South Platte River: Eleven Mile Canyon

Eleven Mile Canyon flows currently sit just above 100 cfs, which is the lowest it’s been since late June. At this level, the flow is on par with the historical average but the river does feels skinny in some sections and underwater grass/moss can present a challenge when nymphing. To avoid frequent snags, fish a hopper dropper with one or two nymphs rather than a nymph rig. This setup will put your flies in front of trout feeding in deeper water columns and attract opportunistic trout looking for a bigger meal on the surface. Effective sub-surface patterns include Flashback Pheasant Tails, Guide’s Choice Hare’s Ears, Perdigons, Rainbow Warriors, JuJu Baetis, Zebra Midges, Mercury Midges, RS2s, Chocolate Foam Back Emergers and San Juan Worms. Pools, runs, pockets, outer seams and riffles are all viable targets with a hopper dropper. Other than that, we’re still seeing strong midge and trico hatches during the morning and BWO hatches in the early afternoon. Griffiths Gnats, Parachute Tricos and CDC Trico Spinners will attract trout during the midge and trico hatch. If you’re struggling to get them to commit, either switch to a single dry fly setup, decrease the size of your fly or switch to 6x tippet. For the BWO hatch, you can’t go wrong with a Parachute Adams or Parachute BWO. Soft runs and tailouts are ideal sections for targeting rising trout.