Mini San Juan River Report

[myt1]

Seeing how I live in Phoenix, I drove to what I consider to be my home river, the San Juan, which is eight hours away. At least I wasn't disappointed.

I spent this past Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday fishing. I camped at the Cottonwood Campground and practically had the place to myself. Many times I even had the river to myself as well. I've never seen the San Juan so uncrowded.

I will get right to the point.

I caught what is for me a lot of fish. I had eleven, seventeen, and eighteen fish days respectively. I remember when a six fish day was huge, but they would all be quality fish.

Now I still catch the same number of quality fish, but I also catch about ten stockers. I don't remember this happening before. Are other people having similar experiences?

I also wasn't fishing super small flies. In the past I would go as small as size 26. This trip I was using primarily size 16 chamois leeches over top size 16 blood larva flies. I was getting so many missed hook-ups with the smaller flies I thought I might have better luck using larger hooks, but it really didn't seem to help. I still missed a ton of fish that were hitting the bigger hooks.

What I thought really helped was switching from a Thingamabobber like indicator to a wool yarn indicator. I just attached it to my leader with a slip knot. Which brings up my next question.

The first two days were virtually windless and I could cast the yarn with impunity. The last day there was moderate wind and I couldn't cast, particularly rollcast, worth a darn. It was like trying to throw a cotton ball into the wind. When I roll cast the fly line would go farther than my indicator and flies. Most of the time everything would just puddle up in front of me an embarrissingly short distant away. I don't remember having quite so much trouble when I used a Thingamabobber. Does anyone else have this problem casting a yarn indicator and what is the solution? Basically, I just tried to move myself around as much as I could so I could get the wind to my back, but this isn't always possible.

That's about it. I had a great trip.

P.S. Notice the complete lack of anglers in the first photo. Normally you would see several.

 

[jeep.ster]

Nice report and beautiful pics. I seem to catch more fish when there's less people. I catch my share of the stockers too. I stopped at the juan coming back from colorado last summer and caught a dozen stockers in two hours. I hooked a couple big ones but lost them. Seemed to be little fish everywhere that time.

 

[el jefe]

I had similar issues with the stocker fish this last winter. They are aggressive and will hit your flies more than the full-time residents. I found that they were in the shallower water, and the less preferred lies. To get to the big fish, I had to put my flies in deeper water, or water with more cover, like some of the turbid water in The Braids. In the lower part of Texas Hole, down by the picnic table, I was standing at the edge of the drop off. The big fish were in the deeper water, or along the far bank. The stockers were in the skinnier, slower water behind me, between me and the bank. If I wasn't getting hookups with the bigger fish, I would just turn around and toss a fly in the area behind me, get a few minutes of action, and go back to the deeper water. Honestly, I could get bored fishing for the stockers, they weren't that much of a challenge.

On the strike indicator issue in the wind, I have found that in equivalent sizes, the Thingamabobber is the better choice. But I have switched over to the New Zealand strike indicators, which I can trim down very small, so that they are not as wind resistant, and to me that works better. I will even place 2-3 NZ indicators on my line, all very small, and vary up the color at each location, so there is always something I can see, but they won't get caught up in the wind. And I have learned to shorten up my leaders when the wind cranks up. I typically fish too long a leader, anyway, since I cut my teeth on the San Juan, and long leaders are what they preach there, but I went overboard with the concept. If it is really windy, I will use some cored fly line as indicators, slipped over the leader. I use 3-4 in a line, about 6-8 inches apart. Those will cut through the wind much easier.

 

[myt1]

Thanks so much.

I will definitely be trimming my indicator way back.

Even with a rod and reel made of space age materials there is no way I can cast essentially a cotton ball bigger than a golf ball into the wind.

 

[brownbass]

We fish 18 and smaller flies a lot with the NZ indicator and normally trim it rather small even with the double nymph rigs we use. That may be a Sz 14 beadhead Copper John and a Sz 18 beadhead Zebra midge. I use a silicone paste floatant on mine it can last a long time and keeps those nymphs floating just fine with the smaller head.

Bill

 

[Hillboy]

Great report. I am heading to the Cottonwood Campground myself. Just waiting for the weather to warm up a bit. I know warm weather can bring wind, but I don't mind fighting the wind as much as I don't like fighting the cold. I haven't used yarn in quite a few years, so can't comment on the issue in the wind. Did you find the yarn more responsive to the take, or the fish less shy of the yarn vs bobber?

 

[el jefe]

Great report. I am heading to the Cottonwood Campground myself. Just waiting for the weather to warm up a bit. I know warm weather can bring wind, but I don't mind fighting the wind as much as I don't like fighting the cold. I haven't used yarn in quite a few years, so can't comment on the issue in the wind. Did you find the yarn more responsive to the take, or the fish less shy of the yarn vs bobber?

