Salty Dawg

Ok so tomorrow I am going to float the Salt River with my friend Kyle (a.k.a. Norty)

I went out and scouted it on Thanksgiving morning. I have floated it several times and am in the process of making a map so I can  find the hot spots a little more easily for future reference. It is a tail water that flows from the White Mountains and reaches the Phoenix Metro area and is dispersed down canals. It's really not a great fishing tail water because the "powers that be" decide to shut it off every year and the fish get land locked and die (except for the Large Mouth Bass). The area we are going to fish is called the Lower Salt or what I affectionately call it "The Salty Dawg." It could be a great fishing river if they would try, because it has a prolific midge and mayfly hatch year round (except when they turn it off....are you catching a theme here?)

I tried to get a mayfly pic
 


Here are some pics from previous trips.

Tune on the Salty Dawg

There are areas that look quite tropical (Remember: we're in Phoenix and it gets hotter than two gerbils making love in a wool sock) even though; the water temperature stays near 58 degrees

Paradise on the Salt

I caught this fine looking holdover trout that survived the summer temperature and a full year  of marshmallow, recycled beer, and bass-turds (a.k.a.tubers or bass feces...whichever way you want to look at it) floating down the river.

And caught a whole mess of these

Bass above Phon D.

Bass on popper

Not only is the Salty Dawg scenic but it has its corral of wild horses that roam the river. My cycling group calls the horses the Brumbies.

 

Brumby on the Salt R.

Did I mention I caught them on poppers??

 

Bass on poppers

Last time this proved to be a great hole!

We'll see what tomorrow brings, I'm excited!

So the conditions had changed and it was a sunny and warm 85 degrees. I was a bit disappointed that the popper action had completely stopped. Several of my "hot spots" produced no bass on what I thought were great areas to cast to but Norty was pleased and quickly gave up on the poppers and had success on a clouser while I stayed persistent with the poppers. Here are some pics.

 

 Norty on the Salt. Notice his tube and the inflation of the pontoon.

 

As we got down a ways Norty noticed that his pontoon was losing air. I was a bit concearned because we were about 3 miles from my truck that we had dropped off. Here is Norty fighting a Sucker that he caught above Coons Bluff.

 
Here is Norty being "so proud of his sucker".... Man that thing is ugly!!!




All and all it was a good day and I'm glad I got to show Norty the resource that we have available to us in such a close proximity. I didn't see the mayfly hatch that we had last time....kind of weird......we might not have been out long enough in the evening. The Verde began to flow and it was really muddy so I was glad we didn't go down past Phon D. I look forward to further exploring the Salty Dawg and really getting to know it as my hidden gem!!

P.S. I went by Saturday and was able to find a nice bass pond near one of the closed campground and caught some decent bass on poppers, several suckers but no trout. I hopefully set up a spring Rocky Point trip with Norty and my bro-in -law and his friend Jeff to Rocky Point.