Still waiting for the Tricos to get going in the upper portion of Eleven Mile Canyon for the highlight of summer dry fly action. In the mean time the flows are up to a respectable level and the nymph fishing continues to be good with fish taking the usual array of small nymphs. As I have written in recent posts a size 18 bead head hares ear nymph has been productive. My friend Greg has been using a birds nest nymph with success. Both flies are impressionistic of caddis pupa and are good to use as the first fly in a two fly nymphing rig. Or at times I use the brown san juan worm as the upper fly with diminishing success as the summer progresses. .
Small midges and mayflies of the canyon are best imitated with different versions of a size 22-24 RS2. I use an RS2 as the second fly. It seems that gray and black have been best. But recently my friend Steve started using a purple bodied version and it has been great. I often also try using different beads on these RS2's and experiment with different wing materials. Just try to show them something different and mix things up.
I often rig two rods with different versions of these flies and simply experiment. There are far worse things one could be doing while waiting for the big dry fly show.
I saw a bunch this past weekend at the Boy Scout property. They were out full force, so it will be very soon!
ReplyDeleteJuan, Thanks for the Trico update. I did see some hatching in the upper canyon but not nearly in full force yet and the fish are not responding yet. It will take a while and I think lower flows to bring the fish up. I know in years past the higher flows seemed to keep the fish down low (Why feed on top when one can stay low and safe and gorge on all the food drifting by?). And it will take a little while for the fish to adjust and key in on the tricos. For whatever it is worth, the upper canyon fished well today nymphing on San Juan worms, RS2's and size 18 beadhead hares ear nymphs (on one of the hares ear's I dubbed an olive ice dub thorax and that one was working quite well).
ReplyDelete