Fly Fishing the Upper West Fork outside of Alpine, AZ

Well … I admit it, I usually get turned on by the best fly fishing in the White Mountains region. Our designated broker Bob Pollock at Greer Land & Investments is a legendary fly fisherman in the Greer area with over 25 years of experience. Also, my wife Wendy Krueger has been guiding fly fishing in the Alpine and Greer area for the last 9 seasons. Between the two of them, they have covered as much surrounding water as anyone else …

I enjoy fly fishing tremendously, but generally gravitate towards the Yellowstone, Gallatin, and Madison rivers in Montana. I like dry fly fishing in big water with plenty of room for my back cast. Unfortunately, outside of Lees Ferry on the Colorado River, there are very few areas in Arizona that I am very excited about fishing. Sure, I’m okay with spending the day on the Lower Black River south of Wildcat Crossing wet fly fishing for brown trout, but I’d rather have surface shots and lots of it. When I feel the need to hook a few large hook-jaw brown trout from a moose hair caddis, I head to the Upper West Fork of the Black River.

Directions: From Alpine, take US 191 (formerly US666) north of town 1 mile and turn onto Big Lake Road or Forest Road 249. Go west approximately 16 miles past Sierra Blanca Ranch, then Three Forks area to Forest Road 249E. Continue traveling west past the Indian Springs trailhead, around the back of Big Lake past South Cove, down a large hill to the junction of Forest Road 116. Turn left (west again) onto Forest Road 116, you will fall into the drain with an old cabin on your right, continue another 1/3 mile and there will be a Ramada Forest Service parking area. Directly south 100 yards will be the Thompson Trail trailhead and the Upper West Fork of the Black River.

There is a culvert right up the road which is fine for a drop off the line, but I like to go straight south on the trail. After 1/4 mile there will be a fish barrier to protect Apache trout, you cannot fish in this area, go 1/3 mile more and there will be another fish barrier, you can start fishing below this area. Everyone likes to fish a little differently, my style is to walk as far back as I feel like that day, then start fishing upstream against the creek.

I usually walk for 45 minutes on the trail, which is about 3 miles. The first 1.5 miles of the hike is quite wooded along the river, there will be a small opening in the meadow, then the meadow will open up to a larger meadow. Continue south along the Thompson Trail which is actually a former rail grade, roughly halfway across the great meadow the trail will descend (probably an old bridge location). Walk through the dip and after a few hundred yards you will notice the trail veers off to the west, start walking cross country straight through the prairie heading southeast. You will travel a bit downhill and head towards the obvious bottom of the meadow.

There is a great camping and picnic spot where the meadow ends and this is where I usually set my rod. If I travel alone, I carry a gun, an old habit from Montana. Usually I’m concentrating so much on the water that I can get up close and scare a bear or a cougar … (although I haven’t had any experience with those creatures in this area). If we’ve been raining a lot, especially during the monsoon, the pools are pretty cloudy. These are good for some casts, but I’ve had a lot more luck casting straight upstream, usually in the corners on my side of the creek, and with my dry fly floating blindly along the riverbank. I routinely catch a nice brown trout this way using a variety of flies, including hoppers. I usually fish all the large and small meadows in about 2 hours and I catch and release quite a few fish.

If you want to fish in this area successfully, you must be an early riser. I like to be in the water around 6 in the morning. This means that I leave Alpine around 4:30 in the summer, drive for 45 minutes, and then walk for 45 minutes. I have tried fishing in the area later in the morning and in the afternoon with limited success. I guess if your goal is to fish you should be there when they’re feeding.

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