I was fishing the Rio Grande Oct. 4 and had a beautiful pool all to myself. The fish were in a willing mood and within an hour I caught three trout and released a couple more. As cars zoomed by on State Road 68 between Española and Taos, I couldn’t help but wonder why the fishing pressure was so light along one of the most beautiful stretches of our state’s mightiest river.
The solitude on the Rio Grande was a stark contrast to the pictures I saw recently of the San Juan River near Farmington. There, drift boats and wading anglers crowded around each other. The San Juan is so heavily fished that finding enough elbow room must be more of a challenge than catching a fish.
The San Juan is a “celebrity water” in the fishing world. It draws anglers like Lindsey Lohan draws paparazzi.
Now I’m sure that this horde of anglers pumps a lot of money into the local economy, but I can’t imagine wanting to fish in such circumstances when right near my home in Española there is a river full of trout running through a spectacular canyon and devoid of anglers even on a weekend.
The Rio Grande may not have the reputation of the San Juan River, but it also doesn’t have the bait restrictions, catch-and-release regulations and the armada of guides willing to do practically everything except reel the fish in for you.
You have to learn how to be your own guide on the Rio Grande. You have to know how to read the water and know where to cast.
That’s one of the things about fishing rivers. You have to learn how to fish them. I could go to the Rio Grande and fish literally miles of river, not catch a thing and conclude the fishing was poor. However if you learn where to fish and how to fish those spots, you’ll catch fish on the Rio Grande.
Without pinpointing exactly where the pools are that hold fish, here are a few tips for the fishing the Rio Grande. Look for a spot where the river makes a bend. At those points the current will carve out a deep hole. There’s one bend near the old Glenwoody Bridge between Rinconada and Pilar that’s always held fish. To fish a spot like this, don’t cast directly into the slower water. Cast your lure, bait or fly into the faster water at the head of the pool and let the current bring it to the deeper water. Trout in rivers and streams wait with their heads facing into the current looking for food that’s carried downstream. Use enough weight to drift near the bottom but not too much that you are constantly snagging the riverbed.
If you’re wealthy enough, you can pay a guide to do all the work for you, like many do on the San Juan. These guided trips cost hundreds of dollars. Not that many anglers, myself included, could afford to go fishing very often at those prices.
There’s a saying that if you give someone a fish, you feed him for a day. Teach them to fish, you feed them for a lifetime. Changing the wording a bit, if you pay someone to guide you, you’ll catch fish today. Teach yourself how to fish, you’ll save money and catch fish for the rest of your life.