This Blog Has Moved...I know...Again...

This is the last time I am going to do change blog domains I swear. I have moved my blog to www.TheFlyFishingBroker.com. I am excited to have the capabuility to do a lot more with this new blog. Hope you enjoy the new additions as I add them over the next couple weeks.

Bear Flats -Tonto Creek

It's probably starting to look like my favorite spot to fly fish is Tonto Creek at Bear Flats being that I have now been there 3 times in the past month or so. This past week Steve (aka the fly master) wanted to check out the area as so we decided to make another trip (you can check out his account of the trip at www.longshorefishing.blogspot.com). I was essentially excited to try out my new 7'9" TFO finesse 3 weight rod.

Steve and I started hitting the river late morning on Friday and it wasn't long before we were into fish, and as the day went on the fishing continued to get better and better. It was interesting how differently the river was fishing from two week prior.

The high point of the day was late afternoon when we hit into a Mayfly hatch. While we never hooked any on a dry this trip (mostly because we didn't want to swap out our rigs) they were hitting our nymphs like candy. It was during this hatch when I notice a fairly large fish swirling up from the bottom, after throwing two casts over the fish he decided to take my peasant tail and he turned out to be a beautiful 16.6" rainbow, the biggest of the day. By the end of the day we had landed over 35 fish, that's a good day in anyone's book.

The fly of the day was a size 18 peasant tail or similar fly, while we caught a few on 16's the majority of my fish where on the smaller fly. I had tied up some tungsten bead heads (2.5 times heavier than a normal bead) for the first time and I was very impressed with the way they fished in the early season high fast water.

Steve headed home late Friday while I was able to stay up to fish Saturday. I decided to spend the second day fishing a more remote area I had not explored south of Bear Flats. While the fishing was not neirly as good the scenery was amazing with beautiful small water falls and massive rock formations.

Bear Flats

All week I have been looking forward to this weekend, normally I fish with a bud or for some solitude, however on occasion I get lucky enough to go up with my wife and son. This week Cindi, Carter and my dog Allie as well as some family friends all went up to go camping at Bear Flats along Tonto Creek. While I didn't get to commit as much time to fishing as I would prefer its well worth it to have my family along, as well as Cindi always takes some fantastic pictures.

We arrived to the camping spot mid day on Friday. Luckily considering it was spring break weekend we still had the area to ourselves. It was cool and some rain had just passed through. After unpacking and getting the tent set up I was quickly rigging up for the river. All three of us headed down and rather quickly started catching fish. They were hitting size 16-18 Pheasant tail. The highlight of the first day was a 15" Brown. We all fished together for a couple hours before heading back to camp to get a fire going and to get dinner started.

After a sleepless cold night on an air mat that turns out to have a rather large hole in it I snuck out at first light with my friend to try to get a few fish in before breakfast. I landed another 15 incher as well as I hooked into another fish that looked to be a couple inches larger but I lost him at the net, I guess that gives me a reason to go back.


When my son went down for a nap I seized the chance to hike up the river a ways to see what I could find. Not to far after I started my trek a storm started to blowing over. Just as it started to rain and the thunder started to shake the ground I noticed some fish rising in a slow moving run. There was no way I was going to turn back now that I'd seen several fish rising (first time for the year) no matter how mush it started to pour. So with hands shacking with anticipation I snipped off my nymph rig and tied on a size 18 Adams dry fly and started sneaking into the river. After a few casts I was rewarded with a small Brown shooting to the surface for my first hook up on a dry for the year. Just about then the rain really started to come down so I went back to make sure my family was surviving the storm. After finding them napping in the tent I was heading right back out to my rising fish. When I got back to the pool the rain which had turned to hail started to lighten up and I found even more fish rising then before. When I looked to try to find out what they were rising for I found Mayflies floating down the river one after another so my Adams was a perfect match for the hatch. On my third cast I was rewarded with a beautiful brown shooting up to slurp my dry, over the next 30 minutes I was able to land 4 more fish in the 10-12" range with one measuring up to be a 13" beauty.

Over all it was a great weekend with family, good friends, and great fishing, not to mention a perfect fire side steak dinner cooked up by Aaron.

Here are several pictures of fish and shots taken by my very talented wife.

Chistopher Creek & Horton Creek with Brennan

I was unable to go fishing last week so by the end of this week I was itching to hit the river. The plan was to head up Friday afternoon to meet Brennan (check his blog out at fourcornerflyfishing.blogspot.com) to fish Christopher Creek on Friday and Horton Creek on Saturday. Brennan grew up in the Payson area and I was excited to learn from his experience about fishing the area.

