Antonio was able to send me over some other pictures of this past weekend from his camera. Always kind of interesting seeing a trip from someone else’s point of view.
Wet Wading in April...Only in Arizona (photo courtesy of Antonio)
First pool. Looking at this picture, I’m pretty sure I had already lost my net at this point. It would not be a typical day unless I lost or broke something. The fly shop loves me…
Rainbow (photo courtesy of Antonio)
Gorgeous creek residents with bright colors and dark spots. I won’t complain when the day is filled with such beautiful fish.
Haircut? (photo courtesy of Antonio)
I must have pulled 6 or 7 fish out of this tiny little undercut until this guy charged my fly and splashed the hole so bad he scared everything in there. One of the more unique fish of the day with some interesting spotting. (Same fish pictured below)
Absolutely love this one... (photo courtesy of Antonio)
Don’t know how you do this, but it sure is cool.
Mayfly (photo courtesy of Antonio)
We saw a bunch of insect life on this stream, showing just how rich of an environment these fish are living in. There were some very big mayfly on the banks and on the water. Fish were not shy about coming to the surface for a well placed fly.
My favorite setup (photo courtesy of Antonio)
I love fishing this 3 weight TFO Finesse and the new Orvis Battenkill has been working out wonderfully. There should be a review on the reel by the end of the summer after I put it through the paces.
Saturday morning started early as I drove to meet up with a new friend (and now, good buddy) to fish some new water on the Rim. Antonio is a Arizona native and has a great knowledge and even bigger passion for fly fishing in Arizona. We made short work of the hike while bushwacking to the water and after a couple of pools started connecting with some beautiful wild rainbows with the occasional brown sprinkled in.
Everyone loves the mini-hopper
The water was a tad off color which made sneaking close to pools pretty simple. I kept things pretty basic with a mini-hopper and an ice-dubbed pheasant tail. Fishing the good looking pocket water, produced fish after fish and pretty soon it was tough to keep track.
Antonio and Rainbow
Antonio showed his experience by bringing many fish to hand with his “secret streamer.” Truth be told, I really only got one look at it is the early morning when the lighting was not that good, so I could not tell you what it looks like. I think that’s the way he would want it. (Just kidding Antonio.) It really was a great time fishing and getting to know a fisherman who has the same kind of passion for putting miles on the boots and getting back into some beautiful country.
Arizona Brown Trout
Only a few browns came out to play which was surprising. Considering the color of the water and the fact that streamers were being thrown, we were hoping for a shot at the big boys, but it never happened.
Antonio showing off the slingshot cast...
Much of the creek was tight quarter fishing which called for adaptation and patience.
Injured Rainbow
This guy has probably seen better days. As I was playing him to release, the bright red caught my eye. The wound looked fairly fresh and I hope the little guy makes it.
Rainbow Trout
The day started off fairly overcast and it was a coin flip whether the sun was going to break through the clouds at all. By midday the clouds were gone and the canyon started to heat up. There were some huge mayflies in the air and a few steady hatches taking place on the water. The stream meandered and eventually we ended up in some pretty rugged country.
End of the Road
We were ultimately forced to turn back as the way forward was passable, but extremely gnarly and rugged. It definitely put a fire in both our fishermen souls to head back with the proper gear to go farther in to this beautiful country. Arizona never ceases to amaze me with all its diverse landscape.
Rim Stream Rainbow
There truly is no better way than to truly get to know someone than by fishing with them. After a phenomenal meal of Mexican food topped off with a well deserved Dairy Queen, we moved quickly through the changing desert landscape back to Phoenix. Shaking hands as we parted ways, it will not be long till we are headed back up to fish some of this wild water.
The original Hopper Juan fly was developed by Juan Ramirez from Colorado Springs. When I first started thinking about getting into fly tying, there were two flies that really got me excited to learn, the parachute Adams and the Hopper Juan. Juan’s pattern can be found on his site, the Hopper Juan, with a detailed recipe and material list. I really like this pattern and have had great success with it. I recently tied up a batch for a fly swap on a local forum and was asked for the recipe. The bugs I tied were a variation of the original Hopper Juan. Here is my variation:
Materials
1. Foam – 2-3 colors – bottom, top, indicator (the 2mm stuff from the craft store works just fine)
2. Thread – I like the thread to match the top layer and I really like to use 6/0 Uni-Thread
3. Dubbing – I prefer the Hare-Tron Dubbin, but anything will work
4. Deer Hair
5. Super Glue
6. Leg material
7. Something sparkly for the underwing – I use Krystal Flash because that is what I have…
Step 1
Take your bottom piece of foam cut in a 1/4 inch wide strip. Pierce it onto the hook shank.
