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Brook trout redemption

July 8, 2021
Adventure, Beer, Bucket List, Coldwater, Exploring, Fish, Fishing, Fly Fishing, Food and Drink, Freshwater, Hiking, Outdoors, Travel
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Whenever I research a slam trip like this I make sure to have backup options for each species in mind for just this type of situation. If I wanted to complete the Arizona wild trout challenge I needed to catch a brook trout and I was down to my last afternoon/evening to do it. Insert your clever sports cliché here. I knew of three creeks with brook trout in Arizona, two in the White Mountains, one on the Mogollon Rim. I’m sure there are several more, but in my research I only came across three. No one publicizes small streams, even ones with invasive species, so it’s up to me to try and develop intel with the help of local knowledge or books, other publications, and things I come across online.

Blake and I drove a couple hours from the Whites to the Rim to a lake outlet stream that I had heard held brook trout. After striking out twice this was last my chance so I took the lead on the creek. This creek was unlike any other we’d come across thus far on our trip. It was a narrow creek, one you could jump across in spots, but it held deep, still tannic water so you couldn’t see the bottom where it was deepest due to it being so dark. It was full of submerged vegetation too and really seemed like a good place for any coldwater fish species to live.

I started with a dry-dropper rig and really worked the spots faster than I should have been as Blake ended up catching a brook trout in a likely looking spot behind me.

It had come out from under a rock and hit the dropper nymph. I continued to cover water ahead of him at a faster pace than I should have, throwing a rig I probably shouldn’t have been. I was too focused on targeting the one dumb fish that every stream has, you cover enough water and you find him. Every once in a while I’d see a fish holding near the bottom, but they never took interest in my offering. After some time a young lady fly angler came by on the adjacent trail heading downstream of us. I took the opportunity to gather some much needed intel and switched up my rig after speaking with her. She convinced me to go small streamer and the closest thing I had was a tungsten jig bugger that my local Orvis in Baton Rouge always has in stock. I use it a lot for the bass and sunfish at home, it’s a good all purpose fly. The first or second hole I dropped it in and starting swimming along a weed edge I feel the rod come tight.

It was a damn brown trout. A gorgeous one, but these things are apparently like cockroaches in Arizona. I sent him back along his way and kept at it. I was looking for the obvious spots and fishing them hard. After Blake’s fish came from under a big boulder I had structure in mind.

Eventually I was able to swim the fly by a submerged log and out came the brook trout I was looking for. After a quick pic and a sigh of relief I realized just how far ahead of Blake I was and started trekking my way back toward him.

After I met back up with Blake that same young lady fly angler came walking back by. I thanked her for her help and I’m sure she thought I was completely nuts, but I had blinders on before talking to her and she showed me the light! With daylight fading we made our way back to the vehicle and continued on up to Payson. In Payson we found a hotel, had a proper Mexican meal, and found a local IPA worthy enough to count as a trip capper.

Campground wild browns

July 6, 2021
Adventure, Camping, Coldwater, Conservation, Exploring, Fish, Fishing, Fly Fishing, Freshwater, Outdoors, Scouting, Travel, Wade Fishing
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After a short drive over from New Mexico we set up camp one more time in Arizona. This would be our last night in the hammocks as I thought it would be wise to get a hotel the following night. The other folks on the plane would probably appreciate it and I could really use a real bed for a decent night’s sleep. We managed a campsite on a river, a tributary to where we’d fish tomorrow, that held wild brown trout and stocked rainbows according to AZGFD. We were short on daylight and the skies were threatening rain so we opted to fish in the campground and hope for the best.

Fishing was great for the hour or so we were on the water. We fished dry-dropper rigs for a little while before realizing that the trout were only hitting our surface flies. The Adams trude was my fly of choice as it stayed afloat, I could see it well, and they were smashing it.

It ended up being a great evening on the water, which surprised me, I guess I had low expectations going into it. I figured those campground trout see everything, but we found a lot of hungry fish and had a good time. Tomorrow we’d target more wild browns, wild rainbow trout too, and hopefully complete Blake’s Arizona wild trout challenge.

Swing and a Miss

June 28, 2021
Adventure, Camping, Coldwater, Conservation, Exploring, Fish, Fishing, Fly Fishing, Food and Drink, Freshwater, Hiking, Outdoors, Travel, Wade Fishing
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After lunch I thought it would be a good idea to head to a small creek that, according to my research, held brook trout. I wanted to catch back up to Blake on the species count so we’d only have brown and rainbow trout to target the rest of the trip if we were to complete the Arizona wild trout challenge. One thing that was very prominent when driving across Arizona was that you didn’t have to look far to find the effects of wildfire. This area was hit hard in 2011 by the Wallow fire and things have been recovering ever since. That fire was actually started by two guys who were camping so we definitely had to be on guard at night around the campfire because I’d hate to be known for something like that.

Naturally Blake caught the first fish, a brown trout. He was fishing behind me so I was doing something wrong. That fish took either a small streamer or a nymph, I don’t remember exactly, but I know it wasn’t a dry, which is what I was throwing. I switched up and soon had the pleasure of bringing a fish to hand of my own.

It was also a brown trout. I was happy to have caught something when the bites were hard to come by because at this point it was looking like catching fish of any type here was going to be tough.

We covered some good looking water, but turned up very few fish. A bit demoralized we turned back and headed to vehicle. I don’t know what was up with that creek, the water clarity wasn’t as good as it was as in the last three creeks we fished, it had a slight stain to it, but I really don’t know the area well enough to know if that was normal or not. Sometimes you just don’t catch fish, I don’t really know, I just know we struck out on brook trout there and so I’d have to figure something out over the next couple of days if I wanted to complete the challenge.

We headed back to camp and prepared for steak night, a good consolation for a tough afternoon. Mother Nature also rewarded us for our troubles on the creek because on the way back to camp we were treated with a pack of bighorn sheep on the side of the road.