No fish in AZ. Nope, not a single one . . .
None of these fish were caught in the state of AZ.
Sorry, just kidding.
Here's the deal. I moved to AZ about a dozen years ago. Here's the three things I learned about AZ trout fishing pretty quick:
There's not a lot of trout water.
What there is gets a lot of pressure.
Everyone keeps their honey holes secret from everyone, including their mothers.
Here's a few fundamental truths about trout fishing in AZ. The easiest place to trout fish in AZ is Lee's Ferry. You only need to bring two fly patterns, any time of year, and you don't need to know anything about hydraulics. You just need to be able to mend.
The Salt River is stocked in the fall/winter months (I believe it's been stocked a couple times already), and is the nearest stream to the Phoenix metro area. Also I'm pretty sure the bikini hatches are pretty much over.
The Gila river I think is closed to fishing right now, but when it's open, it's a nice place to fish.
Oak Creek is beautiful, but heavily pressured. Also it's pretty technical water; be prepared to make a lot of unconventional casts.
Bottom line; any place that people will tell you about is stocked once a week or gets hammered every weekend, if not more often. That doesn't mean there aren't any fish there, but just be aware that you'll be fishing with company for fish that have seen flies all spring and summer. Fishing this time of year requires that you travel farther upstream or fish during the week, as early in the morning as possible, or putting up with crowds.
Take for example, Canyon Creek. By this time of year it's been hammered by hundreds if not thousands of fly-fisherman. Also the last couple years I've seen more poachers on the "fly-fishing only" section than ever before. If I wanted to fish it this weekend, I'd already be on my way up there. But I wouldn't bother to fish it until about an hour before sunset. I'd do some scouting, well away from the banks (the ground is hollow along parts of Canyon creek and your footsteps will 'echo'), pick out my usual 6-7 spots/holes, and put together a rough plan A. Then a plan B. Plan C would be fishing mice in the moonlight. Same thing in the morning. But my day would be over before 10 am probably. Then I'd either have to drive home or find some nearby water.
And it's about the same for Horton creek, Haigler, Tonto, Cherry, Verde, East Verde, etc. There's fish in these creeks, but no one's just going to tell you where or when to go. You're going to have to make your own bones, as they say.
Don't bother with Christopher creek this year, btw. It went dry last year due to excessive irrigation.
You might try visiting the AZ fly and tie website:
azflyandtie.com. I haven't been on there in a while, but it was a valuable resource to me whenI moved to AZ.
Hope that helps.
Peace.