The flows on the Crooked have continued to slowly rise. Now at 248 CFS, it is a great time to head East of town to find some rainbows. The higher but steady flows mean that fish are exactly where you’d expect them to be and they are eating. Focus on fishing the pockets around rocks and in deeper channels, some fish can also be found in riffles. There is plenty of opportunity to fish both subsurface and surface flies. Nymphs and small streamers continue to be the most consistent producers of fish, but we have been seeing some awesome dry fly action on certain days. We are starting to see various mayfly hatches as well as the mother’s day caddis hatch that we always look forward to. Look for those fish to key in on the caddis as the hatch progresses, there should be some incredible dry fly days on the crooked in the very near future. If the surface action isn’t there, a standard double nymph rig or swung streamer should produce good numbers of fish.
Suggested nymphs: Olive copper microstone #14-18, olive or brown micro mayfly #14-20, peacock soft hackle #16, sparkle pupa #16, black or red two bit hooker #16-20, black or purple zebra midge #18-22, red or black winkers midge #18-22
Suggested dries: Black foam caddis #16, peacock caddis #16, black elk hair caddis #16, purple haze #16-20, parachute adams #16-20, hackle stacker #18-20, tilt wing #16-20
Suggested streamers/leeches: Olive or brown bunny buster #6, black or tan sculpzilla #6