4 weekends of wet lines

[Ryan.Logsdon]

As fortune would have it, I will be wetting my line in 4 different waterways in 4 weekends.

The first was this past weekend at the Lower Salt River. What started as a convenient medium river current for casting practice has turned into a bit of an obsession. After 3 trips and no strikes, but watching many, many fish rise (I am convinced I saw some chubs, the little carp, smallmouth and rainbows) all for the same pattern at dawn last week. This is clearly a failure on my part to understand what cycle of the bug they were eating, or even what bug? I saw some form of midge fly around, as well as very tiny BWO's. But these fish were coming clean out of the water for them like they were hitting a "just above" surface spinner.

I tried every fly in the box, down to several #22 bwo as well as emergers. I also just said "F" it at one point and through on a big hopper (they were all over as well) with a bead head prince.This last trip I busted out the sinking line and just put minnows, buggers and simi's on the bottom and twitch/slow retrieved up and down current. NADA.

My lower salt foo is OFF. Luckily, there are some brights sides that all tie directly into my original reasons for going:

1.) My dead drift is about a million times better (my last year of fishing has been in tube or boat on flat water)
2.) I broke in my new rod and feel like I can probably deliver the skill it deserves
3.) The Salt River, for all it's dirty denizens is an amazingly beautiful river valley. I have attach a dawn pic to prove my point.



My next weekend will be upper canyon creek. Not exactly a flyfishermans get away but it's a family camping trip and my daughter loves to play in the little pools in the woods while watching me fish "The pools BEHIND DADDY sweety!" So hopefully I get to train her on the art of releasing trout this weekend (she is 3.5yrs old). If it is consistent enough with the planters I might have her give a try at reeling one in.

The next weekend will be a romantic getaway to Sedona for my wife and her Mr. Did I say that right? Lucky for me a picnic on the creek with local wines/breads and cheeses while watching me fish is super romantic (I swear she said these words). So I am hoping to hit up the wild browns in the C&R area above Junipine (anyone been recently?)


AND AND AND
Last but certainly not least, I will be spending 3 days, yes, three days fishing Lee's Ferry from 9/24 - 9/26 for the very first time. I am taking 4 novice buddies with me (I have the patience of a saint, I hope the guide does also!) . 3 of us will be doing a guided boat trip on Friday, then all of us will be fishing the walk-in all day Saturday (I read with the fixed 8kcfs it should wade and produce most of the day) followed by a morning fish Sunday and the drive back to PHX. Did I mention copious amounts of beer? Because that also seems likely (but not enough to **** with my dawn fishing!). It's the reason I told my friends this is strictly a NO WHISKEY trip. Because nothing kills a sunrise hatch like a bottle whiskey.

Anyway, If you think you might be up at Lee's camground that weekend I will have plenty of cold ones for any azflyandtie members, as well as a small selection of hand-rolled cuban seed cigars. We'll be in a coleman taos pop-up trailer with a white toyota tacoma. Just ask for Ryan

I will reply to this thread with photos and updates for all 4 trips

[rushthezeppelin]

I'll have to make sure to drop by the campground when you come by the Ferry. BTW I would try and resize your images a little smaller for the forum so that you don't make the page 3 times as wide as it should be Try 1024x768 that's a good forum size.

[Ryan.Logsdon]

Originally Posted by rushthezeppelin

I'll have to make sure to drop by the campground when you come by the Ferry. BTW I would try and resize your images a little smaller for the forum so that you don't make the page 3 times as wide as it should be Try 1024x768 that's a good forum size.

There we go, I chopped it down to 800.

[fshfanatic]

Originally Posted by rushthezeppelin

I'll have to make sure to drop by the campground when you come by the Ferry. BTW I would try and resize your images a little smaller for the forum so that you don't make the page 3 times as wide as it should be Try 1024x768 that's a good forum size.

800 X 600 is a good forum size. At 1024X768 it will still blow out the margins.

[Ryan.Logsdon]

So, for my next weekend (ending today), I was camping with the family up on the Rim. We took an early afternoon jaunt down to Upper Canyon Creek on Friday.

Typically I avoid this creek like the plague on weekend summers, but I figured Friday would still be fairly quiet and it was. For the first 30 minutes we were the only ones I saw. This is my favorite creek in AZ I think, when you count lower canyon that is. You just can't beat the beauty of it.



My 3 year old daughter loves to splash around on the wet bridge and the shallow plunge pool it creates. So I knew I would have about an hour to fish the pools just up from the bridge before she got bored and we would need to play another game

I caught, all told, 6 rainbows in that hour, all of them from that first big pool above the wet bridge. My daughter loved it because she could watch the fish strike (almost as much as I loved it). There were probably 20+ fish in that pool, and many were surprisingly spooky.



Unfortunately my youngest (who is just a year and a half) was getting pretty cranky and hungry so we headed back to the trailer. I tried now to think about the sheer number of planters I could have landed if I was on my own for the night Although I probably would have hit lower canyon for the browns.

Here is a great "game face" shot my wife took of me just before I caught the biggest fish of the day at a whopping 10.5 inches from under the grass bank near the head in the back. She managed to take the shot and walk away so I didn't get any of the fish in my hand



Tune in next week for another quicky stream hit of Oak Creek C&R area!