If you haven't tried yarn in a while, try the New Zealand Strike Indicator. Check out their link below, which explains its features and flexibility pretty well. Just make sure you take scissors with you.

New Zealand Strike Indicator Tool

 

[myt1]

Great report. I am heading to the Cottonwood Campground myself. Just waiting for the weather to warm up a bit. I know warm weather can bring wind, but I don't mind fighting the wind as much as I don't like fighting the cold. I haven't used yarn in quite a few years, so can't comment on the issue in the wind. Did you find the yarn more responsive to the take, or the fish less shy of the yarn vs bobber?

Pretty definitely the yarn was more responsive to the take.

I was using white wool, and most of the time it was at least as big as a cotton ball. Next time I think I will go smaller.

Twice a fairly nice fish went for my indicator thinking it was some sort of bug.

I caught three fish using a Griffith Gnat, but they weren't as big as the fish that went for my indicator...figures.

 

[dubbn]

What are you considering stockers? Rainbows?

Good report.

 

[myt1]

Yes, they were Rainbow Trout and all of them were under twelve inches.

Not only that, but they didn't have very nice coloration. They looked kinda beat up, mainly just silver and black.

I'm wondering if the more typical beautiful coloration will develop in these fish the longer they are in the river, or if you have to wait until the next generation?

I was also wondering how old is a typical 16-18 inch Rainbow that lives in the SJ? How long do we have to wait for these stockers to grow up?

 

[jeep.ster]

I forget sometimes myself when catching nothing but small stockers to get down to bottom where the big ones are. Add some weight and get down.

I looked up the stocking report and it looks like when you were there they stocked lots of fish. Stocking report from 2/10/2018 - 2/16/2018. Stocked 6698 6.5" triploid rainbow and 3996 8.8" triploid at san juan quality waters.

Weekly Fishing & Stocking Report - New Mexico Department of Game & Fish

 

[jpbfly]

:thumbsupu thanks for sharing...

 

[flav]

I'm wondering if the more typical beautiful coloration will develop in these fish the longer they are in the river, or if you have to wait until the next generation?

I was also wondering how old is a typical 16-18 inch Rainbow that lives in the SJ? How long do we have to wait for these stockers to grow up?

From what I understand almost every rainbow in the SJ is stocked, they don't spawn very successfully, although the browns do just fine and all of them are wild. The bows are stocked at 3-5 inches and grow about 6-8 a year, so those average rainbows have been in the river about 3 years.

Thanks for the report. I hope to make it to the Juan in the next month or two myself, and maybe catch a baetis hatch instead of just the usual midges.

 

[gigglinpig]

I have been streamer fishing with size 6 and 8 jig flies, and super buggers. It's been the most consistent way for me to avoid the smaller stocker fish. I am using a sink - tip streamer line to get deeper, and the jig flies ride hook size up so they don't snag on the bottom a lot. The flies still collect a bunch of that nasty green algae being so deep, but catching the bigger fish makes it worth it.

 

[mcnerney]

From what I understand almost every rainbow in the SJ is stocked, they don't spawn very successfully, although the browns do just fine and all of them are wild. The bows are stocked at 3-5 inches and grow about 6-8 a year, so those average rainbows have been in the river about 3 years.

Thanks for the report. I hope to make it to the Juan in the next month or two myself, and maybe catch a baetis hatch instead of just the usual midges.

I'm wondering if some of that stream restoration work they are doing on the San Juan is intended to help address the spawning for the Rainbows?

 

[r_brian]

I'm wondering if some of that stream restoration work they are doing on the San Juan is intended to help address the spawning for the Rainbows?

The triploid rainbows are sterile fish produced by pressure manipulation of the egg to create 3 chromosomes instead of 2; they will not spawn. Since cutthroats and rainbows are both Oncorhynchus sp., the will interbreed. F&G Departments stock the triploids to protect the breeding populations of cutthroats.

 

[Burntwood Leather]

The rainbows the State are stocking are triploid, they are sterile and can't reproduce. This has to do with keeping whirling disease out of our waters. They are very quick growing and in a year or so, they should 16 to 18 inches long. Those little ones everyone is catching are recent stockings. The stream work being done is to increase the flow rate thru a certain section of the river. This area has a bad sedimentation problem and this should really help. Once the silt builds up, the bugs move out and this is more for bug reproduction than fish reproduction.
Terry

 

[mtflycaster]

Thanks for the report. Planning to be there the weekend of March 23, 24, 25...maybe hit the animas then, too!

 

[myt1]

I've never fished the Animas.

Maybe you could let us know how it went.

Have a good trip.