Afternoon fishing is still the way to go. I was lucky enough to have a single client booked for the afternoon with extensive experience, and to top it off, there were no other anglers on the river on a Saturday! I don’t blame anyone because the weather was extremely unpredictable. We had everything from bright sunshine to heavy snow. The fishing trip started off great with a very light stain to the river and very hungry fish. We quickly bagged a handful of fish, almost right at our feet, as we had good, soft water there, and the fish were avoiding the cold, fast flows. The squirmy worm got their attention and a handful of eats, and we also got love on a larger, curved hook, hare’s ear. This was rounded out with some love for the small bug, namely, mayhem midges and size 20 soft hackle pheasant tails. We hit a brief lull mid-trip when the snow really started dumping on us, and the fish became picky. The trip ended with the sun coming out and a large midge hatch with rising fish everywhere and a dozen dry fly eats, but only a few fish came into hand. Are small bugs hard to see, ya know? Take advantage of this cool weather, as it’s keeping the upper Eagle River fishable. There’s even fishing to be done downstream, even though the clarity isn’t as good as the upper river. The lower Eagle river is fishable in Gypsum by boat too!
