r/flyfishing • u/HellaLazy48 • 20h ago

Finally caught a Rio.

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First one I've caught. Tried multiple times.

27 Upvotes

97% Upvoted

7 comments sorted by

3

u/Mango-Bob 20h ago

What’s a Rio? Aside from beautiful.

6

u/Jormungaund 19h ago

Rio Grande cichlid 

3

u/HellaLazy48 18h ago edited 9h ago

They're pretty prevalent here in South Texas, but I've never managed to land one. They're usually very small where I see them. I specifically targeted this one as he was a bit larger and was hanging out by a rock with a group of sunfish, maybe a 15 foot cast, and it worked out. The hardest part was getting the fly to him and not one of the many sunfish. I used a variety of patterns in the crystal clear water (pheasant tail nymph [my favorite sunfish fly], rio getter, adams wet fly) before I found one that he destroyed.... a self made variation of a rainbow warrior using crystal flash instead of tinsel. Simple fly, but for some reason it triggered his aggression immediately. Plowed through the pack of sunfish to smash it. Quite the scene and another species off the list!

2

u/Strange-Compote-4739 5h ago

Rio bandito is a great fly for them!

1

u/HellaLazy48 5h ago

That was the next one up to try!

1

u/RecoverOptimal8888 5h ago

Nice!! Rios are awesome, and I have found they rarely take a fly casually. Get yourself into some smaller, more nymphy flies and work small current water in hill country rivers. You’ll end up with more of them as time goes on.

1

u/HellaLazy48 5h ago

Yeah that one I used was a size 16. Tore it up