Friday after noon Brennan, my dog Sage and I rigged up and started working our way up Christopher Creek it was'nt more than a couple pools until we started landing fish. The creek was running high but was still relatively clear and the stream bread browns and Rainbows could not resist hitting Brennan's go to fly the San Juan Worm. Turned out to be a great day with each of catching several fish while hiking along a wonderful creek. We fished until we could no longer see our indicators before calling it a night.

That night we drove over to Horton to set up camp so we could hit the river first thing at sun up. We called it a night pretty early but not prior to Brennan learning a good lesson about needing to puncture a hole in his can of chili prior to warming it on the fire. After a small explosion Brennan no longer had a dinner and his can was 50 feet from the fire with a spray of chili leading the way. Luckily I had extra food...

The next morning we started our way up Horton Creek from the confluence of Tonto and Horton. After a mile or so of hiking we started fishing our way up the Creek. The river was fishing much like Christopher with fishing small pools and around large rocks, and again no matter how hard I tried to get another fly to produce they were mostly hitting those same San Juan's. Other than one other fisherman who we only saw once and several hikers we had the river to ourselves.

It ended up being a great two days of fishing and between us we probably landed over 30 fish. It's always good to have another bud who can appreciate fly fishing. I forgot my camera the first day and didn't take many pictures the second but thanks to Brennan to some good shots.

February Tonto Creek

February 21 2009

Despite the high runoff from the recent snow that hit our high country a friend of mine, Steve "The Trout Slayer" Longshore, my dog Sage and I spent Saturday fly fishing Tonto Creek. To be honest I was not to optimistic about the fishing given the runoff however Steve had the day open and I was in the area after taking some scouts camping so we figured we would give it a shot.

After rigging up and a short hike through the snow we were throwing flies by 9:30. The river was running high however while still murky it was clearer that I had feared. My pessimism was changed after Steve hooked up with the first fish of the day after a just few casts. I hooked up shortly after and the day was off to a great start.

Despite the snow which was mostly on the West bank it was a very warm day with a slight chill in some of the deeper parts of the canyon. There was a Blue Winged Olive hatch in the afternoon however we still only saw a couple fish rise throughout the day. We were catching mostly small Browns with a few rainbows mixed in. Most of the strikes were soft and we missed several of them. The fishing seemed to die down in the afternoon and then turned right back on near the end of the day. Overall we landed 23 fish and mixed with great weather and good company it was a great day.

The highlight of the day came when we were hiking our way back out of the canyon. Steve pointed me towards a pool he had some success on earlier and he recommended I try it out while he took a break (bad hip...old man...). After a couple casts I brought in a small bow, then a few casts later I set the hook on something a bit more solid, after a little fighting I was starting to think I was hooked into something on the large side. I was fishing light tippet (6X) so I didn't want to force it and after 30 seconds of failing to bring the fish up to the surface I called out to Steve that I thought I had a good one on the line. Just as I called out this guy shot to the surface and went air born. It was a beautiful sight as this monster shot out of the water.

Of course I let out a scream of excitement after seeing him. I worked him down stream to some shallower water and sighed with relief once he was in the net. He ended up being a tad over 17" and was fat like a pig. To say the least he made my day and I was just as happy to let him go to catch another day. Other than that guy I also caught a 14" Rainbow with most everything else in the 10"-12" range.

Tonto Creek

January 31st 2009

After months of getting my fix during the off season by fishing the lower Salt River and Saguaro Lake for stockers I was thrilled when I heard that some of the higher elevation small creeks were fishable after all the warm weather we have been having. So after months of stocker fish I was pumped for the opportunity to throw some casts at some stream bread trout.

I arrived late morning to 50+ degrees and sunny skies. The river was running high from runnoff but was still fairly clear. I started fishing a hopper dropper and after a couple of holes I had a fish shoot up and hit my hopper, only in Arizona would a trout take a hopper in January. I missed that strike but on the next cast over him he took my nymp and he was on. Of course I left my net in the car so he broke free just as I was reaching for him, but he looked to be a 12" brown. I pulled one more small Rainbow out of that hole before moving on (stoping back at the Jeep to pck up my net). For the next couple hours I landed nearly a dozen more fish all Browns in the 10-13 inch range most all came out of deep plunge pools on size 16 nymps, a couple more had hit a stimulator. Near the end of the day with only an hour of light left things seemed to be slowing down a bit so I tied on a small size 18 emerger and things turned right back on but this time it was mostly small rainbows coming to play. I started back towards the car and pulled 2 to 3 fish out of a few holes before it was time to call it a day. All in all it was one of those days I dream of, I never saw another person the entire day, the fishing was on fire, and the weather was perfect.