131. DIY Fly Fishing the Rocky Mt. West

I've said this countless times that the fly rod takes us to some beautiful places and knowing where to start and what to start with before I ever leave Tennessee would be about as much help as anything.

And even though I go out west more than some folks, a starting point on a particular river still would be helpful considering the time of year, where I'm going to be, and what I'm going to be fishing for.

So, Michael, what's a good rig to start with when I get to where I'm going? Just a general rig in the Rocky Mountain West.

Well, David, it's a bit of a loaded question, but I think we can dial it in based on, you know, a number of different things.

Specifically, kind of you mentioned what time of year it is, where are you going? I think one thing to look at in a normal year is, you know, what's the river doing? And that's a pretty easy thing you can find out before you leave home and figure out if the water's high, you know, if we're in runoff or whatever.

post runoff or if you're in kind of middle of summer conditions where we're kind of at that normal water level or if we're late summer, maybe fall, lower level, lower water levels.

And I think that's a good place to start.

And maybe that's that's kind of how we go about breaking that down.

And then also, we can dive in even deeper on what you want to fish.

If you want to fish streamers, you want to fish nymphs, you want to fish dry flies.

And time of year dictates what's going to be best there as well.

So kind of breaking it down, if you're going typically would be you know spring or late spring early summer uh during high water and a lot of people get afraid to fish during that high water in the west because they think big snow big runoff but fish are still there they're still eating uh you might have to stand back 10 feet from where you normally stand because you're standing you know in the banks but um efficient those inside bends and things like that the rig i'd kind of start with if i'm going out you know say i got a trip and i'm going to be out in the west and may or early june you know and we know water level is not too like it's the uh clarity is okay i typically start you know think you got to get down quick so we're thinking you know big heavy maybe i always stick with like a pass rubber legs on top if i'm nymphing you know and that's a good good fly to get down quickly and it's a big bug uh can imitate a bunch of different things and then um you know there's still some things hatching so whether you go for a big peasant tail or something on that side got a little flash to it that you know they can see in that bit of turbidity and off color or you can go with the always loved san juan worm or something like that you know there's a lot of worms moving around if people want to go that route um and then i like throwing you know that time of year high water i like throwing streamers on the inside banks i don't think you can ever go wrong with uh my favorites the the dalai lama go as big as you can and throw the dalai lama out there that the white and uh olive is my favorite color it's got a little flash to it um and you know those fish are laying there and if you can get that drift just right they're looking for an easy meal and a big meal at that time of year and then i always look at you know normal water i kind of rule out dry fly fishing during runoff so we'll skip that one but you go normal water middle of summer um in the west you know we we have Kind of depending on where you are, pretty dominant hatches across most of the watersheds.

But you look at your mayflies or your caddis hatch or stoneflies, things like that.

My favorite rig is to go...

some sort of beaded nymph if i'm going to nymph a pheasant tail is hard to beat flashback pheasant tail or soft tackle pheasant tail something gives you some uh motion and a little bit of you know really you're looking at your depth and your water and where those fish are are sitting so are we that's kind of something to figure out but a pheasant tail and then some sort of a merger bar's a merger on the back is hard to beat um rs2 something smaller so you kind of cover those two you know a bigger hatch or bigger bug a bigger mayfly species um and then you got something smaller that's moving on the back end of that always got to put a dry dropper rig together in that middle of the summer or even a hopper dropper rig you know the hoppers get started earlier than you think if you're out there in july um i know that it's hard to beat you know throwing a big chubby chernobyl and just having a pheasant tail or a hair's ear you know guides choice hairs there's always a go-to underneath that um and then you know streamers you can still get away with it in the middle of summer it might be something that you go a little bit smaller sculpin pattern something like that that's just you know in that little bit lower water um but there's fish are still eating on that and then as we get into you know low water i kind of start the opposite way i go start with the dry fly and see what's going to be you know fish are spooky uh they've been fished out all summer and you know they might be holding in different areas depending on what's going on if you're if you're there when the browns are spawning that's in the late fall and skinny water that's a different story but always start with the dry fly and and you got those you know later in the year depending on what the bugs are going you know start with something pretty basic if you get some overcast days you know uh any sort of um like bwo pattern something like that you can get people think to tend to overthink it and throw these crazy patterns but your standard parachute adams is almost always the best thing to start with and uh

absolutely

yeah that um you know you'll see some caddis come off midday or early in the morning sometimes and so that's always good but um and then you you kind of just have to to match that but you know oftentimes our bugs in the fall get a little bit smaller you get your trichos coming off you get things like that um so you might have to downsize a little bit but you can also as we get later in the fall and that water's still kind of skinny you can get get some aggressive fish towards that you know into early winter or during the winter even if you're fishing in the wintertime where you can throw a streamer and get something to move on it um and then so you got to look at that and then you know really there's we could go into this for for two hours you know and really talk about it but that's that's what I would do I mean really looking at where you're at uh in terms of flows uh time of year but starting with you know figuring out how much water there is and depth is always the biggest thing to look at if you're gonna name for you're gonna streamer fish And then summer, you know, if you want to go big, go big and see if you can get something to rise at it.

But a lot of times starting small and really just, you know, easing into it's the best way to go.

So one of the things that I heard there was worms, San Juan, stuff like that on highway.

And I've heard that on runoff a bunch because there are a lot of worms going in the water.

i saw a not too long ago michigan had a big flood and somebody showed i don't know if this is true because i saw it on the internet so i've got to be careful there but they showed all the bugs that were washed into the pier marquette just probably millions of them of worms washed into the pier marquette so that big that large that runoff that big water that kind of thing does get the worms stirred up and so i think that that brings me to the next point because i fish worms a little bit and especially in late winter but brings me to my next point is you mentioned pheasant tails uh guys choice pairs ears what else adams parachute adams it's not exotic the west is not exotic it's if you start with what you fish with at home you can you'll be in the ballpark absolutely unless you're fishing corn and that would probably work too but we tend to i know the first time i went i bought a bunch of flies a whole bunch of western flies which i still have today somewhere There's a whole fly box of Western flies that I never take out there anymore.

None.

I take hare's ears, pheasant tails, some midges, all the stuff that I fished here.

I kind of just throw stuff out of the guide boxes into my own fly box and take off.

I think if I get anything out of the answers to that question is don't go too far out of your box, out of your comfort zone when you head somewhere else.