My Trip to the Frying Pan

I visited the Frying Pan River over the weekend with my friends Matt, Connor, and Adam. First of all, the scenery was beautiful. The water was perfectly clear and running at 95cfs, the surrounding cliffs were unforgettable, and the weather could not have been better for fly fishing. After a night of limited sleep suffering through Adam’s snoring, we hit the water at about 9:30am. Things started out slow initially, but after a few hours, we began to get a little activity in the pocket water lining the river on the opposite bank from the road, no doubt attributed to the quickly rising temperatures in the area. After seining a few spots and experimenting with a hand-full of patterns, I was able to start enticing trout to my line using the rojo, CDC pheasant tail, and a bead-head zebra midge. Nymphing these patterns showed some limited success, but the river bottom itself was so covered in silt and algae in most areas, you would actually spend more time cleaning your flies than fishing your lane. Using a dry-dropper was far more effective and allowed for a more variable presentation at the bottom by doing nothing more than changing the dropper length based on the area being targeted.


Overall, we caught about 30 trout all together. We caught both browns and rainbows ranging in size from 10 to 19 inches. I would call that a successful trip and a fun weekend out with the guys. I hope to do this again soon!