The Hopper Juan: Cimarron River, New Mexico

Tuesday, June 4, 2013

Cimarron River, New Mexico

I only had one day at home, less than 24 hours. I threw in a rod, reel, some fly boxes and waders & boots. I was pretty sure I wasn't going to be able to fish.

I got the chance to get away with Jamie, so we headed west towards Cimarron Canyon. The Cimarron is where I learned to fly fish. It will always hold a special place in my heart. It will always be my home water. Once there, I realized that I had forgot my lanyard which had forceps, tippet material, nippers and fly floatant. Crap!

In early June, there are always a ton of bugs out and on this day, it didn't disappoint. I hadn't see so many bugs since last year on any water. I tell people that the Cimarron is about the size of any mountain creek, with the fish population and fish size of the Arkansas River, the beauty of 11-Mile Canyon and the bug population of both of those rivers put together. It is amazing. The flow was 30 CFS, pretty much perfect for me.

I knew I wanted to throw dries, but with no floatant, that was kinda challenging. I tried it anyway. Foam caddis worked well, both for the fish and for me, being able to stay up at least a little bit. I tried a hopper/stone/dropper, but using 1x from a leader stashed away didn't work that great. I still caught fish, but it was like using rope to the dropper. I finally lost a few flies and pretty soon I was tying on fresh, caddis patterns on what was about 0X tippet and I had trouble getting the eye of the hook up far enough the leader to make knots. The tippet/leader was too fat! My next idea was to throw a streamer. I didn't have much time and as I moved around quickly, I figured a streamer didn't require floatant, so I tied one on the 0x end of the leader. One fish later, it was time to head back home for lunch. We arrived home only to find out they had eaten without us. Oh well. It was worth it!