Time: 9:30AM – 11:30AM

Location: From bridge just before the turn to Eagle-Thomasville Road upstream to 50 yards above the turn.

Fish Landed: 4

Upper Frying Pan River 09/12/2014 Photo Album

Despite one of my best days ever on the Frying Pan River on Thursday, for some reason I did not want to return to the same stretch of water. This left me with the option of moving farther downstream toward Basalt, returning to the congested 2.5 miles of water below the dam, or exploring the upper Frying Pan River above Ruedi Reservoir. It had been awhile since I fished on the upper river, but I had experienced some decent success there catching quite a few fish albeit smaller than the fish that populate the tailwater. I didn’t relish working around the other fishermen on the upper tailwater, and I was uncertain I could repeat Thursday’s success in public areas farther downstream. I was lured by the idea of catching a large quantity of smaller fish on attractor dry flies, so I chose to drive to the upper river.

A Low Hanging Cloud Over Ruedi Reservoir

And Some Young Ones Protected

Unfortunately as I made the drive around Ruedi, I encountered road construction a mile before the inlet, and I waited for ten minutes or so until the pilot truck arrived to lead me through a rather lengthy stretch of repaving. The paving project continued all the way to Thomasville, and this prevented me from stopping at several locations that I was targeting. Finally the pilot car turned around, and I was on my own at the eastern end of the small town, so I decided to explore the river near the turn off to the Eagle-Thomasville Road. I parked along the shoulder, pulled on my waders, grabbed my rod and walked back to the bridge that crosses the Frying Pan River before the turn off.

Typical Deep Pocket on the Upper Frying Pan River

The flows were abnormally high for the middle of September due to the heavy rain on Tuesday, but the water was very clear, and I was optimistic that I could attract some fish to my flies. In addition to the high flows, the steep gradient of the stream bed created pocket water and deep plunge pools, and this made wading a bit of a challenge. The size 16 gray caddis remained on my line from Thursday evening, so I began prospecting the plunge pools. This lasted for ten minutes or so until I decided that I needed a larger attractor to catch the attention of the fish in these deep pools, and I also welcomed a more visible fly to follow in the morning sun glare.

Small Brown from Upper Frying Pan Took a Prince Nymph

I converted to a gray pool toy with a beadhead hares ear and beadhead pheasant tail as this combination was on fire on the tailwater the previous afternoon. These flies produced a small brown and rainbow, but I covered a vast quantity of stream real estate during a hour of fishing, and much of the water appeared to be too attractive to not yield fish.

I was dissatisfied with the catch rate, so I tried a prince nymph made with peacock ice dubbing along with a salvation nymph, and I switched the pool toy for a Chernobyl ant. These flies enabled me to add another small rainbow and brown to my tally along with a few more momentary hook ups. Unfortunately this was not the easy number padding attractor dry fly fishing that I anticipated, so I decided to cut my losses and return to the tailwater for the remainder of the day. Perhaps the fish were still sluggish due to the cold morning air temperatures, and maybe I didn’t allow enough time for the warmth of the sun to get things going, but all I could think about was my 29 fish day on Thursday. I asked myself the obvious question, why was I wasting my time on this small upper river, when I drove four hours to be at one of the best tailwater fisheries in the U.S.? Case closed.