On Friday, I had a chance to fish the Valles Caldera National Preserve here
in New Mexico with a good friend. This is a relatively new preserve that is
being opened for many uses in a conservative manner. To fish on the
preserve you need to win a lottery and then you must pay a $25 access fee.
I won with only one $5 chance and I know others that have done the same.
Check out their website for more information.
(http://www.vallescaldera.gov/)



The San Antonio is a small creek on the preserve that holds many brown
trout. It runs through a very large high altitude meadow. I've always been
curious about this area because it is at the core of the national forest
land that I have been exploring for much of my life. This was my chance to
finally see what I had been missing.



We arrived at the preserve around 7:00AM for a brief orientation and van
trip to our destination. I was surprised by the size of the preserve when
it took us about 45 minutes to get to our fishing beat (Beat 8). The beat
started next to a very old cabin that was close to a very small hut that
covered a hot spring. I noticed very few fish below the structures. This
section of river is closed for a short distance and it's probably a good
thing because I didn't see many fish. There was your typical hot spring
goop in the water and it seemed like it wasn't very good fish habitat.



I started fishing around 8:30AM and didn't get into many fish. I had only
caught about 4 fish before 11:30 and I was figuring that I was really doing
something wrong. The spring fed creek was clear with little cover and the
few fish I saw were very spooky. I even tied on a little dropper out of
desperation, but I was able to remove it when the fishing picked up around
noon. The upper half of the beat was a whole new story. We caught lots of
good fish and probably 10-15 of them were over 11 ½ inches, which is a good
size for this creek. We had to make very long casts or sneak up on the fish
for the most part. Almost every time you got any dry fly over one of these
trout without them seeing you, you would catch one. I've never used so much
of my fly line, it was kind of fun, except for the wind and having to be a
lot more conscious of my slack line.



It was a great trip and something that everyone should try. I saw Bruisers
post on this river last year and I told him that I would post something
about my trip. I'm a lurker that occasionally has the chance to read and
enjoy a few trip reports now and them. I posted a TR about fishing with my
son a just about 2 years ago and it will probably take me another 2 years to
post again. ROFF is a great group and it was fun to fish with a few of you
guys over by Yellowstone a couple years back. I hope to participate more
when my children get older.