Sean Cowman
Spring and Fall are great times to fish the lower Eagle. This time of year you can expect some excellent Midge hatches alongside Blue Winged Olives depending on conditions. One thing to watch out for is the early spring runoff from Milk Creek near Wolcott. It happens much earlier and is quite unpredictable, any rain or snow will turn the rest of the river brown from the inlet down stream. While the water was off color it did not hinder our success. Once it warmed up a bit trout were willingly eating egg patterns and midges subsurface. We did not have to switch flies much at all, when we did, it was the thought that maybe one color would contrast better in murky water than another color. What I found was bright colored eggs and natural colored Baetis flies to work best. Specific flies that found success with were: Flash tail egg, champagne, size 16. Pat’s rubber legs, green/brown size 12. Rainbow warrior, black, size 16!