The yellow Gila trout tucked away from humanity in a tiny trickle of water greedily ate our flies and made us forget about the thorns and brush that tore at our clothing. We fell on the slippery rocks and bushwhacked through the dense undergrowth to cast our lines for this rare Southwestern trout. and it was a bit surreal to hold a fish that has been on the brink of extinction for so long. The habitat didn’t allow for much in the way of casting, but bow-and-arrow casting small streamers seemed to do the trick.

Thanks to the work of Trout Unlimited and the Arizona Game and Fish Department, there is now a wild fishable population of Gila trout back in Arizona, and efforts continue to be made to stock Gila trout back in their native drainage. Stay up to date on new fishing regulations and future habitat work.

The post Arizona Fly Fishing: Gila Trout appeared first on Arizona Wanderings.

It had been a while since I’d seen some moving water, and my understanding wife told me to head north for the day. I was feeling pretty stubborn, and even though there wasn’t a ton of surface activity, I continued to fish hoppers through the day. I managed the fish about as the sun was getting lower in the sky. The colors on this brown defied description, and I took just a moment to appreciate the Creator’s handiwork.

There’s no therapy like standing knee high in a stream with a fly rod in hand.

The post Arizona Fly Fishing: Autumn Brown Trout appeared first on Arizona Wanderings.

With the shotgun cleaned and placed back in the safe, it was time to break out the fly rod and check on the status of the creeks. Walking amongst the fragrant ponderosas and listening to the creek ramble over the rocks was all that was needed to soothe my soul. Fishing our way up the creek, I had almost lost hope of catching a fish, when a small parachute pattern tricked a brown into rising, and my net soon cradled my first fish of 2015. It’s going to be a great year.

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A last minute trip fell into my lap a couple weekends back, and I found myself driving through the night to check out new spot. When driving at night, be more cautious of your surrounding to avoid a car accident. If it happens for instance, consult with the best car accident lawyer Maryland. Armed with a 5 weight, a box of flies and a few smushed peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, I hiked in to find the water off color but still fishable. The first pool gave up a nice creamy Arizona brown trout, as did a couple of the remaining pools. It’s my opinion that fishing stained water can be extremely productive for bigger fish. I wasn’t disappointed.

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I like to fish, and every chance I get, I’m packing the truck and heading for the hills. Now, I know that compared to an unmarried fishing guide or a retiree, I don’t fish that much, but I have a wife, a child, an 8-5, and a mortgage, and still I successfully manage to put in 30-40 days fishing or hunting a year. To me, that’s a success.

I often get asked by several of my buddies, how I talk my wife into letting me go fishing and hunting all the time. There is an easy answer to this. I married up. End of story. My wife is extremely understanding and knows that if a couple weekends go by and I’m not fishing or hunting, I’m going to be a basket case.

Having said that, I would offer several tips to  the poor sucker whose wife is busting his balls for going fishing too much. (Full disclosure: I’ve tried all of these and they work.)

#1. Handwritten notes – I found a small journal in the closet that wasn’t seeing any use, so I started a tradition of writing my wife a note and telling her how much I love her and where I was going for the day along with the details of when I should be getting back into cell service. She says that she really enjoys getting up on Saturday mornings, reading what I wrote, and getting to see where I’m going. She thinks it’s sweet, although on several occasions she has threatened to publish all of my secret fishing spots. I think they call that blackmail.

#2. Wildflowers – This is a winner. When the seasons are right here in Arizona, we have some pretty spectacular wildflowers. When I find a decent spot on one of the backroads, I’ll pull over and cut a small bouquet for her, put them in my coffee cup full of water, and romantically (or at least as romantically as I can smelling like sweat, dust, and fish) give them to her when I get home. This goes a long way in softening things up when you get back from a long day of fishing.

