The Grand Canyon as a flyfishing destination? Hell yes.
So, something like 4.5 million people visit the Grand Canyon by various modes, and some 25,000 float the river through the Canyon every year. And the vast majority only visit the south rim for less than four hours, and only the tiniest of tiny percentage bother to fish. Oh what the masses are missing.
I've had pretty close contact with GCNP for a while now. In fact, about 8 years ago I met my wife, who was working at GCNP about the same time I began getting back into flyfishing. My fishing obsession has grown into something manic, and it's now time I embark on the quest to fish as much of the Park as I can, and what will hopefully be infrequent updates to this thread.
The Park Service stocked trout of various species in most tributaries, and most tributaries still have trout, rainbows and browns, however the cutts and brookies are gone now. And after Glen Canyon dam was built and rainbows stocked into the river, trout became a permanent fixture.
Which brings me to the subject of hotspotting. I know on some message boards, hotspotting is frowned upon. But fuck it. So much of the Grand Canyon is so difficultly accessible I seriously doubt a post on TGR will unleash the masses on its streams.
Mrs. ricorides doesn't work at the Park anymore, but it's not gonna stop me from fishing the streams of the Canyon. In fact, I think my resolve and obsession to fish the river and tribs has only gotten stronger. So with that, the Mrs. and I began my quest this past weekend with a hike into Soap Creek, a dry intermittent side canyon with no trout, the goal being the rainbows in the Colorado River.
The hike in begins at a pretty non-descript parking area not too far from Cliff Dwellers, below the Vermilion Cliffs. This will be the last view of the rim and cliffs for a while.
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And the going gets rough pretty quickly, on a small pour over of polished limestone,
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Pretty quickly into the hike the going gets a little tough with some small pour-offs. I took a peek at the trail register as we left, and someone had wrote the hike had taken 8 hours. The trail description the NPS sent us with the permit, described the route as 2.5 miles and difficult, and I thought, "8 hours! what a moron." Someone else had written they had seen desert bighorn sheep, and I thought "Sweet, I hope so."
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And at about this point the trail turned from a lousy trail into nothing more than a route in which one, as best as one can, follows the canyon bottom. This is when the mother of all rock falls obfuscates the canyon bottom, and the unfortunate hiker is left to follow the shittiest cairned route I have ever followed. But WTF, there's fishing at the end right? I wish I had more photos from the rock fall section, what I did bother to take photos of doesn't even come close to describing how slow, frustrating, physically demanding this section was; the down climbs with and without ropes, packs on, packs off and lower packs with ropes, packs back on. And repeat several times. It took and hour and a half to pass through the rock fall both ways, and I'm convinced there is no easier way through.
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There weren't as many flowers as I thought there'd be, but the Datura was going off.
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Eventually we made it through the rock fall, onto a rock layer that tends to slope rather than form cliffs, where the intermittent streams comes to the surface, and hiking became much easier. My wife stopped dead in her tracks, and I was about fifty yards behind, and thought "that's odd."
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A dying bighorn. Dying, present tense. It was still breathing, albeit slowly. And it eyes were open obviously afraid of our presence, and making sad bellowing groans. It was pretty damn sobering to see the circle of life were the arm is pointing to the eleven o'clock position. I've seen bighorns before on river trips and other places, and I always assumed they die somewhere, sometime, but to actually see one is incredibly shocking. There were no obvious reasons why this animal was dying. Definitely not how I was hoping to see desert bighorns.
The canyon bottom got to be much easier walking, but the next hour was quiet and somber after seeing the bighorn. It had a pretty strong effect on my wife.
Eventually my spirits lifted with the sound of the rapids at the river. Fishing is close finally.
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There were fish sipping midges in this eddy, and I landed a couple, but I've found that if you don't have the exact replica of what they're sipping you don't stand a chance.
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Evening fishing session,
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And a couple parting shots.
Looking up canyon, already hot,
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It was noticeably hotter on Sunday. We took short breaks in the shade of every overhang.
And in the middle of the rock fall section, someone else had stopped to share their frustration, just as I was feeling. I just had to laugh.
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All in all, the hike I would rate as very difficult, if just for the rock fall section. And I would say it's more like 4 miles, don't let the mileage fool you. The moron who wrote in the register was spot on.
With that I hope to be bringing occasional installments from the grandest of all canyons.
