In the past few days, a plan has come together to make the trip up to the San Juan River in northwest New Mexico. Our travel day is 1/22/17 and we will fish for 3 days, departing on 1/26/17.

I will be accompanied by Jeff Martin and Rick Allen, and we will be staying at Abe’s Fly Shop and Motel. The latest report is that the fishing is a bit off due to water clarity issues. But, the fish are keyed into midges almost exclusively. This is good news to the dry fly purist. Subsurface flies in the right size and color should work too though. Come on out and play!

I just heard today that Fish Camp (sponsored by the White Mountain Apache Tribe) at Christmas Tree Lake has been canceled this year. The reason given is that the federal hatchery where the fish are grown has a parasite. They do not want to infect the lake, so no stocking will occur and the toughest decision of all was to cancel fish camp.

This is not all bad news from my viewpoint. The problem existed last year, so they stocked with younger and smaller fish that came from a separate part of the hatchery that was not infected. There was enough pushback on this that now they’ll need to figure out what is going on and then solve the problem.

Also, since my plan was to fish the Ruby Lake NWR in early May, it means I can delay that trip a couple of weeks, making the camping up there more enjoyable. A couple of years ago, I was up there right at the beginning of May, and had snow for 3 or 4 days and nights! The middle to late part of May should be better weather. I just hope the fishing is as good as it was in early May. Keep coming back for updates on this trip.