Days 32 & 33, June 21 & 22, San Juan River

Strategy.

When I was a practicing CPA in the fiercely competitive world of large international accounting and consulting firms, the leaders of my firm formulated strategies that took our firm from number 8 to number 1, as measured by annual global revenues, in the course of my career. Those were good strategies. For about two centuries, the leaders of the United States had strategies that took us from a loose set of backwater colonies to the world’s greatest superpower. Those were also good strategies. (What happened to those anyway?)

When you fish on one of the most popular and crowded rivers in the country for big trout, you have to have good strategies. I had two of them, and they both paid off.

Strategy One

Based on my experience on my first day fishing on the San Juan River (see prior blog post), I was in no hurry to get to the water day two because the fishing was much slower in the morning than in the afternoon. So I took my time scouting around late morning and I noticed that all the empty drift boat trailers were being shuttled to an area at the bottom of the “quality” water section called “Crusher Hole.” I figured correctly that Crusher Hole was where most of the drift boats would be arriving late in the afternoon, and I might have the area to myself until then. Elsewhere upstream, I was pretty sure, there would be both dozens of drift boats and most of the other wade fishermen. So I parked there and strolled down to the river. Good strategy! For the next several hours I made my way a short distance upstream from Crusher Hole, fishing at each of the pools and runs behind a series of rocks that had been placed in that area for the purpose of improving fish habitat. In each and every one I found at least a few fish, including some large ones. This time I had my GoPro video camera with me, so I have evidence of what I found. Here’s the link to a short video showing one of my catches above Crusher Hole:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXaq77McUY8



The very large rainbow trout in the video was impossible to hold without a net or I would have gotten a better picture at the end, but I think you can see enough to understand it was a solid trout. I caught that one on a tiny mayfly nymph just before the flotilla of drift boats arrived, each sporting a guide and two clients who were eager to crowd into my run. Fine. While the naval parade proceeded by, I quietly moved up into the riffle just beyond the row of rocks you could see in the video because I noticed there were a lot of splashes there, indicating that some kind of hatch was happening and the fish were rising to insects. I tied on a little comparadun (a small mayfly pattern with a fanned deer-hair wing) and started casting. As the boats continued to bob by, I caught trout after trout while the passengers gawked. Most of the trout were smaller ones but there were a couple of big browns in the bunch. It was the kind of dry fly fishing action you long for when you visit a place like the San Juan. Spectacular!

Strategy Two

On my third day I decided to take on the floaters mano e mano. I had only skirted the “quality” water on day two, and although I had caught about 40 fish the first day and at least 25 the second (in about 4 hours), I hoped to increase the average size of my catches in my final effort on the San Juan. So I stopped by one of the local fly shops and hired a guide with a drift boat. Good strategy! I got a little lucky because my guide, John Tavenner, was a twenty-year veteran San Juan guide, and a really nice guy, who knew the river better than the back of his hand. Crowds or no crowds, John seemed always to be able to find us a slot of water where big fish abounded. I knew the fish abounded because, most of the time, I could see them in the crystal clear water.

Things got off to a slow start, which may have been more frustrating to John than to me. As I mentioned earlier, fishing in the morning on day one was not very productive, and that proved to be even more true on day three. But we used the time wisely - John gave me some very useful advice on mending my line. (For those of you unfamiliar with the term, “mending” is the act of moving the fly line around on the water so that it isn’t pushed by the current in such a way that the fly drags unnaturally. Trout usually want to see bugs that are floating by helplessly in the current, and not ones that are flying through the water like little torpedoes.) In the next video, which has music and is generally superior to the first one above, there are a few seconds of footage where you can see me mending the line. I can’t guarantee that I was properly following John’s instructions, but I’m pretty sure that my mending did improve quite a lot before the day was over.

Again, I’ll let the video speak for itself. I have so much footage of large fish swimming around on the end of my line that I had to just pick out a couple of examples. As usual, I didn’t have the camera turned on when I caught the largest two or three trout of the day. One big rainbow jumped four times, ran upstream about 30 yards and did a complete circle around the boat before we finally netted him. In any case, the examples in the video aren’t bad specimens. Here‘s the link:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTWeu5j_RUs

As on the prior two days, I began to see fish rising to the surface late in the afternoon. John and I noticed a few caddis skittering around and decided we would conclude the float by tying on a Goddard caddis pattern to see if I could catch a few trout on dry flies. Good strategy! Unfortunately, I had put away the GoPro by the time we were in the last half hour of the float, so you’ll just have to take my word for it: I made some awesome casts to large visible rising fish. Our final two catches of the day, a big brown and an even bigger rainbow, were thrill rides. The trout literally flew out of the water to take the Goddard. What a way to end the New Mexico segment of the trip.

Next stop - California!

(P.S. Some of you like the fly-fishing stuff in my blog, and some of you prefer the “other” stuff. I’ve had so much material in my head the past week, and I’ve had such fantastic fishing experiences, that it’s been difficult for me to work in the non-fishing stuff. But if that’s what you like, get ready! In some of my blog posts I’ve touched on serious topics like the shame of slavery and the genocide of the Indians, the nature of being alone but not lonely, love of parents and spouses, and all kinds of literature and music. Next I’ll tackle religion! Oh my!)