Time: 10:00AM – 3:00PM

Location: Between Edwards and Eagle, CO

Eagle River 06/26/2025 Photo Album

Wednesday on the Yampa River was one of my best days of 2025 so far. I faced commitments for Friday through Monday that prevented me from fishing, and I had my eye on the receding flows of the Eagle River, so I decided to pay the freestone river near Avon and Eagle a visit. Flows at the Milk Creek station were in the 800 – 750 CFS range, and air temperatures were expected to peak in the low eighties. From past experience I knew that the flows recorded on the DWR site were advantageous for edge fishing the Eagle River.

I began my journey to the Eagle River early on Thursday morning to avoid construction delays in the Floyd Hill area, and that ploy was successful. I arrived along the Eagle River by 9:30AM, and after I assembled my Scott six weight, I hiked to the river and began my day. The temperature was already in the low seventies at 10AM. I chose my six weight in response to the high flows and the chance of tangling with muscular early season trout.

Starting Point

Once I was situated along the river, I began with an amber ice dub chubby Chernobyl, iron sally and salvation nymph. For the first hour I was not blessed with the presence of any trout in my net, although I did experience a pair of momentary hook ups. The lack of action provoked quite a few fly changes, and I cycled through an emerald caddis pupa, an olive-black Pat’s rubberlegs, and a 20 incher. By the time I paused for lunch, I managed to increment the fish count to two, including a small brown trout and a hot thirteen inch rainbow that flopped off my fly, just as I began to lift it over the rim of my net. My 1.75 hours of morning fishing were quite challenging and not what I expected.

While eating lunch I observed quite a few yellow sallies mixed with a few golden stoneflies. A hares ear nymph supposedly imitates a  yellow sally nymph, so I reverted to the iron sally with a hares ear on the tip. Finally the results began to improve, and I landed six additional trout to move the fish count to eight. Yes, from a numbers perspective it was quite slow, but there were a few highlights. Of the eight trout landed two were hot thirteen inch rainbows, and two were substantial fish with the remaining being less than twelve inches.

Barely Visible Pink

After lunch I approached a spot below a narrow island, and I began casting to a fairly long pocket in the main channel of the river. On the fifth drift the chubby Chernnobyl disappeared, and I was attached to a substantial fish. I battled the strong fighter and actually followed it downstream to some slack water along the bank, and when I slid the net beneath the wide body, I realized that I landed a gorgeous cutbow in the fifteen inch range. The colors were marvelous with a deep copper body, vivid spots, red cheeks and a bright orange slash.

By one o’clock I began to notice an abundant quantity of small pale morning duns, as they danced across the surface of the river in their tenacious attempt to become airborne. This observation prompted me to swap the hares ear for a size 18 beadhead pheasant tail nymph. The natural adults had a distinct pink-yellow hue, and they seemed small, thus the choice of a size 18. I stuck with this combination of flies, until 2:30PM, when I decided to give dry flies a test.

Best of the Day

During the early afternoon phase, when I cast the dry/dropper with the pheasant tail, I hooked another beast of a trout. In this case, the river warrior fought with dogged determination by diving, shaking and rolling. It was all I could do to contain the battler to the pool that I was next too, but eventually I scooped an eighteen inch brown trout into my net. I suspect it was the largest trout of 2025 so far for me. The lip of the brown was adorned with the size 18 pheasant tail.

Long Slick Produced

My switch to the double dry set up with a hippie stomper and cinnamon comparadun for the last thirty minutes yielded two twelve inch browns. One gulped the stomper and the other sipped the comparadun.

By 3:00PM I reached the point, where I normally quit, and the sun was high in the sky and beating down with direct rays. I was reluctant to continue up the river to fight the strong flows, so I hooked my fly to the rod guide and beat a path back to the car.

From a numbers perspective my day on Friday was not comparable to what I have come to expect from the Eagle River while edge fishing. I suspect that the hatches of pale morning duns, caddis, golden stoneflies and yellow sallies are in their early stages, and as the river drops to more manageable flows, the hatches will intensify, and the fishing will improve greatly. The cutbow and large brown trout made my day.  Hopefully I can swing another trip or two to the Eagle River in the next week or two.

Fish Landed: 8