A little closer to home, a 4AM wakeup put me on the Rio Orifice Grande at sunup. Crystal clear waters still running a bit high from the wet Spring. After the tense drive though suicidal Cervidae country, I was glad to see the Cottonwood bottom on this cool, clear morning. It was 42 degrees as I geared up, but the minute the sun cleared the mountains to the East, the temp rose precipitously. The Rio Orifice Grande in this Cottonwood bottom is primarily a brown trout stream, but holds good sized rainbows, whitefish and the occasional westslope cutthroat. It is a buggy stream with lots of stoneflies and a good population of sculpins. It is fantastic hopper water later in the season as the grass lined banks are usually awash with hoppers as the days heat up. There were a fair number of PMDs about as well as caddis which brought most fish into the riffle buckets early in the day.
I like to fish this particular reach of the Rio Orifice Grande because every season it’s a bit of a different river as annual run-off always seems to reorganize things a bit, sometimes dramatically. This season was no different. One particular channel which last year had a very restricted flow across a wide gravel bar widened significantly and changed the holding water dynamics downstream a lot.
In 2021 this channel (below) had its flow restricted by a long gravel bar that only had a couple of rivulets breaching the bar. This pushed all the flow to a deep hole that petered out quickly downstream. The hole usually held some decent fish and was a good dry fly spot.
In 2022 the channel (below) had widened considerably as the flow has pretty much wiped away the gravel bar. The deep hole was still there but the far bank was now a deeper undercut bank that was at least 50 yards long. It will be some great hopper water as the summer progresses.
This reach of the Rio Orifice Grande has long, deep pools that are exceptional streamer water as well as sharp bends stacked with downed trees that produce interesting and sometimes challenging angling opportunities.
At a 90-degree bend in the river, the water slides over a shallow gravel shelf and precipitously drops into a hole that has to be 10’ plus in depth. Shouldered by an extensive log jam, this is big brown water.
Best fish of the day from this hole on a #2 streamer that was attacked as it slid over the gravel shelf into the pool.
This reach of the Rio Orifice Grande also sports some spring creeks if you know where to find them. At the mouth of one of these that is now a bit isolated from the main flow, this westslope cutt rocketed up from a pool to attack a well-placed bugger.
The Rio Orifice Grande is a fun river to the fish, is never crowded, and isn’t so far from home that there will be many more day trips there this season.
