Imagine finding a  big pool of 200+  Verde trout just a few hundred yards from your truck and having it all to yourself. Ryan and I did just that, and we spent most of our day right there, finding out what flies they liked and catching fish hand over fist – when we weren't knocking the ice out of our guides.

If you’re looking for rainbows, the Verde River is the best fairly local spot - “spots,” actually. Arizona Game & Fish is stocking rainbow trout at five points along the river the week of January 8 and again during the week of January 22. The Verde River has about 80 miles of fishable water, but the stocking points are at easy access areas from just outside Clarkdale to Camp Verde. At one of them - 5^th Street - you’ll have to head a little upstream or downstream to fish.

And that’s just as well; I’ve always thought it was bad form to stand behind the hatchery truck, rod in hand, and fish while they’re spilling off the truck. “It’s unethical,” someone once told me, “and they don’t bite anyway.” He never did say how he knew that little factoid. For me, I suppose a little sympathy for the fish is involved, exemplified in a comment from another angler talking to me about the 30-pound striped bass that hang around the Colorado River Willow Beach stocking point to eat the 10-inch stockers as soon as they hit the water: “They put those poor fish in there - they’ve been raised in a hatchery their entire lives and don’t know anything - and before they even have a chance to get religion, those devils get ‘em.”

 Oak Creek and Deadhorse State Park are the only local waters to get a stocking of rainbow trout this week. Next week, only the Verde River is on the schedule. The week of Dec. 4 is looking a lot better, with hatchery trucks headed for Deadhorse, Fain Lake, Oak Creek and the Verde River.

On the down side, there are no scheduled stockings for Goldwater Lake or Lynx Lake until February, and none for Mingus Lake until the Forest Service opens the road in the spring. Further out and most likely with even warmer weather the Lower Salt River gets a stocking every other week during the winter, beginning the week of Dec. 4.

Imagine yourself lying on your deathbed thinking, “Oh, I'm so glad I spent my whole life working and never wasted a single moment by ditching work to go fishing on a beautiful Arizona autumn day!”

And then you croak. Finis.