Here's a high country Arizona lake about a hour from our property. I took off on a Fri night and came home Sat evening, putting in a quicky hammock camp near the trailhead. It's a crunchy 4 mile Jeep ride to the trailhead with a 3/4 mile hike to the reservoir.
I didn't take a canoe, but I'm going too next time, the lake would fish much better from a boat and open up some nice camping lake side. The bank varies from rocky and steep to low and brushy :- ) It will need to be a lightweight camp, it's a steep 3/4 mile hike in. I'm definetly going to make some pads for my portage yoke haha
Fishing was decent, the lake is known for its big browns, but I caught all rainbows. They were willing and I caught quite a few on a weak blue wing olive hatch in the evenings and a dry and dropper rig during the day. Cicadas are starting to come off now so I fished a foam cicada on top and a size 20 Copper John down. Took fish all day about 50/50.
Az is the only place I've ever fished a cicada hatch haha Sort of like the big salmon fly hatches in MT :- )
I need to get more focused on the browns and get my streamer game on to get them out of cover, but the native rainbows were fun :- ) Apparently the browns come out of the deep water in the fall and thats the best time to get into the big ones on hatches.
I did get typical AZ mountain spring weather, snow, hail, sun, rain and wind coming though in regular intervals haha I took a 9' 6wt. and fished though the conditions :- ) If one waits for 'good' weather in the mountains, you won't get much fishing haha
AZ has a surprising amount of quality flyfishing on streams and lakes. I'm leaving bruised and bleading lips this year haha Heading up to a hike in section on the Little Colorado River by Alpine, Az
this weekend and going put the canoe in on a small lake on the second day.
I'll put up pics when I get some real internet haha
I didn't take a canoe, but I'm going too next time, the lake would fish much better from a boat and open up some nice camping lake side. The bank varies from rocky and steep to low and brushy :- ) It will need to be a lightweight camp, it's a steep 3/4 mile hike in. I'm definetly going to make some pads for my portage yoke haha
Fishing was decent, the lake is known for its big browns, but I caught all rainbows. They were willing and I caught quite a few on a weak blue wing olive hatch in the evenings and a dry and dropper rig during the day. Cicadas are starting to come off now so I fished a foam cicada on top and a size 20 Copper John down. Took fish all day about 50/50.
Az is the only place I've ever fished a cicada hatch haha Sort of like the big salmon fly hatches in MT :- )
I need to get more focused on the browns and get my streamer game on to get them out of cover, but the native rainbows were fun :- ) Apparently the browns come out of the deep water in the fall and thats the best time to get into the big ones on hatches.
I did get typical AZ mountain spring weather, snow, hail, sun, rain and wind coming though in regular intervals haha I took a 9' 6wt. and fished though the conditions :- ) If one waits for 'good' weather in the mountains, you won't get much fishing haha
AZ has a surprising amount of quality flyfishing on streams and lakes. I'm leaving bruised and bleading lips this year haha Heading up to a hike in section on the Little Colorado River by Alpine, Az
this weekend and going put the canoe in on a small lake on the second day.
I'll put up pics when I get some real internet haha
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