TROUT FISHING IN ARIZONA

So you are a trout fisherman! But, what kind? Just what sort of fishing do you like? Does your fishing thrill come to you when you can catch a mess of those brilliantly hued trout, no matter what kind, and march proudly into your cabin or camp and yell for them to put the skillet on, because you've got fish to fry! Or, do you dream of hanging a rodbending line-buster that gives you a half-hour battle before shattering your terminal tackle -and then, the next day, hooking onto an even bigger fish and landing it? But then, maybe you want wild trout from a distant creek mysteriously located in some deep, isolated, little-known canyon where you have the feeling that few have been ahead of you?

No matter what manner of angler you are, my fishing friend, Arizona has something for you-and those other hook-danglers too-just the kind of trout fishing you want. Arizona's streams can give you a limit, or near-limit, every time you go out, or a tackle-trouncing ten-pounder or more, or some of those wild, smart trout that see less than half-a-dozen artificials a year.

This fishing is available the year long. There is no closed season on trout fishing in Arizona!

The apparently unlimited supply of trout found in the easily reached and heavily fished streams is produced by a very efficient trout hatching and rearing program conducted by the Arizona Game and Fish Commission. The story of this created fishing begins with the arrival of partially incubated trout eggs at one of the four hatcheries. Millions of these trout eggs, produced commercially, arrive at various times of the year. They are hatched out, then put in rearing ponds at one of Arizona's five trout-rearing stations. After a year or so in these ponds they are pan-size and ready for release in Arizona's easier-to-get-to streams.

The planting of trout begins as soon as the mountain roads are firm enough for the heavy trucks, and the streams have passed the spring-flood stage-and just before the trout fishermen reach the creeks. A typical April trout release report runs something like this: 37,300 sevento eleven-inch-long rainbow and brown trout in streams on the Apache National Forest, 44,000 nineto twelve-inch rainbows and browns in Oak Creek, Lake Mary, East Clear Creek and West Clear Creek on the Coconino National Forest, and 23,700 eight-inch rainbow trout turned loose, mostly in Tonto Creek on the Tonto National Forest. Other trout waters on other forests receive comparable plantings. There are even more trout released in May, still more in June, and so on throughout the summer.

The Arizona Game and Fish Commission has increased its total number of pan-size trout planted each year since 1941. It is now turning loose more than a half-million seveninch trout each season. Three times that number of fingerling trout, or smaller, are planted yearly.

Releasing a goodly supply of pan-size trout and replacing the caught caught trout with successive plantings means good fishing for everyone. The summer vacationer who is spending two precious weeks on the stream is assured of making good catches. These planted fish are more easily taken by the novice trying for the intricate skill of the expert fly fisherman than the wild, stream-reared rainbow and brown trout. So, whether your opportunity to go trout fishing comes early in the season or late in the summer, you have an equal chance for making a good catch.

This easier trout fishing is found in Oak Creek running south from Flagstaff to Sedona, Tonto Creek and its network of tributaries lying in the Tonto Basin under the Mogollon Rim and north and east of Payson, all the feeder streams draining into the Little Colorado and Black River in the White Mountain country south of Springerville.

Oak Creek is replete with accommodations for every type of trout angler, from the most luxurious hostelry with an elaborate cuisine, to the lowly, public-owned U. S. Forest Service Campground with its cement fireplaces and piped-in water supply. More than a score of roadside stores supply everything for the angler, from fishing worms on up. And the trout, both rainbows and browns, numbering in the thousands, are released in Oak Creek every season, and come from Page Springs Trout Rearing Ponds on lower Oak Creek.

Now, should you, Friend Angler, have a companion, an unfortunate person who doesn't care for trout fishing at its best, there are motion picture shows, square dancing and round dancing, roller skating, horseback riding and hiking to be had in Oak Creek and the immediate vicinity. These entertainments will divert their attention while you concentrate on those fascinating finny foes in the runs and pools of Oak Creek.

Now, while Oak Creek has a wide range of delights to offer the fisherman and his friends, Tonto Creek, draining the Tonto Basin Country, although very different, has a charm of its own. The streams here are a little wilder, and the whole atmosphere is more rustic and backwoodsy. Nearby Payson, an old cow town, can supply you with staples and most of the things you forgot to bring. Kohl's Ranch, right on Tonto Creek, serves as the post office and center of activity. There are cabins and free public campgrounds, too. There are also guest lodges ranging from the elaborate to the fishermen's camps tucked away in secluded spots on or near the heads of many of the trout streams flowing into the Tonto.

Here, too, there is nightly entertainment for the nonfisherman and the tired angler. Various churches have summer encampments and assemblies in the area, to which visitors are welcome. Camp Geronimo-the permanent Boy Scout camp-and R Bar C-the Boy Scout ranch-are in this vicinity, and are always open to visitors, both for inspection and at their evening ceremonials. And, if you have energy to burn and the sprightly music of a hillbilly band pleases your ear and tickles your feet, you can get yourself invited to a hoedown on a Saturday night in these parts. Pick your fun, and be assured that the fish are waiting out there in the stream every morning for your offering.

