Taos/rio grande, beginning of July

[glitchmo]

My fiancée is furloughed the second week of July, so we’re gonna go... somewhere. I’m thinking about getting a cabin out in Taos area.

Planning to fish the Costilla, Cimarron, maybe the red and the rio grande if conditions are good. Any secret lakes or creeks anyone wants to share would be cool too.
I’ve read a lot of the old threads already, but if y’all have specific access points or thoughts on the current conditions I’d love to hear them. Pms are open if you prefer

I know they did restoration/invasive Work on the Costilla, and I’m not sure if that’s open or has fish yet.

[turfdawg]

I really want to fish that area again before long

[golferjeff]

Costilla opens July 1st. They did retonone it last year in the fall and stocked the purest RGCT they could find. The lower Costilla is open and has the normal browns, bows and cutbows. I think the RCCLA and Latir lakes are open too.

The Red/Rio Grande confluence is supposed to be great right now. Gotta hike. Runoff is dwindling.

[glitchmo]

Hm. I emailed the Taos fly shop about the Costilla,

Me: Second, I'm really interested in fishing the Costilla in Valle Vidal, but I see that there was a major restoration project to clear out invasives and make room for the cutts up there the last couple of years, but I'm not sure exactly what has been done. Will the Costilla be open this year? Will there be/are there any fish yet?

Him: They keep delaying the project and currently have not done anything up there yet. Fishing has been good.

[golferjeff]

Hmmmm.. they cut the flows off all spring. There was no water below the dam until May 17th. The Valle Vidal isn't even open yet, so fishing can't be good. The lower Costilla is open.... that is what the shop is probably talking about.

nwis.waterdata.usgs.gov/usa/nwis/uv/?cb_00060=on&cb_00065=on&format=gif_default&site_no=08254000&period=&begin_date=2020-02-01&end_date=2020-06-19

I wasn't there, but I have good knowledge that the upper river was treated and flows cut off. Below the culvert and diversion, they have not done anything and the browns and cutbows are still there.

[glitchmo]

Today:

Lower Rio Hondo, about 3/4 mile up from John Dunn bridge.

The whole stretch I fished was about like this, but mostly tighter willows. Tons of caddis under the rocks, coming off, and in the trees, and lots of 8-12” brown ready to hit a caddis dry fly. Just about every likely spot had at least one fish rise for me, including the one about 6 feet in front of me there.



Got about four to hand in about an hour of time in the creek.

Having some issues with afternoon thunderstorms and a bum tire, but that should all get sorted tomorrow. Probably the lower Red tomorrow, then up the Costilla Tuesday.

[glitchmo]

So if they rotenoned costilla creek to make space for the cutties it, uh ... didn't work.

but I checked again at the fly shop and they definitely didn't. 

Fishing was tougher than I expected. Nothing on dries, though I had a couple little guys come up and splash at a big foam hopper. I had a little more success fishing dry/dropper, but even then I only hooked three fish in two and a half hours. I landed that rainbow and had two long distance releases of unidentified fish. My quest for a my first cutthroat continues.

Bugs everywhere. Caddis, hoppers, spruce moths, stoneflies, something smaller coming off right around dusk. 

[b2flyer51]

Just a heads up on the Vidal and Costilla . . . looks like closure until Spring 2022. Moving towards all Cutties in the entire drainage.