Time: 10:30AM – 4:00PM

Location: Edwards Rest Area

Eagle River 06/25/2021 Photo Album

Two unproductive outings on the Uncompahgre River this week introduced a severe case of self doubt to my mental state. I needed a solid day of success to restore my fly fishing confidence. Could Friday, June 25 be the turnaround?

A couple weeks ago an Instagram friend informed me that he returned to Colorado after a couple year transfer to another state. He had a week off, before he launched his new job and wanted to know, if I was interested in a day of fly fishing. I was already committed to our trip to Ridgway State Park from Sunday through Wednesday, and Theo Thursday was an ironclad and highly anticipated obligation for Thursday, so I replied that Friday was my one open date. My Instagram friend accepted Friday as our fishing day; however, on Thursday evening he realized that he scheduled dog training for his rescue dog at 10AM on Friday morning. I considered a half day scenario at a front range stream, but ultimately I replied and asked for a raincheck. I scheduled a full day of fishing, and I decided to follow through with my plan.

The destination that intrigued me was the Eagle River. Toward the end of my last outing there on June 17 I enjoyed decent success with a double dry fly presentation. Meanwhile, the fly shop reports cited heavy caddis activity and pale morning dun emergences, and my friend, Dave G, who lives in Eagle, CO informed me that he encountered a thick caddis presence on streamside vegetation during an evening visit. The flows remained at 380 CFS, and the high temperature for Friday was forecast to peak at 67 degrees. The confluence of hatches, cool temperatures, and cold, high flows convinced me that the Eagle River was the place to be on Friday.

Good Place to Start

Fatty

I made the trip in two hours and parked at the Edwards Rest Stop. I wadered up and fitted together the four sections of my Sage four weight rod, and I was positioned along the edge of the river ready to begin my day of fishing by 10:40AM. I was itching to try a double dry offering, but since deep pocket water was in my near term future, I chose a tan ice dub chubby Chernobyl and trailed a salvation nymph. On the very first cast to a narrow bankside pocket, a twelve inch rainbow snatched the salvation, and I was off and running. I persisted with the dry/dropper between 10:40AM and noon, and the fish count rested on two, after a very nice brown trout grabbed an emerald caddis pupa from a mid-river pocket. Two fish in 1.5 hours was not an outstanding catch rate, but it certainly surpassed five hours of zero success in the Ridgway area. Just before lunch I witnessed a couple refusals to the chubby Chernobyl, so I swapped it for a yellow Letort hopper (ignored) and then a size 10 classic Chernobyl ant. The Chernobyl attracted the interest of a decent fish, and I hooked it for a second or two before it eluded the penetration.

Before Lunch

Experimenting with the double dry approach remained foremost in my mind, and while I munched my sandwich, I noticed a wave of swallows, as they swooped across the river ingesting some sort of bug food. What could they be eating? I guessed that caddis were their target, and I removed the dry/dropper flies and knotted a peacock hippie stomper and size 16 deer hair caddis to my line. I felt confident that this combination would arouse the interest of the Eagle River trout, but after I covered seventy yards of pocket water, the fish count remained locked on two. I paused and observed, and a small pale morning dun floated skyward near my position. This emergence transpired right after a pair of refusals to the deer hair caddis, and I concluded that the fish were looking for upright wings and not down wings. I switched the caddis for a cinnamon size 18 comparadun, and in a short amount of time the fish count increased to three, after a spunky thirteen inch rainbow sipped the comparadun.

I Love the Background Color

For the next hour I moved steadily through a section of prime pocketwater and prospected with the hippie stomper and comparadun, although after getting blanked in a quality spot, I exchanged the cinnamon comparadun for a size 16 light gray version. The stomper and comparadun combination clicked with the Eagle River residents, and the fish counter climbed from three to seven in short order. Quite a few of the PMD chompers were nice rainbows in the twelve to fourteen inch range, and I was getting into the kind of nice rhythm that instilled confidence.

Nice Width

Of course, change is a constant, and after releasing number seven I heard some thunder and scanned the southwestern sky, where a large gray mass of moisture was gathering. I was on a roll, and I was not anxious to take a break to dig out my raincoat; but, of course, that was a mistake. The onset of rain was not gradual, and instead dumped from the sky in sheets. I scrambled to the shoreline and removed my frontpack and backpack and camera and dug out my raincoat, but my fishing shirt absorbed a fair amount of moisture in the process. I stood on the bank and watched the heavy rain descend on the river, but it only lasted for five minutes before a patch of blue sky in the west foretold another change.

I returned to the river and made a few more casts to the attractive pockets above me, and another rainbow sipped the comparadun to boost the catch total to eight. At this point I ran out of promising water, and a severe chill traveled up my spine, as the evaporation of the wet fishing shirt created a cooling effect. I decided to return to the Santa Fe for another layer. I marked my exit point, marched back to the parking lot, grabbed my hooded fleece, and returned to the path, where I exited. I skipped around the next section of wide and shallow riffles and turned on a well worn path to a long run and pool across from a high dirt bank. Generally this stretch of the river is occupied, but apparently the storm scared off the angling population. I made some casts along the left side of the long run, and this generated two refusals to the comparadun.

Produced

Lots of Pink on This One

My mind evaluated the situation, and I concluded that the storm brought an end to the pale morning dun hatch. The overcast sky and cloud cover suggested that I convert to the size 16 olive-brown caddis, and that is what I did. Caddis tend to become more active in low light conditions, and the afternoon gloom certainly fit that description. The change proved very effective, and the fish count surged from eight to fourteen over the last 1.5 hours, as I fished another very attractive section of deep pocket water, before I ended my day at 4PM. These late afternoon fish were special, as nearly all stretched the tape between twelve and fifteen inches. Brown trout became more prevalent in this section, and two beauties in the fifteen inch range were especially prized. A couple aggressive feeders attacked the hippie stomper, but the caddis was the favored dry fly for most of this productive period of time. In addition to the netted trout, several muscular chunks streaked about the river and shed my fly, before I could gain the upper hand.

Juicy Shelf Pool

Stunning Brown Trout

What a day! I landed fourteen robust trout in six hours of fishing. A pale morning dun hatch followed by caddis madness accelerated my enjoyment, and dry fly action is always the preferred technique. I suspect that the caddis and PMD magic will persist for another week or two and be joined by yellow sallies. If the flows remain in the 200 to 400 CFS range, I will likely consider a return after my trip to the Rio Grande. Stay tuned.

Fish Landed: 14

Gorgeous