Arizona Fisherman

Location:
The Black River in Eastern Arizona. “Ten of Diamonds” campground.

Date:
August 12th, 2007

Equipment:
Orvis 7.5 ft Med Action Fly rod. Beaded prince fly, size 10. Floating line with a sinking leader.

What you’ll need:
A San Carlos Black River permit. It’s 20$/person/day and the pass expires at Midnight meaning that if you stay the night it’s going to cost you $40. If a ranger stops you on the reservation without a permit they’ll take all your gear and force you to pay a hefty fine to get it back. You can pick up permits just before leaving Globe at the Circle K on the North side of the road at the far East side of the city. It’s the last store you’ll see before hitting the Indian Reservation.

What to watch out for:
Poison Ivy, it’s everywhere. Black bears, mountain lions, and rattle snakes. On the positive side, there are elk, deer, cows, horses, wild turkey, and kotamundi to name a few of the animals I’ve seen.

Directions:
These two links should give you the basic idea of how to get there. Directions from Phoenix and from Tucson.

For more details here’s the basic travel route.

• Once you leave Globe, head East on the 70 through San Carlos.
• A couple miles after San Carlos, start looking for a street that turns off to the left. The sign looks like a Black Indian Head arrow with an 8 in the center.
• Follow that highway for about an hour (around 60 miles). The road is on Indian land and you may not see any other cars for the entire trip.
• Eventually the road will lead up through a cut in the mountains and you will be surrounded by pine trees. There is a great stop at the top of the mountain to take pictures.
• Continue following the same road for another 15 minutes or so and you will come to a Wooden sign on the right hand side of the road that has a Bear on it. Turn right. You will know if you have gone too far because immediately after the “Bear sign” the pavement ends and you hit a dirt road. If this happens, turn around and make your first left.
• The road you will be traveling on at this point is a dirt logging road. An SUV or truck with four wheel drive is HIGHLY recommended. Especially if it’s been raining. In fact, if it’s obviously been raining and the road is very muddy I would consider finding a nearby lake to camp at. The probability of getting stuck is very high if the road is muddy. If the road is fairly dry you can probably get by with a 2 wheel drive truck or SUV. Whatever you do, don’t try to bring your 4 door sedan to the river.
• The only other thing you need to know about the road is “stay to the left”. There are one or two points where the road splits, stay left. After 15-20 minutes you’ll come to a fork in the road with a sign that says “Pump Station”. Head left to the Pump Station if you’d like to camp there, else go right. I’ll go over the “Pump Station” fishing and campground later on.
• If you decided to go right, continue to follow the road and in 15 minutes or so there will be another opportunity to turn left. There is a sign indicating that this is “White Crossing” but it has been knocked down. Head left to go to “White Crossing”, otherwise stay right to head to “Ten of Diamonds”.
• If you decided to go to Ten of Diamonds, your trip is far from over. To get there will take about another hour to hour and a half, dirt road the whole way. If it’s been raining, you’ll probably have the best chance at getting stuck on the way to Ten of Diamonds. There are several places where the road dips down and you have to drive through water up to the doors. I’ve been able to make it through just fine when it rained 2 days before in a 2WD Xterra. Again, there are one or two places along the way where the road splits left and right. Follow the signs that say “to Ten of Diamonds”. About half way to the campground the road will climb down a cliff and make a U-Turn, there is also a road that leads to the right. I believe it will also get you to the river, and you can even drive across the river if your feeling adventurous (read as suicidal).
• If you decide to stay to the left, continue to follow the road all the way to the campground. There are several places along the way where you’ll drive through standing water, but they’re generally not too bad, unless it’s just rained.

Places to Fish and Camp

The Pump Station:
The pump station is the first stop and is generally the most visited and is also the easiest of the three to get to. Expect the possibility of seeing other people camping. The campground at the Pump Station is generous, you will not have trouble finding a spot, unfortunately you will also not have any trouble finding bears. The last time I went to the Pump Station a 300lb black bear walked right into our tent (thankfully we weren’t in it at the time). They seem to be used to people and can be aggressive.

The fishing at The Pump Station can be good. To get to the river you have to walk down a very steep, long set of man-made stairs. At the bottom the river is very deep, possibly 20-30 feet. Night fishing for Small Mouth bass can be good with Earthworms and sinkers. At this point in the river you do have the possibility of catching trout but there are many more bass then there are trout.

White Crossing:
White Crossing is named the way it is because apparently there is a way to cross the river there in a Truck. Every time I’ve been there the water has been at least 4-5 feet deep in most spots and the river runs pretty fast. I wouldn’t try to cross here unless you’ve got a truck with some serious clearance. The campground is pretty big and the spots are very spread out. Oh and just like the pump station there’s a good chance you’ll see bears. The last time a group of us stayed at White Crossing we saw two bears. One climbed a 50 foot tree over our camp which made for some interesting pictures. I’ll make sure to post some of these later.

The fishing at White Crossing is decent. I can’t really say that I’ve caught many fish there although the water is beautiful and there has to be some trout hiding at the end of the rapids in the deep pools. I did catch a couple small rainbows on a pink rooster-tail, but I couldn’t get anything to take a fly. I tried hiking down river about a mile from the campground and I didn’t run into any really interesting water. If you decide to stay here, possibly try walking upstream a mile or two to see what you run into.

Ten of Diamonds:
Ten of Diamonds is the last campground on the main road that you can reach without having to cross the river in your vehicle. I’ve stayed here several times and walked a mile or two upstream and down-stream. I’d have to say that down-stream fishing was much better than upstream. This could be due to the times of year that I’ve been, I’m not really sure.

Upstream fishing the water was wide, slow, and shallow in most places. There are a couple places where the river turned a corner that looked promising but I think they might be a little over-fished. In about 8 hours of upstream fishing I managed to catch 3 small trout on spinners and 1 on a fly. There are some very promising locations upstream if your willing to walk around 2 miles.

I’ve gone downstream on four separate occasions, all of them during the summer. Twice the fishing was pretty decent, once the fishing was terrible, and once the fishing was amazing. It all depends on how high and how clear the water is. If the river is running low, the fishing is generally poor. If the river is high and clear, the fishing is usually amazing. You’ll have to walk about 1/2 a mile to a mile before you’ll reach any good water. Read the weather reports before going. You want it to have rained recently, but not so recently that you will get stuck in the mud and the river will be brown with silt.

Conclusion:
It isn’t possible to write an article that will do the black river justice. My experiences have always been amazing, even when the fishing hasn’t been. The area is beautiful and the people are few and far between. I purposely haven’t given away my favorite locations to fish, I just couldn’t bring myself to it. Out of the 3 main locations, Ten of Diamonds is a far and away favorite for me. It’s where I caught the 23 inch brown shown at the top of the article. My only hint to you is that the best fishing at the black river is done off-trail, miles and miles from any campground. Start at a campground and hike up or downstream for several miles to reach the relatively untouched areas and find the really amazing fishing. If you’ve got the time, and you’re in good shape, park one car at the pump station and another at Ten of Diamonds and spend a couple days to walk the river.