The brochure for the town of Pagosa Springs states that the best fishing in the area is located in the mile and a half stretch of the San Juan River that goes right through the middle of town.Seems kind of odd to drive all the way to Colorado to fish in the middle of buildings, cars and people. But I also didn’t drive all this way to not catch fish. After the tail whipping I received from the San Juan in New Mexico the day before, I was ready to try anything.
Slate and I started fishing just east of the Pagosa Springs city limits. We found a nice pool at the bottom of a run and began wet wading, which was very nice with temperatures hovering in the low 90s.
I started with a Rebel Tracdown Ghost Minnow and was soon rewarded with a nice, 16-inch brown trout. The healthy trout used the current to its advantage, making this a very enjoyable fight. Slate helped me get the nice fish in the net, we took a few pictures and celebrated our first San Juan trout.
After a while, we moved to another spot in a more urban setting. There were other people fishing. There were people walking. And there were people floating in tubes and kayaks right down the runs we were fishing. It didn’t give us a warm and fuzzy feeling, but we were soon rewarded with several small browns.
Slate was throwing a Wee Crawfish (pictured) in the soon-to-be-released Flaming Junebug color. In fact, he became the first person in the world to catch a fish on Rebel’s rendition of this color. It made me proud to see him land his first Colorado trout. A fish will always put a smile on the face of a 13-year-old young man. And his dad!
After a while, we moved to one more urban spot behind a shopping center and landed another nice brown trout. Before catching this one, I had a brown blow my Ghost Minnow completely out of the water as it hit the surface, much like a bass will smack a Pop-R out of the water sometimes.
We enjoyed fishing in an urban setting because we were able to catch several fish. But we came to Colorado to seek fish in high places and off-the-beaten-path places. We are ready to move on.
By Bruce Stanton
Rebel Lures General Manager