I shouldn’t complain about the heat. I live in a state where most everywhere is well over 100 degrees while we hover in the high 80’s to low 90’s. Shoot, there are some nights in Phoenix the low barely gets below 100.. But that doesn’t stop the high elevation sun from feeling hot. I don’t know how 85 degrees at 7000 feet feels worse than 100 at lower elevations. Is the sun more intense? Or am I just a wimp in the heat? I blame it on hardly any buildings up here having AC units and having to cool the house the old fashioned way, with the outside.

The so called dog days of summer make trout fishing around me a little less convenient. While I could head out to one of the many tiny desert creeks that hold AZ trout, I do my best to avoid fishing the hot part of the day. To mimic Montana’s “hoot owl” fishing hours. With the goal of minimizing stressing already heat stressed fish. This involves waking up early or driving home late, not a big deal but sometimes the appeal of sleeping in past 5 AM on a weekend overrides my desire to fish.

Luckily there is a creek within 20 minutes that holds some wonderful fish. The problem is short of the Grand Canyon, it’s one of the most visited areas in the state.. The good thing is, it has some incredibly picky, challenging and awesome brown trout.

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The creek doesn’t give these fish up easily. You have to use all your tricks to catch them and that is what keeps me coming back to this fickle stream.

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The best part of summer fishing is the berries. Tasty to eat and make delicious preserves. When the opportunity is there we try to pick bags of them and make them into our “Creek Jam”.

While these may be the dog days of summer, they sure aren’t so bad.