Gr8 Fish: Fly Fishing The Conejos River In CO ~ Camping In The Rio Grand NF 23Jul24-26Jul24

Andy & I headed down separately to the Conejos/Rio Grande river valleys for some fishing. I was coming from Summit and he was coming from El Paso. I was late getting out of the Nest and was further delayed on the road and Andy turned around after his fly shop G2 indicated there's better fishing elsewhere right now. Sorry for being late Andy. I arrived at the Mogote CG off of CO 17 before evening and was stoked to pull into an awesome spot in the lower loop there. I was famished and made a quick sandwich and ate while setting up. The RODFTHR BC20X looked great among many 250ft tall pines and spruce and, nearly as tall, aspens. Wow perfect at 8Kft elevation. There were plenty of mosquitos around at dusk as I was close to waters of all kinds... including the Conejos itself. Deet required.

I've never been to this area and was psyched to try my hand on several sections of the river, and on the Rio Grande if possible. The river hosts browns, rainbows, and my sought quarry of Rio Grande cutthroats. While the river looked thin from my campsite vantage, a little walk in either direction indicated good runs and riffles. My dusk-time casts didn't yield on day 1 but I bumped into other fishermen as I was trial casting, and there were lots of rods in the campground. I rested well and enjoyed a game changer coffee, an inexpensive Nespresso machine in the BC20X ~ the only real issue is that it is 110v and needs to have the generator running; so be it.

I headed above the next CG upstream, Aspen Glades, as Andy's G2 suggested it might fish better up there. I don't count my brief trial casting blank-out the eve prior but I did return to that same rig: #14 UV chubby with bhfbpt and a caddis for droppers. I was exited when I saw a rise quickly and targeted the fish near the bank. Unfortunately the nice cutty rejected or didn't connect with the chubby, but there was a lot of splash. Soon enough I was hooking "ok" browns on all of the flies... there was every kind of mayfly born throughout the day while I fished the Conejos: red quill, PMD, micro-caddis, and big drakes. Choosing the droppers needed timing with these; I used FB hare's ears for the drakes, red copper john for the red quill, and so on throughout the day. I turned over some bigger fish who rejected the chubby but in the end it was lot's of small browns like this, but caught in a beautiful river canyon. I fished from the CG up to a private property sign.

I was again pretty hungry but had forgotten the onions when leaving the Nest, plus I needed to make contact with Kala to let her know I'd arrived safely (there is no service along the Conejos). I went into Antonito about 15 miles away to text and buy onions. Small grocery was nice and Kala was glad to hear from me. Back at camp I made a keen batch of Spicy Skottle Sloppies (wagu beef, onions, green chiles, hot cherry pepers, chili sauce & crisp onions) and enjoyed those with a VBC Hazy Lighting. After lunch/dinner I headed directly out on the Conejos above Mogote CG. I again caught several small browns ~ even less noteworthy than in the AM. Maybe it is the temperature but the water feels pretty nice; maybe it's the skinny water; maybe it's just my lameness in casting and fly selection. Tomorrow I'm going to have to change something.

I listened to tunes on the JBL3EX for a bit while contemplating tomorrow's move, as well as cropping images from today... hmmm. AJ Lee's new album City of Glass, her 2nd, is stellar. It's a bit of a different vibe as each of the player's of Blue Summit is given a song at the mic, and time at the writer's bench. These all were fun with Sully Tuttle singing a funny low one, Bakersfield Gates crushing one, and more, as were all AJ's songs - one pretty one featured Molly Tuttle singing and playing along. These NorCal ladies can really do bluegrass and their leadership to fill out killer "accompanying" bands is not the least of which that makes their records compelling. Do you think they coordinated record titles for their latest releases: "City of Gold" & "City of Glass?"

Back to fishing, I chose to really change it up and went all the way to the tailwater section of the Canejos, flushing from the Platoro Rez high and long way up a lousy road (30 mi on FR 450). Many folks were taking ATVs but I ran the Crusher Too the entire way. On the way up I was amazed at the beauty in this remote river canyon of southern CO... just spectacular. I first went all the way to Platoro Rez and scoped the tailwater. The uppermost valley of the Conejo has tons of beetle kill pines ~ around Platoro and above.

Back at the tailwater "start" one lady dropped in below me but I set out and saw no one else in this 1.5mi section from "put in" to the dam, to which I could wade completely! Starting rig here was classic subsurface nymphing with baetis & midges, or so I thought. I was quickly into a strong 17.5" German brown lady on Perdigon and was hopeful to see a rainbow pig or more hoped I'd spy a Rio Grande cutty up this high. Nope... 3 brown ladies "just" like this...

The Rodfather Cutty did well, except to not summon it's namesake. The water was thin even up here... rare were sufficient deeper channels to hold pigs IMO; the fish I caught were in riffles. The bug sign was again spectacular with all manner of mayflies hatching. Still a good time peeping with stocking contraption, down daisies, and an approach to the effluent from below.

Going back down seemed easier with some more tunes and a sandwich break but I knew I'd get to camp at 4:30pm going straight down. I needed to further change things up and decided that that was enough of Conejos. The next day I headed home early through more of the hazy San Luis Valley; it was strewn with meager farms growing lame weed laden hay. I went through San Luis itself, the oldest town in CO, and of course over La Veta pass.