Arriving in the Dalton area of the Pecos on a Friday afternoon the sky was clear…except for the hundreds of big black stoneflies buzzing just overhead! I got excited rushed down to the river knocking into some brush on the way. I looked at my shoulder and noticed I two one inch long stoneflies on me. Well sometimes it’s easy to know that fly to rig up!
I decided to go simple and big: a large chubby chernobyl on top with a large stonefly nymph under water. It turned out to be quite productive, both surface and subsurface. The highlight however was the double… A 16 inch brown exploded out of the water gulping the chubby. During the fight the stonefly whipping around was just too enticing for an unsuspecting rainbow. I got both in the net together creating unlikely bedfellows temporarily.
The good (early monsoon?) rains combined with the low snowpack and warm spring have created variable fishing conditions and hatch timing that has started from historical records. But early June is starting off quite productively!
