I first heard about rainy day dry fly fishing on the Fryingpan back in the late 1990s, before I even knew where the river was. I was in Taylor Edrington’s Royal Gorge Anglers in Cañon City, headed to fish the Arkansas, when I overheard the shop guys talking (more like whispering) about the PMD hatch they had just experienced up here in the Roaring Fork Valley. The next chance I got, I figured out where the Fryingpan was and headed up to Basalt.
I wasn’t lucky enough to get a rainy day on my first few jaunts here, but I’ve certainly enjoyed my fair share since moving here. If you can’t beat em, join em, right? This past week of rainy weather was some of the best dry fly fishing I’ve ever come across. I’m not sure why mayflies like to hatch in cloudy weather, but I am sure why the trout become so frenetic. Simply put, when it rains during a hatch, mayflies can’t dry their wings after emergence and are sitting ducks on the surface. They simply can’t fly off the water until their newly unfurled adult wings firm up and dry out. READ MORE