#3. Involve her – Everyone needs their own space and downtime. Fly fishing has become my escape and I often use the time to recharge my batteries while enjoying the solitude of nature. Although my wife had never really shown much interest in fly fishing, she made mention of wanting to give it a try when we hiked into the Grand Canyon and camped on Bright Angel Creek. When she pulled her first wild rainbow out of the creek, I think I was more excited than she was. Over time we have had several opportunities to fish together, and I know she has a better understanding of why I love it and need to take off on a Saturday. Now on long car rides, she’s cool to even listen to a couple of Tom Rosenbauer podcasts to break up the drive. How does it get any better than that?

Anyone else have any tips or tricks?

The post Three important fishing tips appeared first on Arizona Wanderings.

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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Arizona fly fishing is all about making the best of what you have. Stating the obvious, we don’t have as much water as some of our neighboring states. So, if you want to fly fish in Arizona, you better be willing to explore.

There’s always that one piece of water that you’ve talked about exploring for a long time and never do. With the weather in the north country always volatile, we decided that today might be a good day to go walk this section of water and see what it looked like. The road we drove in on hadn’t been used in a while, which is always a good sign and when we finally hit the water, it seemed as if there was no one for miles around.

We worked our way up through some promising looking water and although a few fish came out to play, the creek didn’t have as much structure and depth as we would have hoped. After several miles of creek, we called it a day and headed back to the truck.

Not every exploratory trip ends with a stellar new stream exploding with big trout, but there is a certain satisfaction in knowing a new area and the potential that it could have. It may not be as rewarding as holding a gargantuan fish, but it was a rewarding day on a new stretch of stream.

The post Arizona Fly Fishing – Exploration appeared first on Arizona Wanderings.

Why:

So last year, my wife and I were planning our first trip to Europe. As is usually the case when we are planning a vacation, I started researching fishing opportunities and I found a great place in Ireland that we were going to stay at and fish. After researching quite a bit on internet, we find out about the impressive cliffs; the Cliffs of Moher. So of course, I made to plans as well to visit Ireland’s most impressive cliffs and to visit all of Ireland. Because of this, packing right was important. The difficult thing was that we were only going to be taking backpacks with no big luggage to carry around so whatever fishing gear I was going to take had to fit in my Gregory Z55 and I was literally going to have to carry it all over Ireland. So, small was key.

I looked at many “travel” and “pack” fly rods and there are some really nice options out there, but if you are looking for one of the smallest pack fly rods, the Black Bear Fly Fishing 2/3 wt Fiberglass Pack Travel Fly Rod is worth your time.

First impressions:

8 pieces – You read that right. This fly rod breaks down into eight 11″ pieces which when all fitted together gives you a 6’6″ fiberglass fly rod.

Overall appearance – For $100, the rod is pretty sweet. Nice components and the cigar handle is pretty clean. The rod does come with a rod sock, but no tube.

Manufacturing and warranty – The Black Bear Fly Fishing 2/3 wt Fiberglass Travel Fly Rod is produced over in Korea and sold by the folks over at Black Bear Fly Fishing. The rod does not come with a warranty.

Field Use:

As soon as the Black Bear Fly Fishing 2/3 wt Fiberglass Travel Fly Rod came in the mail, I was itching to fish it.  I knew just the stream I wanted to try it out on and the anticipation built as I thought about the small pools and bushy creek. Pairing the rod with a Cortland 3 weight line that I had, I did a bit of lawn casting to familiarize myself with the rod’s action. First impressions were that this rod was a noodle. Talking with a few others who had cast the rod, it could be described as full flexing. With so many sections, the rod does not have a ton of backbone. Having said that, rods with this much flex are able to protect tippet extremely well and are a ton of fun on small streams.

After getting onto the creek, I really began to appreciate the short length of this small pack fly rod. With a low overhead canopy and brush encroaching from every side, the shorter length was ideal when trying to fit a cast into the different pools and pockets.

On the small Arizona pocket water, I really enjoyed casting with the slow full flex action of this fiberglass rod. I always thought I knew what “slow” felt like, but this rod gave it a whole new meaning. It took a bit of time to get the casting stroke dialed in for that small stream, but by the middle of the morning I was placing the fly where I wanted to.

