11 Mile Canyon Fishing Report 3-1-2013

Yesterday was our third official fishing trip of the year; it was our second in 11 Mile Canyon. Flows were in the low 40 c.f.s. and the water was crystal clear. Spotting fish was a little difficult because of massive glare bouncing off the 6 inches of fresh snow. We had a late start to the day so it was obvious that in the two spots we fished below the dam that we were fishing for scraps, but it was still a killer day!

Apricot eggs, Black Beauties, Mojo Midges, and Mercury RS-2s all fooled fish. There was a pod of trout rising in that slow moving water below the top bend that were begging to have their lip pierced by a size 26 Parachute Adams, but two anglers near the spot were fishing heavy nymph rigs so I didn't let the temptation of pulling out the dry fly rod get to me. A lot of the fish were anchored to deep slow moving pools with dark bottoms. I say most because we did manage a few fish in shallow faster moving water. 

Our combined fish count was 8 to the net, and at least that many "long distance releases" in 3 hours of taking turns starting at 1 in the afternoon. Safe to say, anyone with 6x leaders and tippet and a small amount of experience fly-fishing would have an epic day if they got on the water by 9 a.m. Just to give you all a feel for the day and how gorgeous it was up there I took a few minutes to slap together a quick video of some footage of Kristen landing a fish, and footage of a crane taking off that kept harassing us. Also please forgive the music! It was a drum track that I made on garage band that I never really did anything with, and I figured that some sort of beat is better than the sound of the underwater housing to our gopro cameras being jostled.