Valles Caldera National Preserve

August 30, 2008

Rio San Antonio

My 11 year old great-grandson Brandon and I were fortunate to win a lottery pick to the fish the Rio San Antonio again this year. The Preserve holds a lottery for the spring, summer and fall fishing seasons every year to fish the stream. Lottery tickets are purchased for $5.00 on-line or over the phone and if you are picked you pay a rod fee to fish. The rod fees are $25 for adults, $20 for seniors and $10 for children. The stream is divided into 10 beats. Each beat is approximately 1 mile with about 2 miles of actual stream length.

The water meanders through the very large open meadow like a serpent along its journey. The majority of the water is narrow with large wide runs and pools at most of the bends. There are undercuts and over-hanging grasses near the banks…a perfect habitat for these wild German brown trout. The fish are very skittish to say the least. This is one-cast water and must be fished quietly with a low profile and sometimes very long casts.

Brandon and I have been aware of the trip for about a month with anticipation of another great trip. We have done this before but each trip it is a new adventure.

I picked up Brandon on Friday and we planned to get to bed early for the trip. He got to bed early enough but not I. We left home at 4:00 am for the trek to the Jemez Mountains. We needed to be at the staging area at 6:00 am where a driver and a van take us on a 45 minute drive to our assigned beat. The driver leaves us with a radio for communication and will pick us up at 2:00 pm. Along the way we are fortunate to see many herds of elk grazing. There 6 or 7 herds with 40 to 50 animals in each herd.

We were on the water and made our first cast by 7:00 am and with success I might add. The fish hit so fast is startled me. The fish tend to be small from 6 to 9 inches in length with an occasional fish being 12 to 14 inches in length.

There are fish in every run and each pool and if you fish with a low profile and distance yourself away from the bank you can catch a lot of fish.

In most of the runs we fished, once the water was disturbed the fishing for that run was over. You had better make each cast count. Brandon was fishing one pool where he caught 3 fish, which is highly unusual. I guess this kid just lives right.

The beat that was drawn for us was beat 2. Beat 2 has a portion of it through a small canyon unlike most of the beats. This was good for us because we were able to eat our lunch in the shade which is not the norm.

After lunch Brandon and I continued to fish every run we could with a great deal of luck. Brandon is still learning to cast with proficiency with an occasional fly pulled off in the grass and slapping the water to hard…you know, just like the rest of us. But he is a good student and takes direction well.

Brandon whispered “Grandpa, look at this nice run”. I told him to get down low and away from the bank and cast the line in the air to the length he needed and make one soft cast to the water…he did and immediately set the hook in mouth a nice brown trout and brought it hand.
After releasing it I could tell he felt a great deal of accomplishment. And he should with a perfect cast, textbook presentation and set the hook like a master. I am very proud of him. To do that takes a lot of work and patience. He turned and walked to me, put his arm around my waist and said, as he has before, “Grandpa, I love fishing with you.”

We continued to fish until it was time for the van to come pick us up and hiked to the road.
We caught a lot of fish today, some with a size #14 Joe’s hopper but caught the majority of the fish using a black hopper pattern.

There are a lot of fish in this steam and you need to be prepared to set the hook as soon as the fly hits the water and we did a lot of this today. I must say we probably spooked as many fish as we caught with is almost unavoidable.

This was one of my most memorable trips I have taken with Brandon. He seems to have matured a lot more this year than in previous years. Man, this going to be so much fun growing up again with this kid.

…tight lines…Phil Springer