Pteronarcys californica

[motroutbum]

so I canned all the juan stuff (my trips got cancelled one guy said it was too cold one morning, and another guy got stuck in vegas and couldnt get a flight out.) No calls for other trips so one of our guides and I went for a stroll to the Black canyon. We were on our way to steamboat springs anyway to pick up his Hog Island Boat and we made a stop. The stones were going crazy. I would rather fish with huge size 4 dry flies and huge nymphs than fish size 22-28 midges at the juan any day. we got there and hiked 4.5 miles and 3000 vertical feet down. Salmon flies were everywhere. And fish smacking them. I started out the morning nymphing with a stonefly pattern that I tie and caught an 18" brown on the first drift. The day just got better from there. We hiked upstream and downstream and caught probably 20 fish between the 2 of us throughout the day and The smallest fish was 17". I caught 4 fish over 20 including a nice 21" rainbow to colse out the day on a size 20 emerging caddis. (The caddis were coming off in droves also.)

After hiking back out of the canyon, we probably put 12-13 miles in that day and got out just as the sun wasa setting over the horizon. I suffered from a little heat exhaustion and dehydration from deciding that fishing was more important that drinking enough water. (bad choice)

The next day we went down to the pleasure park area and hiked in about 3 miles up the river and pretty much set up shop on a deep riffle that was about 75 yds long and full of fish. I caught too many fish to count but did also manage 3 fish over 20 on my stone and a prince.

The black canyon is only half way between steamboat and durango. Well we didnt end up making it up to steamboat because the boat was done, but there was not a trailer to pull it on and we wouldnt have one untill wed! With a trip of 7 people on thursday, and a trip on wed, we decided we would just drive back to durango today.

On our way back, the Uncompaghre flows north from Red mountain pass through Ouray, Ridgeway and to Delta where it meets the gunny. We stopped and fished the Tailwater section below ridgeway. That river looks just like roaring river below the park only about twice as big twice as deep and twice as fast. We only had time to fish for an hour or so, but I managed 3 beautiful rainbows on one of my woven caddis and a prince.

Not a bad trip. I figured ive fished for 30 hours over a 4 day period. All other time was spent driving, hiking, or recovering alittle bit each night from catching so many big fish.

[Wayne SW/MO]

I remember fishing some of those on the Deschutes River in Oregon. Its hard to know which is better, the nymph period, when they start moving, or the dry period.