On the France leg of our Europe trip, we spent two nights at the Manor de Malvoisine which is situated on the Andelle and the Heronchelles. This little gem located near Normandy, France had some beautiful native brown trout swimming in it’s waters. these chunky 8-12 inch fish put a solid bend in the rod and were a ton of fun. The rod excelled at casting light dry flies and was respectable when I added a dropper. The cast definitely falls apart when trying to throw something with a bit of weight, like a #12 weighted wooley bugger. The second day we were there a small storm rolled in and it was a bit windy. As the wind increased, I eventually had to take a break and let the front pass and the wind die down before I could get back out and get some fishing in.

Since then, I usually reach for the Black Bear Fly Fishing 2/3 wt Fiberglass Travel Fly Rod when I’m going to be fishing a small stream with plenty of small pocket water. The 8-12 inch fish are so much fun on this fly rod, but I would be sweating if I tied into anything much larger than that.

I had a bit of trouble trying to find a travel case that would work for our trip to Europe. I could have easily made a tube out of pvc, but that would add some serious weight to my pack and I didn’t know how TSA would feel about a PVC pipe being checked as a carry-on.  After a bit of searching I found a Helix Document Tube that was going to fit my needs. At 17″ it was a bit longer than I needed, but that provided me some extra room for padding, a few fishing odds and ends, as well as a place to keep a couple of paintings that we picked up while traveling in Europe.

Pros:

Extremely packable

Reasonably priced

Excellent small stream rod

Short length is idea on small bushy streams

Full flex action

Cons:

No case

Made in China

No warranty

Prognosis:  For the small stream connoisseur who is looking for a travel fly rod, consider picking up one of these 2/3 wt Fiberglass Pack Travel Fly Rod from Black Bear Fly Fishing for your next trip.

* Disclaimer:

The reviews at Arizona Wanderings are my honest opinion. Arizona Wanderings is not sponsored by or associated with any of the stated companies and is accepting no compensation, monetary or otherwise, in exchange for this review.  My independent status may change in the future but, as of the date of publication, no relationship other than described above has been pursued or established.

The post Rambling Review – Black Bear Fly Fishing 2/3 wt Fiberglass Pack Travel Fly Rod appeared first on Arizona Wanderings.

It was a hot morning to say the least, and after we had run a couple of errands earlier in the day, my friend, David, and I headed into a creek that runs through some lower elevation. The hike in was longer than we expected, but the ice-cold water at the bottom was very fishy looking. It did not take long until the resident smallmouth were attacking our offerings.

The fish weren’t huge, but it made for an enjoyable afternoon on a very pretty stretch of water. I had really good success with a chartreuse clouser while David slayed it with an ultra-lite spinning rig and a rooster tail. He ended up with the fish of the trip when he pulled in a spunky holdover rainbow.  We must have pulled in 40 smallmouth bass between the two of us with the biggest pushing 10 or 12 inches.

The day ended too quickly, and we slowly made our way back out of the creek. Luckily the long trail back to the rim of the canyon was shaded as the sun began to set. This pretty creek is quite a gem and I look forward to exploring some of its upper reaches in the future.

The post Fly Fishing Arizona: Small Stream Smallmouth appeared first on Arizona Wanderings.

After our first day in the White Mountains did not live up to our expectations, Antonio and I did a bit of exploring on another stretch of water also in the Whites. The day turned out to be better than expected and we both were able to pull in some beautiful brown trout from one of the more remote creeks in the state.

Hopper fishing is definitely in full effect, and although on occasion I will strip a streamer through a deep pool, it seems that most fish are willing to come to the surface for a grasshopper pattern. Fly fishing in Arizona can often times be very frustrating, but then there are days where everything comes together that make it all worth while. This was one of those days. If you have a chance, head north for a bit of White Mountain fly fishing.

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