Christmas Down Der…….on da San Juan…..

Two weekends ago Christmas came early for me! (By the way this is Ty! I am hijacking my wifes blog...) I chose to fish the San Juan River in New Mexico with my brother Damon and brother in-laws Chris and Tyson. We found a weekend that would work for all…and put it on the calendar. Thus the planning began this included travel arrangements, fly tying and endless reading of forums to get the low down on what was happening on the Juan. The last time I fished this river I went three days with only three fish, my dad went three days with no fish so YES to say the least this was a very intimidating river for me. With the plans in place and the endless notes taken we were ready!

(Fish Eating Midges on top of the Water)

We were ready until the night before when the dreaded phone call came from Chris, he was stuck in Scranton Pennsylvania because of freezing rain. (Chris is a pilot) We weren’t sure if he was going to get out of there…. best case scenario was he would be able to fly into Durango Colorado Friday morning the worst case was that he wouldn’t make it at all. We hoped for the best and went forward with the plans. All day Thursday we weren’t sure what was going to happen and then finally after sitting on the plane for over two hours I get this text from Chris “Later Scranton” from then on I knew we were going to have a great weekend.( Who said that singing “I have Sunshine in my soul today…”) wouldn’t work?
We definitely made it a fun filled two days packed with fishing, traveling, comedy and just a “good ol time!” We left Thursday after work for a seven hour journey that quickly turned into eight and a half hours since we stopped at the Gallup Wal-Mart. With a grocery cart full of food diet Pepsi and fishing license we were on our way to Farmington New Mexico and the San Juan. We arrived at 2:30 a.m and just as we hit the sack Chris was getting up and flying to Denver. After a few hours of sleep and a good breakfast we found our way to Durango Colorado to pick up Chris at the airport and shortly after we were off to river.
Everything was falling into place, not as planned but it all came together. The first day offered up few fish but the ones that were caught were nice fish that were worth the effort that we put in. We finished the evening with all of us catching fish Chris and I hooked into two very nice fish as Damon held his own. I think Tyson spent most of his time tying up his fly’s for some reason he kept loosing them somewhere along the way of our travels. Hungry and cold (From sitting in 40 degree water all day) we thought we would drive the 45 min. to eat at Costa Vita’s. This was well worth the drive in and so was our trip to Wal-Mart for some hand warmers. On our three minute drive to the Farmington Walmart Chis was telling us about a time when he was in the checkout aisle there. There was a Navajo man he started talking to and he asked him where he lived...he said "Kayenta". He asked what he was buying...he said "Dog food"....I asked if he had driven all the way from Kayenta (130 miles away) to purchase dog food only....he answered, "They don't have big bags of dog food in Kayenta"....So it was upon entering Walmart that it all came together. Right in front of us, an old Navajo was man pushing a shopping cart with nothing in it but 1 large bag of dog food....Classic

The next day we had success and a lot of fun we all had caught fish and had some great laughs. I have to mention that on the trip home we hit some bad snow and winds on the rim. After sometime Damon couldn’t handle the snow in the headlights and became deathly sick. After three stops we were able to get him to sleep so we could get home. Thanks to Damon, Tyson and Chris for a great weekend I am still recovering after getting home at 4:00 a.m. on Sunday morning.

(Lucky Catch!)

(When all goes well you catch ....)

(This And these lead to....)

(This....)

(And this........)

(Not sure what he's measuring......)

(This guy must be endorsed by Orvis or maybe he is just rich!)