Tuesday, September 7, 2010

Early Fall Colorado, Utah, Wyoming and New Mexico Fishing Reports!


Fall Is Almost Here..What Are The Fish Doing?


Frying Pan River
Taylor Creek Fly Shop


This is a superb time of year. We are still seeing all of the summer hatches without any of the summer crowds now. As always, the Frying Pan is the place to be to throw dry flies. The hatches right now are starting small in the morning, with BWO's and some midge activity, and getting bigger through out the day. PMD's and Drake are typically begining to hatch somewhere around mid-day and carrying into the late afternoon. 11:00am to 4:00pm is definitely the sweet spot for dry fly fishing. And just like always, you can catch fish on nymphs from sun up to sun down. And as always, the shrimp fishing can be incredibly productive directly below the dam.

Appropriate Patterns
Dries: Roy's FP Emerger, CDC Comparadun, Collet's Para. BWO, BWO Sparkledun,Flag Dun's BWO, Sprout Baetis, BWO Para. Emerger, PMD Sparkledun, Flag Dun PMD, Melon Quills, CDC Para Spinner, Polywing Spinner, CDC Spinner, Cripple Green Drake, BDE Drake, Royal Wulff, Twilight Drake, K.G.B. Drake

Blue River Near Silverthorne
Cuuthroat Anglers

Explosive Baetis fishing! Great surface action in morning and late afternoons. Consider going downstairs durring the heat of the day with a generic bead (phesent tale, Prince, Hares Ear, etc) down to a RS2 (black size 22 has faired best for me). For surface patterns dabble with varried small Baetis Patterns paired with a small hopper, or size 12 stimulators (mostly so you can keep your eye on something).

Gray Reef North Platte River Wyoming
North Platte Lodge

Hopper activity has picked up tremendously...good stuff! Cassid, stone fly, tricos,psuedos and baetis...yes, baetis are on the menu. Scuds, leeches are producing as well. So many opportunities and the fish are taking them. We are really fortunate to have had such a fun season and it will continue to offer new challenges. I suspect we will stick to the hopper gig until it subsides..then it will be streamer time and dry fly with baetis etc. Hunting is just around the corner and we have a couple dates left for sage grouse and a few for early season waterfowl.

San Juan River New Mexico
San Juan Fishing

Fishing has been great lately on the San Juan with good hatches of midges, baetis, pmd's and caddis (mid-summer). We are starting to experience cooler, fall-like weather which should only help the fishing.

Midge immitations in various colors, both larvae and emergers in sizes 22, and 24 along with micro pink eggs have been doing the trick for us in the upper portions of the Quality Waters. Those same flies plus grey Johnny Flash's in size 20 have been working well in the mornings from Texas Hole down to Simon canyon. In the afternoons, we have had good luck with foam wings in grey and chocolate and fluff baetis, also in grey and chocolate, to mimic the baetis. The trout will hit the baetis emergers even when no baetis are visible on the water.

Provo River Utah
Fishwest

A little weather in the forecast should keep a few bodies off the Provo River this weekend and into the early part of the week, but shouldn't have much of an impact on the fishing. We should see good PMD hatches with some moisture in the air. Brandon went out earlier the other day and hit some nice browns up on PMD spinners prior to work. With the late start to the summer, we are expecting September to be better than usual. So far, so good!

What to expect:
The terrestrial fishing is really starting to pick up. It is a little later than usual, but that will only help make September a better month. We still have good and consistent PMDs and caddis hatches that are producing at times excellent dry fly, nymph and soft hackle fishing. Hoppers are fishing better on the Middle Provo compared to the Lower Provo because of all the fields that surround the middle section of this river, however ants and beetles are other terrestrials you should be fishing. Look for morning and evening spinner falls and the hatch to begin in the afternoon. Many of you are missing opportunities by not paying attention to the spinners.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Nice report, now I have too many choices to make on fishing this Fall!

Kent