Step 2
Tie on thread and secure the bottom layer of foam to at the back of the hook. Add a drop of superglue right on the thread and foam.
Step 3
Tie in top foam with 3-4 wraps.
Step 4
Open those two pieces of foam up and wind thread forward. This takes some forward thinking because ultimately you are going to have three body segments ahead of you. Make sure you space it evenly so that all the segments are the same size.
Step 5
Secure bottom layer of foam with a couple of wraps and drop a dab of superglue in the cup-like area that you just created. Then tie in the top layer.
Step 6
Repeat until you reach just behind the eye of the hook. Firmly secure the bottom layer of foam.
Step 7
Carefully and as close as you can, cut the bottom layer of foam and cover the extra foam with thread wraps.
Step 8
Tie in the top layer but do not cut it.
Step 9
Wrap back to the last body segment with one cross wrap. this is usually the best time to trim the tail. (I have no idea if the tail should be cut like this, but I think it makes it look nice…)
Step 10
Note: At this point, all the rest of your material will be tied in at this point. Try to limit the amount of wraps because it will get bulky real quick.
Tie in Krystal Flash (or whatever other flash material you have).
Step 11
Tie in deer hair.
Step 12
Trim and had dubbing. (Dubbing hides a multitude of sins…)
Step 13
Add your legs. Right here I add one more drop of glue in the dubbing and on the exposed foam.
Step 14
Bring back your top layer of foam and secure with 1-2 wraps then add in a very thin piece of bright foam as your indicator. You can whip finish right there in the foam or you can take the thread back up to the eye of the hook. I think the whip finish in the foam works just fine. Trim foam.
Finished ProductBottom View
What you have is a bullet-proof bug that will float all day, catch fish, and act as an indicator for any dropper you throw underneath it. A quality fly created by a quality tier. I have tied up a bunch and look forward to throwing these on the Deschutes during my upcoming trip. Thanks Juan for a great bug.
Spent a beautiful Saturday morning hitting some of the local Phoenix water with a couple good buddies. I returned to the spot I had fished last weekend where only a small bass came to hand and a large carp mocked me after spitting my fly. My goal was to rectify the situation.
Hookup
As stated in the last post, this area has numerous ponds that contain the usual suspects of bluegill and bass, along with some assorted carp and koi. I found success in the first pond and solidly hooked up with a white koi (I believe). The tug on the end of my fly line was heavy and after 5 or 10 minutes, the white ghost came to the net. This was my first roughfish brought to hand and it gave a good workout to the 5 weight.
The White Ghost (Speak up if you know what kind of fish this is. I'm guessing Koi?)
We kept working the pond, but the barking dogs in the yards behind us became too annoying and we switched over to another stretch of water. Jake and I continued to fish together and spotted several feeding bass and carp out in front of us. With a well presented wooly bugger, Jake latched into the big fish of the day. A huge carp began taking line and after Jake played him for about 15 minutes, the fish began to tire. As the fish came closer to shore, it appeared to be ready to be netted, but as soon as it reached the surface it took one look at us, bolted, and snapped the line.
Jake Hooked Up
We kept fishing and I spotted a brighter orange fish tailing in the shallow water in the middle of the pond. I cast ahead of the feeding fish and watched as the dancing green simi-seal leech was sucked into the vacuum cleaner of a mouth. Fish on and the line raced off the reel. I worked the fish over for a good period of time and Jake helped with the netting although the small trout net did not do us much good.
Let's keep the comments focused on what type of fish this is, instead of on my farmer's tan...
Again, I am not an expert on carp and which species of fish is which. Any help is greatly appreciated. I will say that this fish stank like nothing I have ever smelled before. Instead of a fish stink, it smelled like something from the bottom of a dumpster out back of a Chinese restaurant. It was so bad, that I switched my rig and did not attempt to catch another carp all day.
Brownlining
My buddy Jason was working a separate pond and found a big Koi willing to take his fly. After a long fight that took him halfway around the pond, this big boy finally conceded.
Carpapalooza (photo courtesy of Jason Jones)
There were a few other hookups, but the bass bite was slow. We saw a few cruisers but nothing that we were throwing appeared to peak any interest. I got one more tug and found a feisty bluegill on the other end. All the fish caught today came on a green simi-seal bugger with a orange glass bead. Between the geese poop and barking dogs, the area lacks a certain pristine beauty when compared to the trout streams to the north. On the same note, I am not complaining about a fish on the end of my line, especially one that takes line off the reel.
