San Juan River Fly Fishing

It was last year when I last visited the Rio San Juan in northern New Mexico.  I was pleasantly surprised upon returning this year to fish the river.  Major river improvements have been done to the river to make better areas for the fish, and of course, the fishing.  There have been dams put in to divert flows, runs deepened and banks improved.  There was also a settling basin put in to pick up the silt from one of the major arroyos on the river; we will have to see how well that holds up when we get monsoons this summer.

The water was at 350 plus but because of the improvement projects, it flowed well.  The water was fairly clear with very little moss.  The insect activity was predominately midges with no beatis coming up - at least in the upper flats area.  The fish really cooperated on the days I fished it during the week; I had a fly fishing workshop at the weekend but the fishing was equally good.  The first day of fishing, I stopped counting fish and caught one trout over twenty inches.  The second day of fishing, I was well into the mid-twenties of fish caught with two fish over twenty inches long.  The photo is one of the fish I took out of the Texas Hole.  All our fish were caught using midge emergers in size 22.

I enjoyed this trip.  I fish the San Juan during the early spring and late autumn because there is no heat, no mosquitos and less crowds.