Time: 10:00AM – 5:00PM

Location: Edwards Rest Area

Eagle River 07/22/2006 Photo Album

Having recovered somewhat from a nasty cold and with a weekend free to fish, I decided to return to the Eagle River, where I had great success on July 12.

Above Pedestrian Bridge

I parked at the rest area and hiked the bike path on the north side of the river to the pedestrian bridge, and then I crossed to the south side and began fishing along the right bank. Most of my fishing during the entire day was within ten feet of the bank. The flows were around 300 cfs, 200 less than July 12 but still fairly stiff, and the fish continued holding tight to the bank. I decided to use a gray body parahopper on top with beadhead pheasant tail nymph trailing. The beadhead peasant tail produced exceptionally well in the afternoon during my earlier visit. In short order I landed a fat thirteen inch brown on the trailing pheasant tail. I noticed another fisherman above me on the right side, but he was close to the bend along route 6 and probably 100 yards or so upstream. I estimated  that I could work along the bank until lunch and not reach him, and this assumption proved correct. I cast the parahopper/beadhead pheasant tail combination in all the likely runs and pockets. I landed six additional brown trout, before I retreated to the car for lunch. Four of the seven fish that I caught in the AM were quite nice, as three of the seven inhaled the parahopper, and the rest preferred the nymph. 

Beadhead Pheasant Tail Worked

After lunch I decided to circle around the other fisherman, so I crossed the main bridge and then followed the bike trail up to the pedestrian bridge, where I made a right and skirted the apartments and turned left on route six. I ended upstream from the other fisherman and crossed the river to position myself to fish the smaller left channel around a small island, but when I turned to survey the channel, I saw two other fishermen already there! As a fallback I decided to fish along the south side of the small island in the right channel. At the point of the island in some very shallow water where the river deflected to the right, I landed a beautiful brown, that took the beadhead pheasant tail almost immediately after it hit the water.

Royal Stimulator

I was now above the two fishermen I saw previously, so I covered the north bank for the remainder of the afternoon and caught another ten trout. Quite a few were very nice 14-15 inch fish, and many were feisty and in the 12-13 inch range. At one point in mid-afternoon I endured a refusal on the parahopper, so I clipped the combo off and tied on a tan body deer hair caddis. On the first cast with the caddis the same fish that refused the hopper slurped down the new offering. On another occasion the same thing happened, and I once again switched to the caddis, and I landed two fine trout in short order. In late afternoon the parahopper stopped producing, so I tied on a royal stimulator that produced on my first trip to the Eagle River. I landed two trout on this fly, and in the last 1.5 hour I hooked up on some very nice fish, but failed to land (long distance release) them. One wrapped my flies around a rock, and the others slipped free of the hook. 

All in all it was a great day. 

Fish Landed: 18