot straight at my head. I was really questioning why I tied a barbless hook at this point but at the same time the take and the fight are the best parts of fishing and I got that in spades with these last two fish. Also other than the glory shot picture I really didn’t miss much with my last two long distance releases ( I’m a pro at the long distance release unfortunately).
I fished upstream to above the rapid and picked my way through a couple little riffles along the bank. It was some beautiful looking water. Fortunately the trout agreed.
Kayla also managed some fish on her indicator set up with the fish keying in on tiny midges. The fight on a tiny midge is always an interesting thing, a small hook, a strong acrobatic fish and powerful current equals a tough fight almost every time.
The sun always sets early in the canyon, with some spots slipping into shadow in the afternoon, while other angles stay light for hours longer. The long slide into twilight is always a beautiful time in the canyon and this was no different, even if it was starting to get more than a little windy. The fishing died down as the sun set and we moved towards setting up camp (a tarp on the sand).
Once the sun had fully set and the canyon was filled with a blue light, we began hearing thunder rumble and see the occasional flash up towards the Vermillion Cliffs. “Maybe the rain will stay up on the high country”, “Wasn’t it only a 30% chance of rain”? All of these statements were rebuffed as soon as we got ready to cook dinner, I mean as soon as the food came out, the wind blasted in to camp swirling sand into everyones dinner. Thirty seconds later was when the real bummer happened, a wall of rain could be seen advancing up canyon in the evening gloom, further illuminated by flashes of lighting (monsoons don’t happen in April, right?). We quickly wrapped all out sleeping bags in tarps and huddled underneath a slightly overhung boulder, which means we only got slightly rained on. Sitting under the boulder allowed us to enjoy the show, lighting forking down at the river, illuminating canyon walls and swirling rain. The rain lasted for a little over an hour, leaving us crouched behind our boulder, laughing at the ridiculousness of it all. Luckily the clouds blew by and we were treated to an incredibly clear and starry night. The temperatures in the 50’s were perfect to sleep in once we got dry and despite how it started, it ended up being a good night to be out under the stars.
We woke early the next morning and threw a few half hearted casts in to the spots we had fished the evening before, with one fish on and off as quickly as it was on. Probably for the best, because if the fishing had been good we wouldn’t have left until it was too hot anyways! On our way out we found a few rocks to climb to relax and break up the hike out. Going back up the rock falls is always easier than coming down and we were back at the car before noon.
Once again the canyon was pretty incredible, not often you can fish for hungry trout in a setting like that, the only hard part about it is staying focused on the water and not looking around all day!
No Naming Names
Some spots are better left unnamed. Actually I’ll rephrase that, almost every spot is best left unnamed. These tiny desert creeks and trickles that spill out of Arizona’s high country are best when they have to be found. The rewards magnified by hours spent pouring over google maps and old game and fish reports. That is one of my favorite parts of fishing in Arizona, that there is no guarantee of fish in the creek or even water in the creek bed. Arizona creek fishing still has an air of discovery about it that I feel some other states lack. There aren’t fly shops that know every creek here, or lines of fisherman waiting to fish their favorite spot. There is still solitude in trying to find water in Arizona and my favorite spots have been places where not another fisherman was seen on the day, or maybe for that week, or even that month.
This little creek is one of those spots. We left early on a spring morning and drove to the edge of the small canyon we would be hiking into. The hike in was easy down a set of overgrown switchbacks that hinted at a hot return hike out. The canyon wall we walked in was covered in mahogany barked manzanitas and every few steps brought the rustle of lizards fleeing our footsteps.
We quickly reached the bottom of the canyon and saw the little trickle that awaited us. It looked perfect. By that I mean Arizona perfect, around 1 cfs and covered in logs, sticks and overhanging branches. Surrounded by blackberries and wild rose. This creek would have very few easy casts and the walking would be slow, but that’s what makes these creeks my favorite.
