Time: 10:00AM – 5:00PM

Location: Between MM10 and Ruedi Dam

Frying Pan River 10/01/2026 Photo Album

When I arrived at my chosen pullout, the temperature was 51 degrees with a stiff breeze. I was chilly. I pulled on my Under Armour long sleeve insulated undershirt and then added three layers; my fishing shirt, a fleece hoodie, and my rain shell. I was comfortable.

I decided to devote the first hour to tossing streamers, so I dug my sink tip line and reel out of my backpack and attached them to my Sage R8 four weight. I was using a five weight line on a four weight rod, but chucking weighted streamers is an inexact science, and I did not notice the line to rod mismatch.

The river was chugging along at 125 CFS, and it was tinged with an olive color. I knotted an olive articulated streamer with a skull head to my leader as the lead fly and followed it with a size 8 Mickey Finn. I persisted with the double streamer for an hour, and I landed a thirteen inch rainbow on the Mickey Finn and experienced two momentary grabs. I moved up the river at a steady pace and experimented with casts in all directions and a variety of retrieves.

Streamer Eater

By 11:00AM I reached the top of a long run and pool, and I was roasting under the overhead sun, so I retreated to the car. I stripped down and shed the Under Armour and replaced it with a high tech short sleeve undershirt. I also dumped the fleece, and I rolled up the raincoat and placed it in my fishing backpack. In addition, I reeled up my line and swapped my sink tip line for my floating four weight. By the time I completed all these adjustments and hiked back to slightly above my original starting point, thirty minutes elapsed.

Respectable

I resumed fly fishing with a size 8 tan pool toy hopper, a 20 incher, and a salvation nymph. Between 11:30AM and my lunch break at 12:15PM, I added two twelve inch trout to the count. One was a rainbow, and one was a brown, and one ate the 20 incher, and one consumed the salvation. I ate my lunch at 12:15PM with the fish count paused at three after 1.5 plus hours of concentrated fishing. Several severe snarls caused by foul hooked fish also necessitated some unproductive maintenance time.

Right Braid

After lunch I progressed up the river along the right bank, and I increased the fish count from three to eight. This period featured some nicer fish in the thirteen to fourteen inch range, and the salvation became the desired food for the trout. This was by no means hot fishing, as I covered a lot of water and generated an abundant quantity of casts.

Dipper Nest

I anxiously anticipated cube rock pool, but when I arrived there, it was occupied by another angler. I retreated to the bottom of the island and waded up the pitifully low and unfishable left braid, until I reached the deep pockets above the split in the river and the angler blocking my upstream migration.

Big Grip

It was around 3:00PM, and a few PMD’s, BWO’s and caddis were present, and I observed a handful of sporadic rises. I was not tempted to switch to a dry fly, and I continued to fish the three fly dry/dropper. The salvation began to out produce the 20 incher, and eventually I swapped the 20 incher for a brown perdigon. The perdigon/salvation combination performed slightly better than the 20 incher/salvation alternative.

Pleased

I continued fishing the pocket water in the narrow section that is usually too fast and marginal at higher flows. On this day, however, many more fish-holding lies appeared, and I moved the fish count from eight to sixteen. Eventually I encountered another angler in a prime pool, and I watched him land at least three fish.

Next to Exposed Rock Produced

I climbed the bank to an angled pool and eddy just below a large exposed rock that jutted at a right angle into the river. I spotted several rising fish, so I very stealthily shed the dry/dropper and tied on a cinnamon comparadun. After an inordinate number of casts to rises, an eleven inch brown sipped the comparadun.

Fish of the Day

I decided the fish were eating something different, but it must have been quite small, because I observed no food source in the air or on the water. I decided to try a CDC BWO, and to ease tracking I combined it with a hippie stomper. Nothing. The fish were still rising, so I cycled through a tiny size 18 caddis with a beige body and a light gray size 18 comparadun. Again the fish voted no. Next I selected an Adams, and it was also rejected.

Eddy Home of Large Brown

Quite a few caddis danced about, so I tried a size 16 gray body deer hair caddis. This move paid dividends, and I landed three browns to move the count to twenty. Icing on the cake were a sixteen and twenty inch brown among the final three.

A small fish was rising next to the jutting rock at the core of the eddy, and I decided to try for it. On the third cast the trailing caddis inched toward the vortex, and suddenly a large mouth appeared, and the caddis disappeared. What a pleasant surprise to slide a twenty inch brown into my under sized net.

In the end I managed a twenty fish day, but the path to that accomplishment was not without challenges. I expected more hatch activity including green drakes, but most of the day was spent tossing the dry/dropper. Nevertheless, five very fine trout in the thirteen to twenty inch range found my net, and that was quite rewarding. The Frying Pan River remains a favorite for this avid angler.

Fish Landed: 20