Although Tonto Creek, like Oak Creek, is visited by thousands of anglers during the season, the constant replenishing of the stream with pan-size fish from near-by Tonto State Fish Hatchery and Rearing Ponds makes for good catches. Too, the stream bed characteristics of the Tonto, somewhat like Oak Creek, yield many big browns.

Brown trout have a habit of hiding in a pool, going unscathed for several seasons, meanwhile growing into storybook size, finally to be discovered by some wide-eyed angler. In his breathless excitement of telling how he saw the lunker rise to suck in a hapless fly or churn the pool to a froth while chasing a smaller trout, the amateur angler usually gives away the location of the pool. Then begins the campaign.

If you like big-fish stories, Tonto has them. During the war years, it was "Hitler" and "Mussolini." After many skirmishes and some time, these cannibalistic browns were both caught-as were their namesakes. In more recent years there have been "Geronimo," "Big Boy" and an anonymous "that big brown." All of these storied trout were secretive, cautious browns that fed only in the early morning and late evening-and actually existed. Stop in, as I have, at Kohl's and hear the anglers tell their stories. It's fun, and adds so much to your store of pleasant experiences while fishing the Tonto.

You'll find big browns, too, on the Little Colorado and down on lower Black River just before it flows onto the Fort Apache Indian Reservation. These two main trout fishing streams drain the watershed of the north, east and south slopes of 11,470-ft. Mount Baldy. These creeks and their tributaries are stocked heavily with trout reared at Pinetop Trout Hatchery and Rearing Ponds, and at the federal hatchery at Williams Creek.

Centers of activity for anglers in the White Mountain area fishing the Little Colorado and its branches on the north slope of Mount Baldy are McNary, Springerville and Greer. Alpine and Nutrioso take care of anglers' needs on the eastern slope. Beaverhead and Diamond Rock lodges are for those who fish the head of the Black and its contributing streams which drain the southern slope.

But, wherever your quest for trout may take you in the White Mountains, at one time or another you'll hit the lakes: Big or Crescent, or the Greer Lakes.

Certain anglers' accounts have it that they traveled the entire northwest for good trout fishing, and en route home stopped for a final go at the lakes in the White Mountains. There, within a day's drive of the population centers of Arizona, they had their best trout fishing of the season!

Big Lake, the more renowned of the group, furnishes some of the finest lake trout fishing in the entire southwest. Its fish-producing qualities are peculiar, in that trout placed

ARIZONA'S Trout Fishing WONDERLAND

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in the lake grow as much as two and a half inches a month because of the bountiful food supply. Naturally, such rapid growth makes for good fishing! Big Lake is usually at its peak in August and early September. Crescent Lake, neighboring Big Lake a mile to the south, has its reputation, too, as a producer of memorable trout fishing.

But for consistent year-in-and-year-out good fishing, the Greer Lakes-Tunnel, Bunch and Reservoir, located just out from the little mountain town of Greer-are hard to beat. One of these three will naturally be the best, but the others usually press it hard for leadership in favoritism among the trout anglers.

Up to this writing, the biggest trout coming from Lake Mohave on fabulous Colorado River, a rainbow, was taken not far below Willow Beach. It weighed 18 pounds and one ounce. Emery's Landing produced its mate, 18 pounds even. So, that makes it a toss-up as to which is the better place to go to catch that fishing experience of your lifetime and a trophy for your den.

The best technique for bettering the odds of hooking the big trout is to bait up with salmon egg clusters and fish the eddies, or go upstream and turn your boat adrift, fishing as you float back into the head of Lake Mohave. If you feel the need of more personal direction, "Scoop" at Searchlight Landing, Murl or Pat Emery at Emery's Landing, or Dutch Flother at Willow Beach will give you the details of just where to go for the most productive fishing.

Don't let the fact that 18-pounders have been caught discourage you from the hope of catching a bigger trout. It is agreed by all who have made any exploration of the trout fishing potentials at Lake Mohave that this lake will one day produce a nation-wide record-breaking rainbow trout. You might be the person to catch it!

One word of advice before we leave the big-troutcatching addicts to their dreaming about Lake Mohave. If you should hang one of Lake Mohave's big 'uns, put your boat adrift immediately and start following him. Those biglunks will take all your line and break it off, if you don't. Make up your mind, too, that you are going to spend thirty minutes to an hour and a half landing him. There are dozens of trout in Lake Mohave, big boys, their lips festooned with hooks and lengths of leader belonging to over-anxious anglers who tried to boat or beach their big trout before the playtime was up!

And now, you hardy souls who have waited, rod in hand and creel over shoulder, to toil with me over the muscle-stretching, joint-grinding route to the infrequently fished streams and holes that lie deep in some remote canyon . . . let's shove off!

