We kicked the new year off on the Rio Chama and it was cold! I think we started fishing at around 17 degrees. Aside from a slight case of frostnip on my buddy Mike’s hand the day was good!
I thought it would be appropriate to kick 2011 off in a tophat…
Best fish of the day…
And plenty more to come…!
I continue to love the posts, Buck! It’s good that a new year was kicked off in the right way.
When I come to visit my Mom in Santa Fe, may we connect and toss some bugs?
Yes we can!
Just give me a heads up. We fish pretty much every weekend…
Thats a great fishing hat in the first pic. Is that a regular or a New Years Day special? Great looking fish in both pics, but the 2d is just a pig.
REE
I did not catch anything exciting that day but I caught quite a few. My buddy’s fish was very nice! The colors were vivid. The hat LOL, somebody gave that to me the night before the first. I fished Pecos today and I am going to Chama below El Vado lake tomorrow so I will combine those two trips into one report. The Pecos trips are getting kind of repetitive but I brought the SLR camera out today so I got much better pictures.
Crossing fingers for tomorrow! Breaking in the new Scott G2 9’ 5 wt!
Pecos in the winter is always fun. All you need to do is find a section that is not completely frozen then find the deep, slow moving pockets and they will be stacked up in there.
I really love the Pecos Browns. They are so dark and it really sets off the white on the leading edge of the bottom fins.
Here are a few pics from another day on the Pecos:
So I fished Pecos on Saturday and went up to the Chama below El Vado lake on Sunday. I would rather not talk about that trip. It has been a long while since I got skunked. But I have excuses for days LOL!
Isaac managed to get a couple really nice fish. He is called the “Lunker Hunter” though and has a reputation to live up to. Maybe I need to get into this Euro-Nymphing scene.
Well here is a couple of pics of the Chama below El Vado. The water looked really good but the fishing was hard.
Great pics, Buck!
My uncle owns some land on the Pecos. I LOVE that stream! I only wish I could fish it more than once a year.
Keep the great reports and pictures coming.
Having private land on the Pecos is great! I have a couple friends that have stretches at their disposal. They are stocked well and fish up to 27" have been pulled out of those sections. You average fish on the Pecos is going to in the 8-12" range on public sections.
It’s a stocker stream for sure but you can still find yourself away from crowds that are slinging bait…
Nice reports and pics. It keeps feeding my addiction for on-stream adventures. Keep 'em coming!
Kelly.
… is very dark, indeed, Buck.
Pix of neat places and pretty fishies are hard to beat !!
Is it fair to assume that you are going to keep this thread going all year ?? I hope.
John
Yes, I will keep it going.
I did not get to putting up all the trips last year but this year I will try and keep it current and more frequent. I will also be including the stories in our audio podcast. We have two episodes out now.
They will get better as we smooth the structure out. Right now we are just kind of going for it without much prior planning…
Well, not much to report for the weekend. The temps have been so low here, into the negatives, that most of my local river was frozen up. I did manage to get out for a bit on Saturday but finding open water was a challenge. The one little guy I manage to catch had swallowed a bait hook. I cut out as much as I could. Hope he manages to survive…
… looks awfully familiar. Did you really take it in NM, Buck ??
John
Need the coordinates? LOL!
But ya, it is the Pecos river near the confluence of Willow Creek. Not too far north of Tererro General Store. It is a good winter spot. It gets pounded in the summer though. That pic of the river in the post is not a far walk from where I took the pics in the second report in this thread.
Boy I like the looks of that Allen reel. Not to mention the river and fishy. We spent a little time up there and wished we could have hiked away from the crowds, gettin too old.
If you ever find yourself around the area again I can help you get on some good water free from crowds and very minimal walking.
I do like the Allen reel!
It has one small issue but I am sure it will get fixed up when I send it back. Right now I am waiting for one of his new rods and another reel…
I thought I would save up a few bigger trips and stop boring everyone with my reports on the Pecos. Even though some of the following pics will be of the Pecos LOL!
The fish are from better sections though where fish can get much larger.
