Finally I caught a trout Fly Fishing on the San Juan River!

[McFlyLures 0]

If you haven't ever fly fished the quality waters on the San Juan River in New Mexico, you are missing out. Trout are everywhere, and its difficult not to hook a few. The problem there though is that your best bet for hooking trout is with small midges in the 28-32 size verity. Also you need to use really light tippet like 6x. Flourocarbon is best. Because the river is fished quite heavily, the trout come accustom to knowing what is a fly, and what is not, so you need to fish really light. These are not small trout, and therefor its difficult to bring them in. The small hooks rip out of their mouths, and the light tippet snaps when you put any pressure on the fish. Fighting a large trout can take you 10-20 minutes before getting it in, and by that time you have lots of chances to loose them.

I hooked 3 good sized trout on this trip, and brought in 2 of them. The 3rd one I lost never got on camera due to my batteries dying. This trip was a tough trip though even though I landed a few fish because I was struggling to get bites. I only had 3 hit all day, and I was lucky enough to bring in 2. Finally the hunt for the San Juan River trout is over, and I can move onto another river in my next series of fishing rivers.

Some would consider the San Juan to be more of a creek as its not very wide, but there are spots that are very wide and those places are slow and shallow, but there are big trout all throughout this river. I landed 2 fish, and hooked a 3rd on this trip. That third fish was just too big, and too strong to bring in. I lost him about 2 feet from landing him in the net. All around a great day fishing.

The first time I fished the San Juan must have been a once in a blue moon trip because I landed 20+ trout in about one hour. This river is considered one of the best in the United States, however its not quite like some of these rivers you see in New Zealand. There are lots of people, and its not so remote and secluded feeling. However its a great river still none the less.

The rod I was using is a TFO Lefty Kreh Professional Series II which is a bit more moderate action then the rod I was using in the first video of this series..

The reel I was using is a Sage 2250, and the line was Rio Mainstream WF5F, a simple $40 fly line. You don't need much more then the mainstream line on this river due to not having to cast very far to often.

[FIN-ITE 34 0]

Good going Mc. But are you going to share what the secret was that the old man told you?

[McFlyLures 0]

Fish the bubbles... It was super slow moving water, so I was fishing a streamer... However he was still fishing a small midge, but dropped it down super deep from his indicator. He said to make sure I was in the bubble slick (foam slick) to keep in the current... At Texas hole, its super deep, and you can't get a streamer deep enough without a sinking line, so he fishes midges, but really deep with a heavy shot weight to get deep enough for them.

[Dave G. 0]

You didn't say or I didn't hear it, but I assume that you continued later in the video after after speaking with the guy, with egg patterns ?

[McFlyLures 0]

Actually yes, I hooked one more trout after... But that time on the small Krystal Flash Emerger. I was surprised that the trout were biting the egg actually, he recommended it only because of it being more noticeable, kinda like an attractor. But they actually hit it also. The 3rd trout of the day was on a midge though but I lost him. Also, my camera didn't capture anything on him either. . It was kinda late, so I went home after that one. I hadn't eaten all day so I was pretty hungry by 4:30pm...

[Dave G. 0]

So you still gotta win with midges I assume, LOL ! But congrats non the less.

 

What did the Krystal Flash emerger represent, and what size ?

 

Hey, this is good stuff McFly, keep em coming !

[McFlyLures 0]

So you still gotta win with midges I assume, LOL ! But congrats non the less.

 

What did the Krystal Flash emerger represent, and what size ?

 

Hey, this is good stuff McFly, keep em coming !

Yeah I havent landed one with a tiny midge on camera, but I have landed them many times before I started this film project. The KF Midge was size 26... He was a large fish though... Probably a good 22". He went deep at first and I couldn't budge him like he was a log! Finally I got him up to the surface, got him close and lost him about 3 feet from me. In fact the guy next to me ran over and was like dang thats a good one! Then almost instantly I lost him! HAHA Oh well, it was a great day. The KF Emerger represented a midge coming to the surface Im guessing.

 

Here is a video of me tying that exact fly.

 

[Dave G. 0]

I tie a similar fly to that, last year I added a bead head and peacock herl collar on my size 24 and larger . I have two or three different iterations of that but mostly where you use the flash I use either antron yarn or poly yarn in white.. I tie one where a strand of pearl flash forms a skin over the thread body and it has a fine silver rib. It really shows up quite well in the water .

[McFlyLures 0]

Yeah there are many iterations of the zebra midge, and yours sounds great! Not sure about the peacock hurl though for small flies, but I will occasionally do a "super fine dubbing" collar.

[Dave G. 0]

Yeah there are many iterations of the zebra midge, and yours sounds great! Not sure about the peacock hurl though for small flies, but I will occasionally do a "super fine dubbing" collar.

Depends on your herl, I have an old pack of strung peacock that is very thin and if kept to two turns and run the thread through it you get a peacock colored fuzzy thing going on. Some of the more luxury peacock eye strands can be very full, that might not work but I also don't have any right now.

[McFlyLures 0]

that is true... Thanks for the tip.

[flytire 0]

[McFlyLures 0]

Hey that looks like me on the river! And all the yeti sightings in New Mexico the last few years have been actually just me standing by a river and groaning