WWFG Fishing Reports

Posted: Fri Nov 21, 2008 Post subject: San Juan River Fly Fishing

The San Juan River is finally fishing well after months of off-colored water. The increase in flows last week to 5000 cubic feet per second seems to have pushed much of the suspended sediment, moss, and "river snot" (guide term for dead, white-colored plant material) downstream. This has left the trout in the Quality Waters hungry and willing to bite.

We have been catching numbers of quality fish - fat, healthy 18, 19 inchers with several over 20. Our best luck has come by fishing chamois leeches, San Juan worms, OJ's, Big Macs, and egg patterns on five to seven-foot leaders with size BB shot to pull the rig down to the bottom. You must be willing to adjust your rig often to keep getting strikes. The weight needs to be right on the bottom, so adjusting leader length by moving your strike indicator is an absolute must! If you are not setting the hook for bottom bumps on almost every cast - then you are missing the fish.

A word of caution for those planning to fish the San Juan in the next few weeks - Be very careful as wading is extremely difficult and potentially dangerous. Only a few areas of the river offer water that is wade-able, and those areas are sketchy. Drift boats are definitely the way to go right now.

Flows are scheduled to decrease on June 18 and continue falling until they reach 500cfs on July 2nd. The river will be very busy once the flows bottom out, so mid-June will be a good time to be here with lighter crowds and good high-water drift fishing.