Colorado River Salmonfly Hatch Update Friday Morning – June 13, 2014
June 13th, 2014
Thursday on the river was another good day of fishing in places. There are still good numbers of adult Pteronarcys present in the stretch of river from Gore Canyon down stream towards State Bridge. However, we saw considerably fewer bugs in the wide open valley type terrain and much greater concentrations of flying Salmonflies in the canyon type areas.
With that in mind, this may be a good time to take a long hike up into the middle of Gore Canyon. There has been considerably less traffic on the river this year with the above average water level and very little of that has gone very deep into the canyon.
Conditions remain solid, considering the amount of water that is still flowing through the river. This morning’s reading is 5,210, a drop of 250 from yesterday and clarity remains a solid 2 feet at Pumphouse. That will diminish slightly as you move down river but, not enough to matter.
We found good dry fly fishing again yesterday, about what we have been seeing for more than a week now. We actually saw more anglers fishing nymphs than dries and that action appeared to be fair to good. We would like to give a first hand report on the nymphing but we just can’t bring ourselves to do it while this hatch is on and the chance for big fish on dries continues.
With the amount of adults we saw, we would guess that it should last at least through the weekend in those canyon areas. After that, it will be interesting to see what happens upstream in the Beyer’s Canyon and Parshall area with the higher flows and a declining bug population. If it does come off up there, we will let you know.