EDWARDS TO EAGLE FISHING REPORT
Water clarity excellent in Edwards with slight stain by end of the day but always 2ft or better. Off color below Edwards, reducing to 1ft +/-, due to Lake Creek as well as the other drainage ditches that dump into the Eagle between Edward's and Eagle.
Water Color and Bug Activity
Warmer days are putting some cloudy water into the eagle, but what's important to the angler, there's no particulate matter. IE it's just cloudy not chunky. FYI they are currently (at least they were) doing some work with heavy equipment in the whitewater park at the Fairgrounds causing a good bit of mess all the way to Gypsum. None of this appears to have effected the fishing.
Midge hatch has been starting about 11:00-12:30 and lasting until 2:00-3:30 everyday. Intensity and duration of hatch was determined by the ambient temperature. The warmer the day the stronger/longer the hatch.
Midges varied in size from 16-20 depending on the particular stretch of the river I was fishing. And also had some color differences. Majority of them were black, followed up by black/olive and a few were pale almost white. The back eddies contained a 1/4 think layer of midge casings.
Fish Activity
Fish were sipping emergers out of the foam, as well as feeding mid column on pupa. At times as many as twenty or more fish might have been seen feeding at any one time. Even when clarity wasn't great they were still feeding between 2-3 feet under the surface. As a matter of fact, this was the first time I've ever thrown dry flies in off color water, and was successful!!! However once the hatch stopped, feeding shutoff pretty hard most days. Didn't try to hard after the action stopped, I'd had my fun.
Best rigs:
5wt Sage - Lamson Micra - 9ft 4x Rio nylon leader - #16 Para Adams and/or #16 Griffith Gnat with 16" of 4.5X TroutHunter Fluorocarbon trailing #18 sparkle wing RS2 in black or gray.
6wt TFO Mangrove - Lamson Liquid - 9ft 3x TroutHunter nylon leader, homemade yarn indicator, RIO 2mm tippet ring, 12" of 3x TroutHunter Fluorocarbon to #8
 olive or brown Pat's rubber legs, 12" of 4x to #18 black or gray SWRS2 or #18 ninja, 12" of 4.5X to #20 black or gray SWRS2. Best success rate was achieved with no weight added and 4-5 feet between indicator and first fly.
