The kids spent the night with us on Friday and left for the Jemez Mountains at 8:00 am. We first stopped at Mickey D’s on the way for a quick and convenient breakfast for the road. We arrived at the La Cueva day use area to fish the Rio San Antonio. Nobody there, clear water, perfect clear weather.
The air and water temperature was low. We were all dressed in layers
to be removed as it got warmer during the day. Ella and the kids went downstream to fish while I crossed the river near the parking lot to fish a large hole. I tied on at Prince Nymph and that seemed to be the right fly. My first cast I got a soft hit. I called the rest of the crew over the spot where I was fishing. I casted the prince nymph into the same spot in the hole again and set the hook in a nice small rainbow trout. I wanted to give Kyra her first lesson in retrieving a fish with a fly rod so I instructed her how to bring the fish in. She did very well for her first time. She gets so excited when she catches a fish. I don’t know of anyone who loves to fish more than these kids as you can see by the expression on Kyra’s face.
We fished for a while longer with no luck so we left for another spot up stream on the East Fork. We stopped at the Las Conchas Trailhead, one of Ella’s favorite spots. She always catches fish in this spot. Ella and the kinds fished for an hour or so with nothing more a couple of 4 inch long rainbows. Ella caught them, of course.The kids were getting hungry so we decided to go the Las Conchas day use area for a mid day picnic lunch. Grandma and the kids couldn’t resist fishing for about an hour while I took some pictures of them and the surrounding area. We finally ate lunch and by the time we were finished it was about 2:15 pm.
We drove down to Jemez Springs for the traditional ice cream from Mi Tienda Store in town. We then continued down the road and fished the San Diego canyon area and the Big Bend area without a hit. By then it was 4:00 pm and time to go home.
The fishing was not great today but the day sure was. We sure had a lot fun together. Excellent weather, good water conditions just very little cooperation from the fish population. But I guess it is always a good lesson for the kids to realize even Grandma and Grandpa doesn’t always catch a lot of fish some days.
I will be going south to work for another ten days and when I get back if we still have good weather Brandon and I are planning on a short fly fishing trip. We’ll see…
…tight lines…Phil