We have had minimal snowfall this year and we all have been watching the flows very closely. We had a couple stretches of very warm weather which gave us an early and miniscule runoff this year. The conditions provided for some good early season fishing though. Take the good with the bad is all you can do in this case.
Some of the private water I have had recent access to with the part time guide gig has been excellent! Very large and healthy fish. It shows what the Pecos river really could be if people would respect the rules and regulations.
Before I get to the private water stuff the Pecos is also producing large fish just before the spawn. a number of these large fish from private waters start moving out into the public land. We try and get them caught and send them back downstream before they end up getting freezer burned.
So for a river where you average fish will be 10" on a good day it is nice to have one of these stretch your line:
Here he is escaping from my attempt at a photo in the hand, good play my friend:
We caught a few nice ones but Tom from High Desert Angler probably swept that particular section of river clean.
He was on a mission.
So I did a couple trips to the same section of private on the Pecos to get a feel for it. Nothing beats a day of averaging around 16" trout. There are some really deep pools in this section of water and some shallow areas with deep riffles. This provides for different levels of difficulty getting the fish to take your fly.
I think I got it down fairly well at this point.
I gotta get a real camera and start paying attention to my shadow:
Most of the fish I caught in this section was by nymphing. It is still early here and the hatches are not that prevalent. Of the two pictures above the bottom was was caught on a dry in a deep riffle. And man did that fish ever smack that fly. It was one of the hardest hits I have had on a dry to this day.
There were a number of fish in this size range caught over the days that I fished here. I do want to talk about one in particular. Aside form a 101" sailfish I caught off the coast of Mazatlan NM the following fish is the largest I have ever landed.
I knew I had something special on from the first head shake. It felt like a train. The fight was not exceptionally long, in fact, it was kind of short. I thought my 3X line was going to snap on every head shake. You know you have something of size on when you are worried about 3X snapping. Which has happened in this section by the way.
Once in the net all I had to do was get one glimpse of that Jurassic head of his to know this was my biggest fish ever. No measurements necessary!
But, in case you are wondering, it was 27":
That was a good day on the Pecos!
Ok, enough about the Pecos!
I needed new water and the opportunity came this last weekend. The manager of HDA, Ed, had just competed in the Conejos “Super Fly” competition the previous weekend and reported that the Conejos was on fire! I should also mention that Ed and his teammate (JP) won the competition. That little notch scored them each a 9’6" Z-Axis 4wt rod. Not too shabby in anyone’s book.
So Ed, myself and Mike decided to see what we could stir up the following weekend. We left early Saturday morning from Santa Fe and made our two and a half hour drive to Antonito Co. Of course we stopped in at the Conejos River Anglers to fly up and get a room. After a quick chat with Devin and we were on our way.
We stepped in somewhere near Bear Creek which is not too far from the fly shop. The first day was nice. It was slightly chilly but the sun was out keeping us warm.
The action was a little slow but all managed to get a couple decent browns in the net:
We wrapped up the day with too much food at the Dos Hermanas in Antonito proper. The next we woke to a bit of a surprise. Two inches of snow by eight in the morning. We are not fair weather fishermen so we geared up and went to the shop to get another day license and hit the river again. A couple guide trips bailed that morning on the shop. Those Albuquerqueians are a little tender I suppose.
We also though it best to go up the Forest Service road to hit some higher water.
Ready to roll:
Of course the day with foul weather produces faster and produces better LOL! it didn’t take long to hook into some nice browns:
I found the secret depth on the deep holes and pulled out a couple really nice Bows:
We all got a number of good fish and some comical video of us trying to help each other out netting fish. I will get those put together for a little clip at a later date.
May your feet always be wet…
The “Rabbits” river is amazing!!! I love that place. I would go back in a second if I had family still in Durango. I suppose I have to wait until I visit the madre in Santa Fe. Also, Devan is a spectacular guy!
Thanks for the amazing report. Congrats on the PB 'Bow. And, you definitely are NOT boring me with Pecos reports! It only makes me jealous. 
My biggest brown to date came out of the Conejos!
Keep it up!
Scott
You aren’t stepping on any toes!
Nice brown man! Ed caught one 17" that day which was the biggest Brown of the weekend. Give us a holler at High Desert when you get into the area…
