Post by mirvc17 on Mar 20, 2017 19:18:43 GMT -6
I travel to NM this weekend for the 75th anniversary Bataan Memorial Death March (My brother and I did the half and my mom and her friend did the full).
On Saturday, I arrived at the river just after 7am and had a quarter mile of stream to myself. One bait guy showed up but after seeing me finishing gearing up, he got back in his truck and left (maybe he forgot his rod?). Anyway, I found the stream in great condition. Flows were at 14 cfs and visibility was about 12-14". I'd never seen this part of the stream before and its apparently in the "Special Trout Water" section with a 3 fish limit.
I started out with a Deer Hair Emerger (on an upper dropper tag) with a Zebra midge on point but quickly got tired of trying to keep my DHE floating in some of the faster riffles. I put on a small NZ wool indicator and switched out the DHE to a size 14 Lafontaine Sparkle Pupa (green). I picked up fish after fish on both nymphs, but the majority on the Zebra.
I worked upstream and found a really great deep hole that was clearly popular. After pulling a number of rainbows out of it and an hour of being on the river I was well over double digits. I rested the pool and moved upstream. This was really fantastic small stream fishing, even if they were stocker rainbows. Most were 9-11". The best part of the day came from some direct upstream casts into a small, narrow pool that just _had_ to have a couple of fish in it. Two failed hook sets...I checked my zebra and ran the hook over the hone a few times. A few more casts and two nice rainbows came to hand--the best being 13".
Not wanting to get deeper into residential area, I worked back downstream and picked up a few more fish at the nice pool then called it a day. I had to continue driving to White Sands Missile Range.
All in all, a real fun outing. Pictures to follow.
On Saturday, I arrived at the river just after 7am and had a quarter mile of stream to myself. One bait guy showed up but after seeing me finishing gearing up, he got back in his truck and left (maybe he forgot his rod?). Anyway, I found the stream in great condition. Flows were at 14 cfs and visibility was about 12-14". I'd never seen this part of the stream before and its apparently in the "Special Trout Water" section with a 3 fish limit.
I started out with a Deer Hair Emerger (on an upper dropper tag) with a Zebra midge on point but quickly got tired of trying to keep my DHE floating in some of the faster riffles. I put on a small NZ wool indicator and switched out the DHE to a size 14 Lafontaine Sparkle Pupa (green). I picked up fish after fish on both nymphs, but the majority on the Zebra.
I worked upstream and found a really great deep hole that was clearly popular. After pulling a number of rainbows out of it and an hour of being on the river I was well over double digits. I rested the pool and moved upstream. This was really fantastic small stream fishing, even if they were stocker rainbows. Most were 9-11". The best part of the day came from some direct upstream casts into a small, narrow pool that just _had_ to have a couple of fish in it. Two failed hook sets...I checked my zebra and ran the hook over the hone a few times. A few more casts and two nice rainbows came to hand--the best being 13".
Not wanting to get deeper into residential area, I worked back downstream and picked up a few more fish at the nice pool then called it a day. I had to continue driving to White Sands Missile Range.
All in all, a real fun outing. Pictures to follow.