Durango over the Thanksgiving, 2018, Holiday
Nov 26, 2018 17:54:36 GMT -6
slim, underhillsbill, and 4 more like this
Post by jonbo on Nov 26, 2018 17:54:36 GMT -6
The wife and I took our bi-annual Thanksgiving trip to Durango last week to visit my sister and her husband. I was able to get away and fish twice. The first time was planned in advance. This was to the San Juan tailwater which is about an hour away. Being agreed to in advance, I was scheduled to stay all day. I also was able to get the advantage of local knowledge. A really great guy, a guide on the river (I don't know if he wants me to repeat his name on the Interwebs, so I won't), went and fished with me for a couple of hours in the morning. Good thing for me he did.
Man, the Juan is tough! My friend took me to a spot right by the Cable Hole, a run. We fished and fished that run. He caught a couple, I think, and I did too, but they really made us work. I was using the little midges, KF midges in about a 24, trying both black and lighter tan or olive ones. I also fished an egg pattern deep in a run. On the egg I hooked a nice fish that I fought for awhile. He got off I think because at some point I failed to keep a good bend in the stick and he was able to jerk a little slack. With the midges it was really frustrating. I saw fish feeding near the surface, breaking water, etc. They wouldn't go for anything I tried under my yarn indicator. Finally, desperate, I took off the indicator and just swung the midges in the current like you would a soft-hackle fly. Hey, I caught a couple that way! Size wise, they weren't anything too special.
After my friend left I went down to the Cable Hole proper which is a nice pool a little out of the main current. It's about 2 1/2 feet deep. There were fish everywhere. They were cruising the bottom, also rising at the surface to midges coming off. Big fish, smaller fish, fish throughout the column. Of course there was that group, most of them quite large, that make themselves your constant companion searching through the silt you kick up. I wasted at least an hour there, probably an hour and a half, throwing everything in the book at them, all for nothing. NOTHING.
So then, realizing it was getting late, I went to the second spot I had planned to go to. That was the Munoz (I think) parking lot. After hiking through the frog-water and beaver ponds I reached, I think, the Lower Flats. I was lucky there inasmuch as I managed to hit the tail end of a baetis hatch. I swung the Barr's Emerger I had bought at Abe's through a run and a nice brown took it! I was really happy to land him, but after that there was nothing. After another hour I headed home. I felt really lucky to have caught what I did, mostly with the help of my kind buddy.
A couple of days later I was able to slip away for a couple of hours and go to the Animas in town. I think 4 different people, one my brother-in-law, told me to go to 4 different spots. One guy said there's no fish in the Animas. They've all been killed by the soot from the big fires. The real deal, from what I've figured out talking to everyone and what I experienced, is that many were killed, but that they have been planting and there are fish, some of them good size. I ended up fishing first at 32nd St, per B-I-L. I had no luck there. After driving around Durango some, more or less lost because there's driving bridges and walk bridges every few hundred yards it seems, but how to get to what you're looking for? I finally ended up in a parking lot right almost across from the hatchery. I fished up and down. I was practicing with my tight-line outfit, and a good thing. I had on a Pat's RL that Duranglers had recommended. Finally in the river right next to the hatchery, I threw into a pretty deep looking pocket behind a large exposed boulder. Only by fishing euro-style and with a weighted Pat's and extra split-shot could I have reached bottom directly aft of that boulder. With an indicator/bobber, wouldn't have happened. I hooked something really nice. I fought him awhile, he ran several times. Often-times I can tell I have a nice fish when they refuse to surface. I never saw him. I had him pretty close to the net, though, but I put too much pressure on him and broke him off. I was disappointed to do that, but happy that I could say for certain that in November of 2018 there were fish in the Animas! So I left on that note.
Man, the Juan is tough! My friend took me to a spot right by the Cable Hole, a run. We fished and fished that run. He caught a couple, I think, and I did too, but they really made us work. I was using the little midges, KF midges in about a 24, trying both black and lighter tan or olive ones. I also fished an egg pattern deep in a run. On the egg I hooked a nice fish that I fought for awhile. He got off I think because at some point I failed to keep a good bend in the stick and he was able to jerk a little slack. With the midges it was really frustrating. I saw fish feeding near the surface, breaking water, etc. They wouldn't go for anything I tried under my yarn indicator. Finally, desperate, I took off the indicator and just swung the midges in the current like you would a soft-hackle fly. Hey, I caught a couple that way! Size wise, they weren't anything too special.
After my friend left I went down to the Cable Hole proper which is a nice pool a little out of the main current. It's about 2 1/2 feet deep. There were fish everywhere. They were cruising the bottom, also rising at the surface to midges coming off. Big fish, smaller fish, fish throughout the column. Of course there was that group, most of them quite large, that make themselves your constant companion searching through the silt you kick up. I wasted at least an hour there, probably an hour and a half, throwing everything in the book at them, all for nothing. NOTHING.
So then, realizing it was getting late, I went to the second spot I had planned to go to. That was the Munoz (I think) parking lot. After hiking through the frog-water and beaver ponds I reached, I think, the Lower Flats. I was lucky there inasmuch as I managed to hit the tail end of a baetis hatch. I swung the Barr's Emerger I had bought at Abe's through a run and a nice brown took it! I was really happy to land him, but after that there was nothing. After another hour I headed home. I felt really lucky to have caught what I did, mostly with the help of my kind buddy.
A couple of days later I was able to slip away for a couple of hours and go to the Animas in town. I think 4 different people, one my brother-in-law, told me to go to 4 different spots. One guy said there's no fish in the Animas. They've all been killed by the soot from the big fires. The real deal, from what I've figured out talking to everyone and what I experienced, is that many were killed, but that they have been planting and there are fish, some of them good size. I ended up fishing first at 32nd St, per B-I-L. I had no luck there. After driving around Durango some, more or less lost because there's driving bridges and walk bridges every few hundred yards it seems, but how to get to what you're looking for? I finally ended up in a parking lot right almost across from the hatchery. I fished up and down. I was practicing with my tight-line outfit, and a good thing. I had on a Pat's RL that Duranglers had recommended. Finally in the river right next to the hatchery, I threw into a pretty deep looking pocket behind a large exposed boulder. Only by fishing euro-style and with a weighted Pat's and extra split-shot could I have reached bottom directly aft of that boulder. With an indicator/bobber, wouldn't have happened. I hooked something really nice. I fought him awhile, he ran several times. Often-times I can tell I have a nice fish when they refuse to surface. I never saw him. I had him pretty close to the net, though, but I put too much pressure on him and broke him off. I was disappointed to do that, but happy that I could say for certain that in November of 2018 there were fish in the Animas! So I left on that note.