First, to the West Fork of Oak Creek. This rugged individualist among canyons heads in a swale southwest of Flagstaff. For a memorable trip, take the Roger Lake road where it crosses the canyon below Lockwood Springs, and get out of your car there. Adjust your back pack and head down-canyon as the driver of your car turns around to go back and meet you later at the mouth of the West Fork, half way down Oak Creek. The boulder-strewn canyon bottom is going to make it rough going, but that's what you asked for, so don't grumble.

The reward for all this effort? A beautiful fly-fishing stream-when you have slid and stepped down to it-threading its way between sheer red sandstone cliffs, pooling up occasionally to armpit depth. You'll have to wade or swim, or climb up over ledges to get through. The trout here are rainbow, stream hatched and reared, rock-hard, wild and as elusive as a wisp of smoke on a summer's breeze. The West Fork of Oak Creek is no place for the angler who only counts a fishing trip a success when he fills his limit. The West Fork is for the purist . . .as are the deep, cliff-bound, shaded pools of the Hell's Gate section of lower Tonto Creek. Imagine, or join me in dreaming, of taking your air mattress and blowing it up tight, then paddling your way on this improvised raft through those pools to a rocky bench or ledge, for a try at the fighting rainbows and browns you'll find hidden there.

The blue depths of West Clear Creek, heading at Long Valley and joining the Verde River below Camp Verde, are another mecca for those who count not the steps and hours of toil on the trail against the thrilling moment of getting a single rise from a wily rainbow that knows the difference between a 4x and a 2x tippet, or a Black Gnat and a Royal Coachman, or is fussy about whether the body of a Gray Hackle is dressed with yellow or peacock hurl.

If you'd like to catch a rare trout-on to the higher country of the Fort Apache Indian Reservation, to the upper stretches of Paradise, Big and Little Bonita, Diamond and Little Diamond! There, on the head waters of streams coming from Mount Baldy will you find the pure Arizona native. This unusual and rare fish is golden-bellied, shading to a coppery green back and sprinkled with black spots. If you find the going too rough, stick to the lower country of the Indian Reservation, and there get your share of rainbows and browns.

The friendly people at Maverick, White River, Fort Apache, Showlow, Lakeside, Pinetop will help you find your way, and supply you with your needs.

Maybe, just for the sport of catching them on dry flies, you'd like a try for some colorful brookies. The extreme head of Horton Creek, the one that flows into upper Tonto Creek, and Dick Williams still farther up, have a few. Or, go up on top the Mogollon Rim and drop into Miller, Barbershop. Here, too, you can catch brook trout and brilliant rainbows and browns.

Now, if you still aren't satisfied with the handicaps to your sport and you feel rough and tough, then put on your hiking shoes or fork a horse and hit the trail off the South Rim of the Grand Canyon for Clear Creek. You'll find this stream some ten miles to the east of Phantom Ranch-which is on Bright Angel Creek (a good trout fishing stream in its own right). The yearly parties of fishermen that get into Clear Creek can be counted on the fingers of your two hands. This is a stream for rainbows, and plenty of them.

But maybe, just maybe, you want to go to hell-'n'-gone Then it's Thunder River for you. It runs under the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, some seventeen miles by trail. Don't go without a guide unless you are thoroughly experienced and physically conditioned to desert travel and waterless canyon trails.

The hard way into Thunder is on foot. The trail begins at Little Saddle Corral, not far from Big Saddle.

The easy way is over the same route, but under the supervision and guidance of Jack Church, of Kanab, Utah. It takes two horses, one to ride and one for your gear, to give you a comfortable trip into Thunder River.

You start at nine in the morning, get there about five in the afternoon, over as picturesque and rugged a mountain trail as you'll ever ride.

Now, don't let that introduction frighten you. Church's horses are born and reared in mountain country, and are trail-wise and cat-footed. Just let them go and you'll wind up safe and ready to fish, 4,500 feet under the North Rim of the Grand Canyon in Thunder River Gorge.

A trout stream of liberal proportions roars out from the base of a cliff, to cascade to a junction with Tapeats Creek. Tapeats, itself, is born from the deeps of the earth in an isolated valley of the Grand Canyon. The two join, to become a frothy, foaming, roaring stream that teems with rainbow trout. Thunder River empties into the Colorado River in the bottom of the Grand Canyon, and the only way to it is by this one trail.

At times the stream spawned and reared trout are easy to get, as they were the first time I was there. Jack caught a mess for supper, before the packs had been slipped from all the mules. Another time, however, it took us a day and a half to locate them in the sudsy pools of the cascades below Thunder Spring. So, there you have it-trout fishing in Arizona, in this wonder state where trout can be child's play or man's work. Where trout, like everything else in this big country, are outsize. And where you can follow the quest for wild, scary trout into the lonely depths of the unspoiled wilderness.