Category: New Mexico

Farmington, NM – Thursday September 26, 2019

After two great weeks of fishing on the San Juan River at Navajo Dam we have internet again. We are at the San Juan County Fair grounds because as we were leaving town we developed generator problems again. A last week we had a new carburetor put on the generator. This week I was running the generator so we could have some air conditioning, when I turn the A/C off the generator quit running. We went back to Cummins where the new carburetor was installed and asked them to look at the generator again. Their generator person is in Durango, CO until the end of next week. The service guy gave me the name and number of two other local guys who are good at generators. Neither one of these people called me back. One I left a message the other one had a really nice lady who said they would call me but they didn’t.

At 5 o’clock we decided to give up on getting help and spend the night here at the fair grounds and move on to Gooseneck State Park, Utah tomorrow. We may be able to live without a generator for a while. The biggest challenge will be the week and a half at the Balloon Fiesta. We are there from October 2 – 14. Weather will drive how this works out. With sunny weather the solar panel and watching our electricity usage we may be able to make it through. If not we may have to buy a portable generator. We will see what happens.

I will be going back and updating the blog for our time at Cottonwood Campground, Navajo Dam, New Mexico September 11 – 26.

Today’s travels

Campsite photos

This picture has a fair ground special feature. The fair ground has 574 sites.

Cottonwood CG Navajo Dam, NM – Wednesday September 25, 2019

Moved to site 6 across the street, our reservations were for 14 nights and our time in site 5 is up. Somebody else has site 5 starting tonight. New Mexico parks have about 1/3 of their sites on no reservation status. Last week I asked the campground host if it would be alright if we stayed one additional night. She said it would be ok to stay another night.

This last picture is looking back at site 5.

If you have something that is messy or you don’t want water all over your site just go across the street and use the open site after people leave and before the next person gets there.

27 fish today
Got a fish on the first and second cast of the day
Fished from11:30 to 4:30

First half of the day was 10-12 inch trout mostly toward the 12 inch size, than got 4 small fish, than nothing.
I was using Zebra Midge size 18, went to a smaller 20 and 22 and started catching fish again, they are tough to hook with such a small fly and equally difficult to get all the way to the net.

Here is the summary of my epic fishing this year on the San Juan River.

Summary

9/12. Thursday:   25
9/13 Friday: morning 17 –  afternoon 2
9/14 Saturday: 23
9/15 Sunday: morning 6 – afternoon 5
9/16 Monday: no fishing, new carburetor for the coach
9/17 Tuesday: 10
9/18 Wednesday: morning 13 – afternoon up stream to “Qualify Water” 1 to net and nice fish on
9/19 Thursday: morning 9
9/20 Friday: 19
9/21 Saturday: 33
9/22 Sunday: morning 35 –  afternoon 26
9/23 Monday: morning  21       245 to date
9/24Tuesday: morning 13 – afternoon 16 in 10+ to 12 inch arrange, one 16 inch brown, 2 casts after this one a 14 inch brown 
9/25 Wednesday: 27 on our last day

Total 301

Cottonwood CG Navajo Dam, NM – Saturday September 21, 2019

DRAFT more information needs to be added.

Went fishing after Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me, fished 11:30 to 4:30. 33 to net and 200+ strikes.

They are hard to hook, just touch the fly before they spit it out. The strike indicator will just drop below the surface of the water or change directions. If quick enough you get a fish or feel the tug on the line. Then the challenge comes with getting them all the way to the net without them coming off. A lot of times the fish will come towards you so you have to strip line in like crazy or when the line goes slack the hook will come out of the fish’s mouth, it is fun. 

Needless to say I had a lot more fish on then made it all the way to the net. 

This is the size hooks I am using.

Picture of hooks and dime.

Cottonwood CG Navajo Dam, NM – Friday September 20, 2019

Morning 
19 to the net, 6 more on, many strikes

Nice rainbow

Quit because of the wind, started blowing pretty good and I was starting to get blown over.  Standing in cold water for three hours the legs don’t move as fast as they used too. If I have been in the same place for a while or just been inching along I often get my walking stick out before making any big moves. Having that third leg makes a big difference when walking on slippery rocks in moving water. By the way the river flow is twice the normal flow, last year it was at normal.

Did not fish after lunch, it was just too windy. 

The weather overall has been really nice.

Cottonwood CG Navajo Dam, NM – Thursday September 19, 2019

Slept in this morning and did not get to the river until after 10:00.

Got 9 fish, things have really slowed down. 

In the afternoon I did some coach things:

Used the $9.99 Harbor Freight angle grinder plus $1.99 grinding wheel to get a lock off the solar panel. The locks I bought for this panel can get the combination changed really easy when the lock is open. This is the second time this has happened. The first time I figured out the new combination. This time I got new locks and a grinder to get the lock off the panel.  We will be using the solar panel while at the Balloon Fiesta and I did not want to leave it out unsecured. 

At 3:00 when I start to go fishing a large thunderstorm was building to the south. I decided to set and watch it come to us and it did, we have now had three storms blow though. The second one had at least 40 mph winds with it and was raising the large slide topper up a foot.