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Land of Enchantment Guides
Fly Fishing Trips Throughout Northern New Mexico & Southern Colorado
EARLY FALL NEWSLETTER ~ 2017
A 27" Chama River brown trout in his fall spawning colors, sporting a serious kipe jaw.

Saturday, September 16th, 2017
Hi Everybody,

Early fall seems to be arriving here in northern New Mexico and southern Colorado - the brown trout are just beginning to get colored up and though the days are still quite warm, the nights are starting to be noticeably cooler. The fishing this season has been excellent and the water conditions and levels are as good as we have seen in many years. Autumn is the best time of year for fly fishing in our area; the weather is perfect and the trout are voracious. This is also when we catch our biggest brown trout of the year.

Hopefully you had a good summer and are ready for a great fall fishing season. For more up to date information and pictures, please check out our Facebook and Instagram pages (there are links to them at the bottom of the newsletter). As well, don't hesitate to contact us at anytime if you have any questions and/or would like to book a trip.

Enjoy the newsletter! <°)))))>< <°)))))>< <°)))))>< <°)))))>< <°)))))>< <°)))))><

Chama Catch & Release Area
These are the signs that are on the upstream boundary of the new Chama River C&R area .

Though this is somewhat "old news", it is appropriate to remind everybody of the new catch and release area that was created on the Chama River; the fall is one of the best times of year to fish in this location. Please be good stewards of the river and if you see any anglers not abiding by the rules, please let a game warden know about it.

With the beginning of the new licensing period on April 1st, 2017, the new catch and release area on the Chama River below El Vado Dam was implemented and became a reality. The New Mexico Game and Fish Commission approved catch and release regulations on this section of the Chama River at its November 17, 2016 meeting in Grants. The new regulation, as written by New Mexico Department of Game & Fish staff, applies to a three-mile stretch of the river that starts 1.3 miles below the El Vado Dam. The first 1.3 mile section of the Chama directly below the dam was left out of the proposal because it includes the Coopers El Vado Ranch and areas upstream that are popular with "catch and keep" anglers fishing on the Chama.

The new catch and release area begins about 1/4 mile below Cooper's where the gauging cable crosses the river and then runs downstream to the confluence of the Rio Nutrius - a distance of about 3 river miles. Anglers willing to walk a moderate distance downstream from Cooper's should have the opportunity for larger, stream-bred trout. The new catch and release regulation for this section of the Chama River mandates that all fish must be released with a tackle/gear restriction of using only single barbless hook and artificial lures.

All of here at Land of Enchantment Guides would like to thank all of the individuals, organizations and business who supported and helped to make the catch and release area on the Chama a reality - we couldn't have done it without your efforts. Hopefully over the next few years, this section of the river will become the great fishery that it has the potential to be.
VCNP "Swallow Cast"
Payson T. demonstrating his "Swallow Cast" on the Valles Caldera National Preserve

Last month out on the Valles Caldera we had the great pleasure of learning a very cool new casting technique from a client of ours called a "Swallow Cast". It combines both the casting and bird calling skills of the angler. What you have to do first is call in a swallow and get it to sit on your fly rod. Then you ask the swallow to fly over the stream where you are going to cast your fly. This apparently makes the trout think that the swallows are keying into a hatch which then makes them less wary of dry flies and anglers, creating more aggressive top-water strikes - a very helpful thing on spooky fish in small, clear water. All of us at L.O.E. Guides are trying to perfect this new cast. We're doing pretty well with the casting part but we still have a lot of work to do with the bird calling and getting a swallow to land on our fly rods. Have fun!

Tips & Skills ~ The Downstream Hook-set

It often seems that one of the most difficult fly fishing skills for folks to accomplish is setting the hook after a fish has hit their fly. The article below is excerpted from the literature we use in our classes. This technique especially applies to fishing the types of streams and rivers we have here in northern New Mexico and southern Colorado.

So your flies are dead-drifting along perfectly under your strike indicator and you are watching it like a hawk. Here is (hopefully) what happens next. You notice that the indicator jerks ever so slightly. You set the hook and you have a nice fish on. Let's go over the whole process, step by step, detailing it as we go...

Strike indicators maybe should be called "fish having hit your fly and trying to spit it out" indicators. What this means is that as soon as you see the indicator move, a fish has already taken any slack out of the leader and moved far enough to make the indicator twitch. So what this tells you is that: a) You always need to keep your eyes on the indictor or you will miss the strike, b) you need to set the hook immediately and c) you need to set the hook whenever the indicator moves, twitches or even if it just stops - Shane often tells people "hook-sets are free; if you don't set it's going to cost you".


You have detected a strike and need to set the hook immediately; how do you do it? Basically setting the hook is a quick jerk/sweep of your fly rod to get the point of the hook to "set" into the fish's mouth. The best way to do this is to snap your wrist, moving the rod in a downstream direction. You don't want to make a giant vertical sweep as if you were making a cast (this is often called a "hail Mary strike" and it doesn't work well). If you look at the illustration above, you will see that the fisherman has detected a strike and set the hook downstream with the current, keeping the rod on a horizontal plane. Considering that most of the time fish are pointing upstream when they are feeding, setting the hook this way often produces a better hook-set into the corner of a fish's jaw.

Try to remember to make the hook-set somewhat lightly. If you set too hard, you run the risk of pulling the flies out of a fish's mouth and, if you are using lighter tippet, you can break it instantly. Another benefit to setting lightly is that you won't yank your flies completly out of the drift and - if you miss a fish - the flies will still be fishing.

If you can learn to master this style of hook-setting, you will catch lots more fish. It takes practice and it helps to try and stay relaxed and not over react. Needles to say, this is easier said than done. Note: All of the same general setting principles apply for dry fly fishing. The only real difference is that sometimes, when fish are feeding on the surface slowly, you don't want to make the hook-set as quickly as you would when fishing wet flies with an indicator.

For more fly fishing tips and skills, please check out the Fishing Tips & Skills
page on our website. It is primarily excerpts from the literature we use in the fly fishing classes we give. Hopefully you will find some things that will help to make your time on the water more productive and enjoyable.

Fly Tyer Magazine Article ~ Autumn, 2017
The autumn issue of Fly Tyer Magazine did an article on Land of Enchantment Guides featuring 16 of the custom fly patterns that Shane, Jesse and Noah tie - most of them are great patterns for fall fishing in our area. Many thanks to Fly Tyer editor David Klausmeyer for thinking enough of us to do the article; we are very flattered. You can read a printout (.pdf) of the article by clicking the link below:

Fly Tyer Article on Land of Enchantment Guides - Autumn, 2017

Fly Tyer is the best publication on the market on all types of fly tying and materials. Though primarily a magazine on all things concerning fly tying, it is an equally good source of many fishing skills and techniques. We highly reccommend that you pick up a copy at your local fly shop and/or consider getting a subscription. For more information you can go to their website: www.flytyer.com


The L.O.E. Guides Gang: Jake, Clay, Wade, Joey, Jesse, Noah, Shane, Aaron (holding Mesa) and Ann.

Give us a call anytime for up to date fishing and weather conditions or just to say hi and to talk trout. We hope to see you this fall!

From all of us at Land of Enchantment Guides...

Stay well!

Land of Enchantment Guides
(505) 629-5688
trout@loeflyfishing.com


PO Box 55 ~ Velarde, New Mexico 87582


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