Week 1: December 28 – January 2, 2014
We began the 2014 season with the Rio Grande in very nice water level/ condition. However, opening week was affected by a storm system that threw us rain, cold, and nuking winds.
The winds (up to 65 km/h) changed direction daily, which made the choice of pools to fish a little harder than usual and tested the skills of both single- and double-handed rod fishermen. The water remained clear most of the days, with the exception of two days after some heavy rain. That extra water washed out some shoreline and we had a couple of days of dirt and algae drifting downstream, but it never made the river unfishable.
The spike in water levels, combined with cooler temps and decreased visibility made the fish “moody” and the takes were slow and lazy. This lead to many false strikes and several lost fish, but at the end of the day we found success by varying our techniques, which ranged from slow, shallow, and well-controlled swings with sunray shadow tube flies to fishing leech patterns down deep. We also experimented with floating, intermediate, and Type-6 sinking lines.
All the fish caught were in great shape, some of them a bit colored but most were silver and fresh. The biggest was a 14-pound hen.
Alejandro Martello
Villa Maria Lodge Fishing Manager