San Juan River: Day 3

What seemed to be working
What seemed to be working

I started the morning as usual, dragging my weary bones out of the tent into the cold morning air. The truck heater had mostly thawed me out by the time I pulled into Fisheads and the Back Cast Cafe for a warm breakfast and a steaming cup of coffee. As I cleaned the plate free of any morsel of food and burned my mouth gulping coffee, I realized that I was going to need to replenish my box before I got back on the water. I had originally tied up 4 of every bug (two #24s and two #22s), not really knowing what was going to work or what I was going to need. A Red Hot combined with either a zebra midge or a KF emerger was my go-to rig so far and had picked up most of my fish in the first two days on the water. Fisheads was all out of hooks so I headed over to Float and Fish and Ray, the gentleman behind the counter, was all kinds of helpful showing me hooks and talking about the river. I tied on the tailgate for a little while, but once my hands were too cold to work, I called it quits and hit the water.

San Juan Rainbow
An Early Morning San Juan Rainbow

Fish started coming to the net with regularity and I fished all the likely looking water I could find. The crowds from the weekend were gone and I was able to fish just about anywhere I wanted.

San Juan Rainbow
Rainbow

Ultimately these pictures do not do these fish justice as many of these rainbows show off some spectacular colors in the sun.

San Juan Rainbow Trout
Rainbow taken out of a deep San Juan run

I continued walking and found myself in an area known as the Upper Flats which was being heavily fished at the time. I watched other fishermen cast for a while and as I turned to head back to the truck for lunch, I saw a nose and mouth come out of the water for dries in one of the side channels.  I clipped off my nymph rig and tied on a long line of tippet and a Griffiths Gnat and fished to rising trout. After several refusals, one rainbow did take my fly, but a poor hook set allowed him off without much of a fight. I fished to these risers for almost an hour and realized that the situation was hopeless.  I headed back to the truck to tie up some more midges and smaller Griffiths for the afternoon.

Midge Clusters
Midge Clusters

During my lunch tying session, I whipped up enough midges to last me the remainder of my trip as well as had myself another unbelievable peanut butter and huckleberry jam sandwich to make it through the rest of the day. I met some fellow Arizonians who actually were friends of guys in my regular fly tying group. (Pleasure to meet you Tom and Paul.)Small world.

Lunch Time Tying
Lunch Time Tying

I got back on the water as the parking lot started to fill back up, and the Red Hot pattern continued to produce well into the evening. I was a little disappointed that I never made it back up to the Upper Flats to try out some of my smaller Griffiths, but that will give me a reason to go back.

San Juan Hen
San Juan Hen

The last fish to the net came out of the riffles above Kiddie Hole.  I had been slowly stalking back through the current trying to use the last bit of sun with my polarized glasses to locate feeding fish. I could not actually see anything in this particular riffle but knew there had been fish there the day before. I plunked the flies at the top of the fast water and watched them drift through several times. The next drift brought a fish up and I lifted the rod to find the shaking head of a rainbow trout. After a good little run, the rainbow begrudgingly came to the net for a quick photo. As we both sat their looking at each other, I could not help but smile and thank God that I had the opportunity to fish and enjoy this wonderful creation.

Last Fish of the Day
Last Fish of the Day

I fished for another half an hour but was exhausted from the workout the few days of fishing had given me. Throughout the day, I had brought over a dozen fish to the net and had lost way more than that. I headed back to camp for dinner and heated up a tasty venison stew that I had made up just for my trip.

Venison Stew
Venison Stew - I know it doesn't look like much, but it hits the spot after a day on the water

The Navajo State Park that I stayed in was a fantastic campground. For 10 bucks a night I had a campsite and a shower.  It is pretty nice to clean up after a day of sweating in waders and handling fish. With one more day to fish, I passed out in the tent dreaming of big San Juan rainbow trout.

11 Responses to “San Juan River: Day 3”

  1. Royal Wulff aka Mike

    nice sampling of bows there Ben, you made short work of the standard SJ learning curve- on your own ties to boot! BTW- did you find one of those elusive browns?

    Reply
  2. azwanderings

    Thanks Mike, I had a good teacher. Never did find one of those browns. Looks like I’ll have to come back out and chase down one of them. I never did think that I would like tying bugs that small, but half the fun was tying them up on the tailgate of my truck. Thanks again for all the help and advice.

    Ben

    Reply
  3. Mike

    Sounds, and looks, like an excellent day. Beautiful fish and well told. Thanks for sharing!!!

    Reply
    • azwanderings

      Thanks Mike. I appreciate the kind words. The San Juan was a great place to fish while all of the other streams are flowing high and muddy. I was glad I got a chance to go explore a part of it.

      Ben

      Reply
    • azwanderings

      Thanks Ryan. First trip there and I can see what all the hype is about. Hope you can get there soon…

      Ben

      Reply
  4. azwanderings

    Mark and Alex,

    Everything tastes better with a spork…

    Ben

    Reply
  5. Stephanie

    Fanflippingtastic. What a spectacular display of a rainbows. Then to top off the day with some venison stew…does life get much better?
    -stephanie

    Reply
  6. azwanderings

    Stephanie,

    Not in my book. It was a fantastic four days on the water. Back to work and daydreaming about getting back to the creeks. Thanks for the kind words.

    Ben

    Reply

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