So you’ve purchased your new fishing Stand Up Paddle board… You’ve outfitted it with key accessories to manage the rod, paddle, fishing net and other key items… You are standing at the river’s edge, ready to land a legendary brown trout. And suddenly you realize you have no idea which fly to use. Sound familiar? Have you ever struggled to understand which bug your are trying to imitate? Fear not. Latin taxonomy is not required. To demystifying which fly your fish are eating, simply 1) Focus on the family of the bugs that are on the river 2) Determine what life cycle stage those bugs are in. Here are some images of flies for the Upper Colorado / Eagle Rivers to help you get oriented and increase your success.
There are seven main categories of insects/food to be familiar with in this region of Colorado: midges, mayflies, caddis, stoneflies, terrestrials, scuds/chironomids and egg/worms.
Once you are able to identify bugs in these key categories, you can focus on identifying their stages. Understanding these lifecycles is critical to gaining clarity on your fly selection.
For example, the life cycle of a midge includes four stages: larva, pupa, emerger, and dry/adult
On the Eagle river, which flows through the Vail/Eagle valley, and the Upper Colorado from Pumphouse to Rifle, the mayfly is the most important insect to learn since this bug is prevalent on these rivers for over 6 months of the year. The life cycle of mayfly nymphs can be broken into four key groups: Swimmers, clingers, crawlers, and burrowers.
These hatch charts from our friends at Discountflies.com provide additional information about which flies to try during different times of the year. Their information about flies on the Colorado River and Eagle River is invaluable.
Savvy fly fishermen know that finding the right fly requires some trial and error. But you can minimize your frustration by doing a little legwork on the front end to make sure you’ve got the right fly selection in your fly box.