Fishing Report San Juan, South Platte June-July 2011

Hello everyone,

Summer has arrived and spring runoff on the San Juan is finally over.

The river is quite clear now, but some dead algae are evident and floating around about from last winter.  Visibility is 3 feet plus.

The reservoir level is still above the average and the river flow is around 500 CFS.

The fishing has been excellent as usual using my patterns, especially AK-47 dry fly in the afternoon and into the evening.

Here is my video catching bunch of them. I fished with AK-47 during the spring runoff, check it out: http://www.youtube.com/yspecial1#p/u

This is my younger brother John's favorite video from my uploads and I have over 162 videos uploaded.

We’re having some heavy mosquito issues (last couple of weeks) especially below Texas Hole so be prepared for that!

I recommend long sleeve shirt (must) to wear to avoid bugs and UV from the sun. I have top of the line Columbia and Redington shirt ($45 each/ 30 UPF) with my own embroidered design logo on it for sale.
I  also have fishing hat (cap) ($17 each/ 50 UPF).

Strongly recommend insect repellent and rain jacket this time of the year.

Try bounce (yes, for drying clothes) sheets on you to help from mosquitos.

My younger brother uses bounce on him when he goes fishing in So.California.

Put one bounce on your hat and one on the front of your vest or shirt. But applying

repellent on yourself will be the best defense from those pesky mosquitoes.

It will improve your chances of not getting bit and yes, you'll smell very nice

too. You will be the best smelling fly fisher on the river!

I know there are many of you who are anxiously  waiting for S.J's annual "Ants Fall" but that hasn’t happened yet, although we have been hit with some threat of thunderstorms in last few afternoons.

Still, there are plenty midges hatching going on in the morning and late afternoon so you can use Andy’s Candy Midge (dry fly) pattern to entice them.
*Correction, the Ants Fall happened couple of days ago according to people I talked to on the river today, July 14th.

Last few days,  there have been decent baetis hatches around noon to 2 pm, hence watch for it as well.

I have heard that there were prolific caddis hatch at bait fishing section so I checked it out  in the evening but didn’t see any caddis hatch at all.

I’m sure there will be some caddis hatches occurring below quality water soon until first part of September or so, so make sure to stock up with some Y-Ugly flies if you plan to fish downstream sections.

I need few good men pr women to help to remove beaver dam right above the KH.(for every other fishermen)

I know how diligent beavers are but if few of us keep taking the dam down every time we walk by then they will move to some other location IMHO.

There were at least 20 nice trout there before beavers rebuilt their dam after the spring runoff, Jerry, Tom and I demolished the dam few times but our efforts weren’t enough, therefore I’m asking for some help from anyone who will be fishing and wading by there to remove some of the sticks of wood as you pass by..

The best flies were:

Yong Flasher> AK-47> Yong Special> AC midge> Yong Blondie> Yong Wing in that order.

Jerry needs to move his antique stuffs to Co Springs where his son lives so we filled up my truck and went there during San Juan Spring Runoff.

We'd fished 11Mile Canyon together one day, Tom from Denver joined us at Deckers one day and I fished Cheesman Canyon one day by myself.

The fishing was still excellent on both places.

We used Yong Wing, Yong Special, Yong JR and Y-Ugly.

Recent letters:

Thanks for a great day on the river!  I put on my other sun glasses this morning and found the reason, at least in part, I had a hard time seeing the fly.  The polarized lenses I was using were my older prescription:)

Bill

Andy,

  Thank you so much for the pictures!  Filip just arrived home and told me what a great time he had,

and how much he learned!

Thank you again,

Nicole

Mike is off on business travel today.  I am bugging him to send his photos.  He has one shot of a fish he caught that is clearly the fish of the trip.  Caught on the upper flats with one of the #26 Flashes you gave us.  I'll push him to send them ASAP.

regards, 

Norb

Andy,

Thanks for guiding Tom and I on Monday and Tuesday. Thursday, prior to
leaving and heading back to Denver, we did very well down by the main
channel in the Cable Hole. Caught some 20 inch rainbows that had nice 5
or 6 inch girths on them. Tom and I caught at least a dozen or so in the
2 hours we fished. The fly that worked the best was Andy's Yong Flasher
top and bottom. For the first half hour or so we tried blondie closest
to sinker and yong special bottom but had no productivity.

Thanks
John Kissell

Andy,

Got home about 10:00 last night. Up above the cable hole yesterday at about 9:00 for a couple hours and caught several after 10:00 on yflasher, nice big fish. Tried yblondie and yblood when first got there but didn't get any. Maybe not far enough out in the current or down deep fun. Fished the south side because other side was full of guys. Had a good time the past few days.

Thanks for flies and dinner the other night. Want to get to yampa, FP and RF next month. We are going to Granby over the 4th of July for horse show with Leanne so maybe can get down on the CO if water goes down. Later

Tom

Hope all is well with you on the San Juan, I still re-live the outing on the River with you & my Grandson, Jonathan !!  what a great time...I'll be back up your way this fall for sure!

Sam Fry

Hey Andy sorry I missed ya.  I left my cell in my car.   Thanks a lot for the picture! Had a lot of fun today, had six more fish in the net after you left and probably lost about that many after getting it hooked. Thanks for your lessons and your flys!  Dinner at seven sounds good. I will meet you at the restaurant at 7.  Thanks again.

Josh

Andy,

Thanks so much for a special trip.

Hope I can remember at least half of what you taught me.

Thanks again,

John Anderson

Happy Fishing!

Andy Kim

 Click on the photos to enlarge.

Jerry's grand daughter Analliese at 11MC

Jerry's grand daughter Analliese at 11MC

A fat 21" rainbow

                                                                           not a trout

Thanks for the fisherman who took the photos for me.

Haven't fished Cheeman Canyon since I left Denver over 21 yrs ago but the fishing was still excellent using my flies (Y-Ugly, Yong Special, Yong Wing and Yong JR)

Hey,

We had great time. I think I am getting the hang of fly fishing. I did pretty good!!!

Take care.

Sonja Hickingbottom