![]() Ten inches is the approximate average length. Characteristicsĭepending on habitat and food availability, Mature Apache Trout range in length from six to twenty-four inches. You’ll learn about their Characteristics, environmental challenges, recent history, and where you can fish for Apache Trout today. Rare, beautiful, and forgiving to the novice angler, I would suggest a trip to the Desert to anyone looking for adventure in the lands carved by Billy the Kid and Geronimo, because only where life shouldn't be, will you find this gem of a fish.In this article, you’ll learn all about Apache Trout. Not respected as a trophy by many and known by few, the Apache is a worthy fin to chase, as worth as any I know. A poetic similarity with the Apache Trout, against all odds: fires, droughts, and human interference it has carried on. Like life in general, if it can survive it will. I've caught Apaches in streams all over Arizona, especially water that would be considered off the grid. See Montana Flies for the original fly, just saying. Many people I fish with like the Copper-Bob as their Dropper, and it works well in all the rivers in Arizona. I will commonly fish a Dry-Dropper rig consisting of some attractor pattern with a Pheasant Tail underneath. ![]() I'm getting old, what can I say.Fish in the river's are generally easier to catch, although on average smaller in size. I tend to shy away from places receiving a plethora of foot traffic. Now, unfortunately, it holds many anglers too. Ten years ago, I would fish a location called Diamond Rock quite frequently, and it still holds good fish. Stocked heavily by Arizona's Game and Fish Department there is an abundance of both Apache and Brown trout in this River. The East Fork of the Black River is another key location, especially for the angler looking to sting an Apache in moving water. Consult the local fly shop or Arizona Game and Fish to ensure you're on non-reservation grounds before you camp. Outside the reservation on what is deemed, "State-Land" anglers can camp for free. ![]() If planning a trip, there is camping all over the area, but for those intending to stay on the reservation make sure you get a camping permit from the fly shop before you spend the night. It was a grand success of my 2009 season, a three hour ordeal casting to one fish, not spooking him with cast after cast, finally to convert on meat: I get warm inside recalling this memory still.Īpaches often will take Hopper patterns all summer. Finally, in fading light, the big buck Apache Trout ate a Moorish-Mouse thrown onto the bank from my pontoon and dragged ten feet in front of him. Last year during the fall Caddis I pulled a giant fish, weighing close to six pounds who had been sipping Spent wing caddis under an overhanging branch for hours, but wouldn't take my imitation. Often lasting throughout the day and into the evening, as fish switch from insects to more meaty patterns like mice. Explosive surface action, tickling the most finicky of fisherman, can be a real kick in the pants. My favorite time to fish Christmas tree is in the summer months, when fish are looking up for Damsel flies, beetles, and Ants. A limited number of anglers per day keeps the pressure off the fish encouraging a willingness for the already fly-friendly Apache to take flies. Permits are purchasable for per day at the Hon-Dah Ski and Fish shop located in Hon-Dah Arizona. One of those places to look is a "pay-to-play" lake called Christmas Tree on the White Mountain Apache reservation located east of Show Low Arizona. There are a few larger exceptions, if you know the right places to look, holding sizable specimens extending to and past the twenty inches. Fighting with the gusto of a much larger fish trapped in its little brother's body, a sizable Apache will measure in between fifteen to sixteen inches, most not clearing the foot mark. Feisty when hooked known to leap more than look, the Apache will commonly tail dance across the water when fooled by an anglers well placed imitation. Black spotted, on a background of butter-gold, like someone took a Sharpe and dotted a gold bar, the Apache trout is a spectacle to behold. The Apache Trout once swam the length of Mogollon Plateau, stretching from Western Arizona into Eastern New Mexico. Tara Otto holding a nice specimen Apache Trout on local stream.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |