Canyon Creek

This is a post I got from my friend, Mike Faulkinbury.  He got away with his brother Albert from Texas for a day at Canyon Creek.  Looks like they had a good time.  Mike didn’t mention it but they caught around 30 fish between them.  The one in the net went 20″s. 

Apparently insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.  I think that in fly fishing we dance on the edge of that cliff, we each have water that can make us a phone call away from a white coat and padded room. My room would affectionately be called the canyon creek room. My journey into the sport started there, and at time I have left there frustrated enough to say it would end there as well.  This year you could say I purged the inner lunatic. I caught nice fish every time I went. The draw of the creek is of course the observation of some healthy fish. Brown trout are some of the resident monsters, with a chance at some respectable rainbows. The upper section is a put and take which it lends itself to because the hatchery is close enough to snag your back cast on.  Stocker Rainbow trout enjoy a short stay for the most part because it draws some decent pressure during the stocking season. The lower section is the prime water per say, in the summer months peering into the clear pools you will understand why, brown trout in the “large” scale inhabit them, and are somewhat protected by the blue ribbon(C&R) designation given the stream by Arizona game and fish. Here is where the insanity part rudely interrupts the dream of casting a hopper to said 20 plus inch fish, you can cast the hopper, you can see the fish, however it’s  a long shot that the fish and the hopper will ever meet. They are brown trout, and they are smart and pressured, many a fine angler (much my superior) comes and goes with the image of the monster flash frozen in their mind but never a fish on the line. So where did I bury the lunatic you might ask; in the dirty water, under the cover of clouds and while a bit cold. Seems the key for me was timing. I fished it early and late in the season, when the weather was shifty and the trout were not. With access limited to a walk down the steep side of the canyon, or a longer stroll past the locked gate, it seems the fish rewarded us with more numbers and more size. While I did fish it in the summer and had fun with the less wise juvenile browns in the 8”-12” range, I moved many more substantial fish in the spring and the fall. During this time three flies accounted for the majority of the fish, Simi seal leach, red Copper John, and a black hare’s ear.  Simi seals range from the size 12 to the mega simi’s and in the darker colors, Deep leach being a favorite of mine. I tend to like to dead drift them under an indicator with the Copper john or Hare’s ear as a dropper, then at the end of the drift I’ll let it swing a bit and strip it back up stream. The fish seem to hit either presentation with authority when you find them. Last Tuesday was the most recent trip, the weather was iffy, the roads we slick, the walk was long, and the fish were there and ready to put a bend in the rod. 

All fish were post spawn.  Looks like the future of Canyon Creek is looking bright.

Merry Christmas all!