Time: 10:00AM – 3:30PM

Location: National Forest

Frying Pan River 07/31/2025 Photo Album

After a fun day on Wednesday, I decided to visit the Frying Pan River on Thursday. I assumed that the Pan would be less crowded on Thursday versus Friday, when all the long weekend anglers arrived.

I opted for my Sage R8 four weight for the somewhat larger Frying Pan, and when I stationed myself next to the river, I began with a peacock hippie stomper trailing a size 14 light gray deer hair caddis. The fish awarded me a resounding thumbs down, so I swapped the deer hair caddis for a beadhead hares ear nymph. The hares ear generated a small brown, but the combination was otherwise lacking, so I converted to a heavier dry/dropper that featured a yellow size 8 fat Albert, a beadhead hares ear, and a salvation nymph. The salvation fooled a couple decent trout in the ten to eleven inch range, but I was covering some very attractive water with meager results.

Started Here

I felt like the large hopper was scaring the fish, so I downsized to a peacock hippie stomper and kept the salvation nymph in place as a dropper. This two fly combination worked to some degree, and I boosted the fish count to five, before I broke for lunch at 11:45AM. Five fish in two hours was fairly average and not what I expected.

Browns Were in the Minority

Fine Looking Section on the Left

After lunch the slow action continued, and I began to think that a double digit day was a reach goal. The hippie stomper duped a pair  of fish to reach seven by 1:00PM, but the takes were more than matched by refusals. I concluded the fish were mainly looking to the surface, so I returned to the double dry approach.

Bronze Body

The stomper was matched with a size 14 purple haze, and the new addition added two trout to arrive at nine on the day. When I cast upstream, the stomper was the first fly visible to the fish, and in nearly every case, it was refused. When I cast across and allowed the flies to drift downstream with the purple haze in the lead position, quite often a take resulted. I received the message from the trout, and I placed the purple haze in the forward position and trailed a small size 16 light olive stimulator behind.

More Rainbow Action

This combination clicked, and I boosted the fish count to twenty-five over the remainder of the afternoon. The stimulator and purple haze were favored in roughly equal proportions. During the last hour, after the dry fly action subsided, I reverted to the dry/dropper featuring a mini chubby with a tan body, a psycho prince, and a salvation nymph. The last three fish succumbed to the salvation including a fine fourteen inch rainbow that represented the best fish of the day. It was number twenty-five, and then I carefully slid along a steep bank, until I found a place where I could cautiously negotiate the significant tilt.

Tight to Cover Was Home

Thursday was once again a blast. It took a long time for the fish to become active. Once I discovered the right double dry combination; however, the tide turned in my favor. Was it the flies, the time of day, or the hard to access section? I will never know for sure, but I suspect all three played a role.

Best of the Day

The quality of the fish was decent. The ratio of species was approximately 25% browns and75% rainbows. The browns were typically smaller with a pair of nice twelve inchers in the mix. The rainbows were predominantly chunky twelve and thirteen inch torpedoes. I was quite pleased with their size and fighting capability. Friday will be a new challenge.

Fish Landed: 25