Despite our better judgement we jumped immediately into fishing which contradicted an earlier plan to walk to the bottom end of the canyon and work our way up. What can I say, I was excited to see if the creek had fish! I started out with a parachute adams and got nothing in the first few pools. We moved down and spotted out first fish of the day, a little trout looking fish hiding next to a rock in a large (for the creek) pool. My first two casts didn’t even get a glance from the mystery fish. My third cast the dry fly sank and all of the sudden it was on, three fish fought for the sunken fly. It was time to switch it up and go sub surface. I tied on a mini simi and cast back into the pool, I had 3 fish on in as many casts but all three slipped the hook as soon as I tried to set it. On to the next pool I guess.
The next pool had three small fish suspended in the current at the head of the pool. I cast in front of them and began jigging my fly back towards the bank, all of the sudden the small fish scattered and a larger one darts out and grabs the leech! The first fish of the day was far larger than what I expected to find in the creek but by no means a monster. Still it had good colors and a toothy mouth for a small fish!
At this point we decided to go back to our original plan and start at the bottom and fish up, as fun as walking in blackberries and spooking all the fish was. We decided to start from the bottom, with renewed confidence that fish were biting.
We got to the end of our hike and Kayla started fishing a small pool that turned into a pretty fun spot to watch. Everytime her fly hit the water two or three little rainbows would fly up at it and inevitably miss the fly. This continued for a while before the larger residents began showing interests. In this little pool, around the size of a bath tub, she must have had a hit for 15 or so casts in a row. It was incredible, the bite was on and the fish were very hungry. One of the fish that came from this pool was a very dark colored rainbow, it seems when there is no consistent stocking you get a wide range of coloration and some of them can be pretty unique as they adapt to their environment.
The fishing continued to be good and the dry fly bite really took off around noon. Every likely looking corner of water would yield a strike it seemed.
Each fish brought to hand from this creek seemed to have a slightly different color and spotting pattern to it, just another reason to appreciate little waters that don’t get stocked any longer.
My best fish of the day came as a surprise when I cast a dry to the backside of a boulder. I couldn’t see the fly but I was waiting to see a ripple and hopefully it wouldn’t be too late to set the hook. The ripple came and I lifted my rod, there was a weight on the end and the weight did its best to swim back under the rock it had come from. I jumped to the other side of the creek and was able to pull the fish out from its hiding place. This fish had great color and was an energetic fighter.
We watched four fish rise in the pool above for a few minutes before sneaking up to the bottom edge. The fish didn’t seem to notice and continued gorging on the mayflies and little black stone flies that were on the waters surface, the first cast landed and two fish ran right at it! Both missed. The second cast was a different story and the “big one” in the pool inhaled the royal wulff.
We had fished our way back to the trail out of the canyon and it was a wonderful day, fish on drys and mini jigged streamers is a wonderful way to supplement a hike in Arizona’s beautiful back country!
Tying The AZ No-Slip Ant
This fly isn’t pretty and its list of materials are far from a romantic dry fly, but it floats like a cork and looks realistic. Ants are a favorite fly of mine to use because they don’t often “hatch” but they are always out on every creek in the summer. The hardest part of fishing an ant fly is the mix of buoyancy, visibility and realism. The thinner the ant, the more realistic. The thinner the ant, the harder it is to see and keep floating. To make the ant visible and to make it float, it turns into more of a beetle than an ant. Enter the AZ No-Slip ant. A madam X style parachute with legs and the body of Ken’s Crazy Ant. The foam body makes for a very easy tie and just about every fly is improved with some orange rubber legs. The body is made of a drawer liner cut into segments. The beauty of it is it allows you to tie all the way down to a size 18 or up to a 12 using the same body material!
Materials
- Size 14-18 dry fly hook, the wider the gap the better
- Drawer foam liner (whatever color you want but I like black)
- Rubberlegs (black or orange)
- Synthetic fur for the paachute post
- Size 14 dry fly hackle, grizzly dun or brown
While not the prettiest thing to tie, this ant imitation seems to do well and is very visible despite its small “footprint” on the water. Plus it seems every fish in Arizona likes some orange rubber legs!
Happy tying and tight lines!!
