The weekends in May fill up pretty quick for me. Between Mother’s Day and our anniversary, I’m lucky to find time to get onto the water. In the end, I found a free Saturday early on to make a long day trip to the Whites. With the ridiculously dry weather here in AZ, our creeks look like they normally do in July, and the hoppers are on the banks. The fish are looking up, and  I was able to pick up a few good ones to round out a great day on the water. Can’t ask for much more than this, except maybe some rain.

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Fly fishing Arizona means that you take what you can get. Jake and I explored a trickle of a stream where surprisingly we found a few small rainbows living. There wasn’t a whole lot of real estate, but the fish were fairly aggressive, attacking our flies on the surface. It was amazing to see these wild fish thriving at such a low elevation and in so little water. Thankful for such beautiful fish, we released the spotted specimens back into the water to be caught another day.

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I don’t know if I have hiked through more rugged terrain than we did on Saturday. Jake and I explored some new country, and even though the water was a bit high, we were able to pull a couple of fish.The creek and canyon definitely beat us up and by the time we were able to hike out, we had easily put 6 or 7 miles under our feet. For the amount of creek that we saw and fished, I would have expected a higher fish count, but I think we may have been a tad bit early. While Jake pulled several fish on dries, most of the others came on streamers, including the very healthy brown pictured below.

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Tis the season when bugs start filling the banks here in Arizona and throughout the rest of the country. The past few weekends that I have made it into the mountains, the fish are already starting to look up. I typically like to set up with either a 5 or 6 foot uni-thread furled leader with another 5 or 6 feet of tippet to the mini hopper. Often I’ll tie a ice-dubbed pheasant tail or another beadhead about a foot off of the mini hopper. When all else fails, this always seems to get the fish to move. If you need to restock your box with mini hoppers or you need a furled leader or two, you can pick them up online in the Arizona Wanderings Shop.

I also can fill special orders, so if you see any particular flies on AZW that you like the look of, feel free to shoot me an email at Ben@AZWanderings. In additional promotional articles, take a look at costa mesa drug rehab center.

Best of luck on the water.

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Spent the day in the mountains with my buddy Antonio, who from here-forth shall be known as Samurai Tony. The reason being that Antonio has discovered tenkara. We fished a nice creek and found some willing fish to eat our flies. Watching Antonio fish with his tenkara rod, I could see that he was having fun and I can appreciate that, but at no point during the day did I feel the need to run out a buy a tenkara rod. Without rehashing the tenkara vs. western fly fishing arguement, I did not see any substantial advantage of the tenkara rod over the rod/reel setup. At the end of the day, it was cool to see it in action, but until I see a situation in which a fly rod and reel will not work and only the tenkara will, I probably will not be picking it up.

The weather is turning a bit cooler in the mountains and the fishing has definitely slowed from the summer/fall-bigger-fish-extravaganza to the late-fall-my-fingers-are-cold-should-I-really-be-out-here-extravaganza. I found myself switching flies quite a bit throughout the day from streamers to mini-hoppers to small dries and then repeat. Pretty soon, there is going to be some snow and it will be a bit of a trick to get to some of those creeks. Looks like it might be time for a bit more quail hunting in the desert.

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These photos are from a week or so ago on a day when I was able to steal away to Oak Creek. It is not often that I fish by myself these days, as I enjoy the company and it makes it much more affordable to split gas to drive to the high country. I did enjoy the solitude though, and I was able to find some of those beautiful Arizona brown trout that occupy Oak Creek. The summer crowds are gone, but the sun only stays in the canyon for a while as the days grow shorter. Fish came on mini-hoppers although a few rising fish were picky and I switched to a small midge dry fly pattern. I do love this canyon and I’m looking forward to spending some more time fly fishing Oak Creek this winter.

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Saturday was a very fine day of fly fishing in Arizona with a good buddy. With mornings being colder, we started late and were on the water by 9. Fish started coming throughout the day on mini-hoppers and parachute Adams, although bigger streamers did the trick later on in the day. Tough to ask for anything better than a few nice fish, but the bottom brown came about 4 o’clock, slamming a crawdad streamer and fighting the whole way to the net. I sat looking, in utter disbelief, at 20 inches of golden brown.

With snow forecasted in the mountains, I do not think there will be many more days of this kind of fishing this year. Arizona fly fishing never ceases to amaze me.

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I ventured out alone which is something I have not done in a while. I was in need of a little soul searching anyway, so it worked out just fine. The mornings have been very cold in the canyons as the mid-fall sun only spends a bit of time warming the water. I opted for a later start than usual and showed up on the water about 9, but even then I did not see a fish until about 12. I took my time and pretty soon the catching started to pick up. A few nice fish made it to the net in the afternoon, but I missed the hook set on a bruiser that would have stretched 18 or 19. Most of the fish came on the top, but gone are the days of aggressive, splashy takes. Instead fish are rising and almost slurping the fly out of the film and unless you’re paying attention, you might miss the whole scene. I am hoping to squeeze in a few more trips before the days get too cold and short and I’m stuck in town trying to tease a carp out of an urban pond.

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Saturday morning dawned frigidly cold in the north country. We sat huddled in the truck looking at the 29 degree mark (a cold temperature for Arizona boys) that blinked on the dashboard of the truck, and we thought twice about our decision. In the end there was no way we were turning around, so we geared up, put on all available clothing, and headed towards the water. After spotting fish in the first pool and attempting to fish to them, we realized it was far too cold even for the fish to be moving, so we built a small fire and waited for the sun to come up over the canyon walls and warm the water.

Fishing was slow, but around eleven o’clock, I coaxed the beautiful brown above from underneath a large boulder. The fight was brief and Antonio swung the net underneath him. As beautiful as the photo is, it does not do this trout justice, as the yellows and oranges glistened in the sun.

The fishing continued very slowly and we saw/spooked a few big fish. As the sun disappeared, I was worked a long pool and sailed an orange mini-hopper to a likely looking spot. After a slow boil, I lifted the fly rod to find life on the other end. Within seconds, I realized that is a was a large fish and quickly fought him to the shallows, where I stared down at a beautiful beefy brown trout. With a few quick photos, he swam quickly back into the deep green water.

I felt blessed to hold, not one, but two beautiful fish out of this creek. The cold weather is going to put the kibosh on the stellar fishing soon, but until then, I’ll continue to push my luck and try to fool another of these big browns.

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