This trip to the San Juan River had been in the planning for some time. An old friend from Alaska, now living in Estes Park, Colorado agreed to meet me at Navajo Dam, New Mexico (there is actually a post office) for a couple of days fishing; I drove up from Silver City, New Mexico. Chris, with Fisheads, was to be our guide for both days. We arrived on February 29th and fished March 1st and 2nd. The plan was to drift the first day and wade the second.
I arrived first, checked into the lodge and then drove down to take a look at the river, which was flowing well above any level I had seen in the past. Further, Simone Canyon was dumping reddish-brown muddy water in the San Juan, the result of local snow-melt. The muddy flow colored the north side of the river downstream for hundreds of yards. I later learned that 3000 cubic feet a second (cfs) of water was being released from the dam to make room for what will be a significant runoff when snow to the north begins to melt in a couple of months. At times, up to 6000 cfs is released, but the high flows normally occur later in the spring and early summer.
Saturday dawned cloudless, blue sky in all directions. We launched the drift boat around 8:30A. There were quite a few boats being launched. Visibility in the water was about 2 feet. We started fishing a yellow egg attractor and a #20 orange larva using standard nymphing techniques, a small split shot about 18 inches above the attractor and a strike indicator 5-6 feet above that. When the water is clearer 6-7x tippets are needed for these leader-shy fish, but with the low visibility 4-5x tippets work fine.
Fishing was slow for the first hour or so then picked up. Because of the high flows there was a lot of "stuff" in the water. We started picking up rainbows and browns -- about one brown for five rainbows -- around 10:00A. There was another lull in the fishing around 2:00P, but overall we had a good day. The weather stayed sunny and the temperature approached 70F. My fishing partner out fished me on day one; he got the most and biggest fish, a 19-20 inch rainbow, and lost an even bigger one in the closing moments of the day.
The temperature dropped over night and it was below freezing when Chris picked us up Sunday morning; it was also windy, a bad omen. The plan was to wade the pools just below the dam. The parking spot is on bluff above the river and there is switch-back path down to river-level that alternated between mud and ice. Once down at river-level we hiked along narrow channels of water running through 10-12 foot high brush. The channels result from water overflowing the banks due to the high flow; so at low flow these are dry. We even encountered rainbows in some of these knee-deep, 2-3 foot wide channels, in some cases we were 200-300 yards from the main river when we encountered them.
The water in the San Juan River is a about 40F year around due to the fact that it comes out of the lake. We spent most of Sunday waste-deep in that 40-degree water, with overcast skies, wind and in the afternoon snow. We used the same flies and techniques as the day before, but from the river rather than a drift boat. Luckily, in the morning the wind was blowing upriver, which made casting less difficult than if it had been blowing downstream. It was not long after I wet my line when I hooked my first fish, but then lost it. I was fishing on the backside of a brush-covered island in the river; my fishing partner was on the opposite side of the same island but the high brush made it impossible to see one another. Chris Taylor worked back and forth between the two of us all morning. I had several other strikes and then hooked and played a a nice rainbow, had it to the net, but lost it.
Chris returned and had me work downstream from where I had been fishing. Shortly after he disappeared to check with my fishing partner I hooked a good fish. It came to the surface initially, stripped line as it headed downstream with the current, and then rolled again on the surface. I could see that it was fairly thick-sided rainbow. I was by myself and so would have to land this fish solo. I got the fish over to the bank along the island where the water was slower and I had a better chance of slipping my net under it. I got the fish close and could see that it was at least 20-inches and was quite wide, a nice rainbow. The first attempt at netting it the fish was out of reach and then turned and took some line. I worked it back again and closer to the bank this time. I finally slipped the net under it, removed the hook, took a couple of quick photos in the net and then released it. It turned out to be the best fish of the trip.
We returned to the truck for lunch and to warm up. I removed ice from my guides all morning and that situation continued for the remainder of the day. We moved up stream after lunch and immediately got into some nice rainbows in driving snow. The fish were stacked up in about 4 feet of water from just near the bank out about 30 feet, or so. They continued to prefer the yellow egg pattern. After an hour or so we moved down stream just below the "cable hole" and got into another bunch of rainbows. On about 5-6 casts I hooked 5 trout. Snow continued to fall and the wind didn't let up; by now it was late afternoon and we were ready to call it day. The hot shower back at the lodge felt very very good. I don't plan on returning to the San Juan until late next fall.