Bluegill
Any insight into what type of fish I was catching is greatly appreciated…
I decided to take some time out of the fishing and fly tying to again highlight one of my main support pillars here at Arizona Wanderings. At the start of Arizona Wanderings I chose to use the basic and neatly packaged and simple to use wordpress.com software.
Joel Smith – Climber, Philosopher, & Coder
As the site began to grow larger and the needs of Arizona Wanderings was not being met by wordpress.com, I turned to my brother, Joel Smith, at J.Sumner Designs to help me out. By turning the technical reigns over to him, he took my thoughts and goals for Arizona Wanderings and turned it in to the masterpiece that is before you. (I know masterpiece is a little dramatic, but hey, this is my site and I dig it.) His knowledge of computer code combined with his artistic tastes made it fairly easy to get to our final product.
One of these guys is the “brains” behind the operation and it’s not me…
Long story short, for everyone who is looking for a facelift on a blog or starting a new website, do yourself a favor and contact Joel at J. Sumner Designs and tell him his big brother sent you.
On one of the local fly fishing forums, I entered my first fly swap. I generally do not participate, but the opportunity to tie up a bunch of hoppers and see some other styles from local tiers seemed like a good idea. I put my batch of Hopper Juans with a couple variations into the mail the other day. The Hopper Juan is a fantastic pattern that was one of those flies I always wanted to learn to tie when I first got started on the vise. Thanks to Juan Ramirez for a great fly that is fun to tie and even better to fish.
I thought this past weekend was going to be devoid of fishing, but a last minute invitation to tag along with some guys from my fly tying group, put me on some prime urban water. This particular area is pretty cool and is made up of 19 or 20 small urban ponds that are full of bass, sunnies, grass carp, and koi. After a little research, we headed over and put in a couple of hours on the water.
Arizona Urban Bass
The fishing was slow and we blamed it on our recent downpour. I picked up a small bass on a green simi-seal bugger which made me happier than if I had not caught anything. All day I had been throwing different bugs at the big carp that were feeding on the bottom and tailing in the shallows. On the walk back to the truck. I finally put a very nice presentation with the same green bugger right in front of a tailing carp. He fed right over my fly and I lifted my fly rod to find a heavy, but swimming dead weight on the other end. It was short lived as I did not have a great hook-set, and the fish swam slowly away leaving my heart pounding and mouth dry. I think I finally realize what all those brownliners are after…
After I returned from my four day adventure at the San Juan, I received more than a few emails asking about what type of setup I was using while I was there. In answer to those emails I put my artistic skills to the test and drew up a diagram of the rigging that I was using. I am by no means an expert, but this information was handed down to me by more than one San Juan die-hard. It is good information and really worked while I was at the San Juan River. (Note: My pictures may not be to scale or 100% accurate, but cut me some slack…)
San Juan Nymph Rig
This is the standard setup that I used while I was at the San Juan. I used 6x flourocarbon tippet material off of my leader. My first fly never changed the whole time I fished a two nymph rig. The Red Hot annelid accounted for a majority of the fish that I ended up catching on the San Juan.
Red Hots
The second fly was equally important and I switched it occasionally as the conditions dictated. I generally fished a zebra midge (black body, silver or gold wire wraps, black head)
Red Hot/Zebra Midge Combo
or a KF Emerger (brown body, gold wire wraps, Krystal Flash wing, brown head).
Zebra Midge Emerger
I found that the smaller the flies, the more fish I caught. So I ended up fishing a #24 for all three flies.
Two Fly Nymph Rig
Since I was fishing most of the time in the shallower ripples and braids above Kiddie Pool, I set my indicator at around 6 inches. After several passes through a particular lie, I would adjust my indicator to allow the weight to drop lower and the flies to float deeper.
Adjust indicator for depth
When I fished one of the deep swift runs on the River I found that if I was fishing the rig at a really deep depth, I need to add more weight to my line in order to get the flies to the desired depth. I have heard and read that you should set your indicator at 1.5x the desired depth you desire and that will get the flies where you want them, but that’s difficult if you do not know the depth of a hole or run. For me it was a guessing game, but it seemed to work out ok. Experimenting with depth when the fishing slowed seemed to be one of the most important things I did in order to find fish again.
San Juan River
Nymph fishing under an indicator is not my favorite way of fly fishing, but the fish I caught were extremely rewarding. Even though I was using an indicator, its main use was not to detect the take. The indicator was there generally to keep the depth of my flies consistent. Most of the fish I caught, came from actually seeing the fish move or take the fly. I fished fairly aggressively and set the hook on any movement from the fish or anything out of the ordinary with my indicator.
Never get tired of fish pictures...
If I am missing something on this topic or you have a question feel free to email or leave a comment.
Mayfly (photo courtesy of Antonio)