A Pilgrimage of Sorts
Arizona is home to more fish than it ever gets credit for. The ones everyone knows are the endangered Humpback Chub and of course our two native trout species, the Apache and the Gila. However AZ is home to many underrated “non-game” fish that will give you more than you expect if you are lucky enough to hook one.
One of those species is the roundtail chub, often considered a by-catch when searching for trout. I will admit, the first time I caught a chub I was searching for trout. I began by floating a dry towards a few rainbows in a remote (and tiny) creek along the rim. However I could not ever get the fly to the trout, not because the cast was difficult or the current seams challenging, but because these voracious, plainly colored fish would slam it as soon as it hit the water. So it began, a trip for trout that turned into a trip for chub.
Chub aren’t the prettiest fish in the creek, they do not have flashy sides like a trout, or even the bright yellow bellies of a sucker. While John Gierach said that a trout is prettier than it needs to be and that’s what captures a fisherman’s imagination. Someone who has never caught a trout can look at a picture of one and be impressed by the color and look of the fish. The chub plays no such games, all its colors are just enough. Tan to darker green/tan upper bodies and white bellies. However this is when you need to pay more attention, the tops of these native fish are flecked with gold. The base of their fins, an almost bright orange. And they hit dry flies, small streamers and nymphs with a reckless abandon.
My addiction did not begin as a rush, or as soon as I caught my first fish. But instead started as a slow itch in the back of my mind. I went back to that same creek, telling myself it was for trout. Even half heartedly looking for a few rainbows, but really looking for the multitude of chub this creek hides. After another afternoon of near constant hook ups, spirited fights and dull colored chub. I was well and truly addicted.
Most recently I made my pilgrimage to the heart of Arizona’s chub fishing. No, I would argue to the heart of chub fishing in the world. Blue green waters, fish everywhere and solitude one can only find in the desert. I won’t name names, but this place is not hard to figure out from the pictures if you’ve been before. It was a place I’d been to many times in the summer, but never during fishing season.
We left Flagstaff on a chilly morning and headed down to the desert. The dirt road takes you on a winding, up and down journey through some incredible high desert. As you near the last ridge you can look down and see a little ribbon of green in the bottom of the valley, with the white, bony branches of leafless sycamores rising above the other vegetation. With some helpful tips from Lesser Places who knows this creek and chub fishing better than most, we rigged up our rods and began
We began about halfway up the fishable section of creek, parking our car in the abandoned (usually packed full in the summer) parking lot. We started fishing upriver with no luck or even sight of a fish in the crystal clear water. One thing I had forgotten about this creek was how thick the edges of it are, and how hard it is to get a good cast out! I had probably lost around 8 flies in the surrounding trees or to the travertine bottom of the creek before I’d ever even seen a fish!
After a few hours laboring upstream through heavy brush. I finally got a bite, no tugged along the bottom, maybe a bite? I’m calling it a bite! The next cast through the same area yielded the same results a slight bump, this time when I pulled it in though there was a tiny cub on the line! This little guy broke the skunk and the next 7 cast resulted in 5 fish out of this plunge pool.
The fish in this pool were so aggressive they chased a small size 10 deer hair “streamer” through the pool and a few even slammed into it!
As we were wrapping up fishing in this pool a group in pack rafts came down the creek. We watched them drop off the lip of the pool and into the next plunge pool, maybe an idea for next time?
The next pool up was a similar result, lots of small fish and one or two larger! Kayla was pulling fish out of this pool on the order of nearly every cast. We could see one or two larger shapes resting towards the bottom of the pool, however it was tricky to get past the smaller residents. Finally, Kayla managed to slip the fly through the mob of hungry little fish and connected with one of the pools larger residents. A short fight and the largest fish of the day was in! While not huge, or even big by anyones standards, it was good to see a fish with a little more size on it!
The final hour of the day had some incredible fishing in it. Crystal clear water with fish lined up along every seam in a 3D pattern both horizontally along the water and down to the bottom of the pool. Darkness started coming too quickly and we headed back to cars.
