A couple of years ago, January was anything but standing in a river. It was shoveling the driveway, tuning my snowboard, or making sure I didn't walk past the front door in socks... they would be instantly soaked by the snow that I tracked in and turned to slosh.
Since I've relocated to New Mexico, and conveniently enough found trouty water open or with little ice shelving, even the Juan (San Juan) was quite doable. Ain't no complaints here!
Although, this January has been a mind-blowing, total head explosion.
My son was born in late December and my wife and I were in total newborn lockdown. I convinced my weak mind that I would never fish again.
My role wasn't much at first but I couldn't leave the house... I couldn't even find the door. We were a total mess. I was able to tie flies though! Boxes and boxes of flies. I had so much time to tie that I would study new fly patterns and turn it into production.
This worked out great. The patterns were getting better and my boxes were filling fast. I put the word out to my friends that I'd fill their boxes for trades in gear. That worked out superbly- try it sometime. In this fury, I wore out my crappy vice and blew through supplies within the month. So now it was time to venture out for a new vice and supplies from my local family-owned fly shop: Los Pinos Fly Shop. Good people.
So January into February was a blur. Somehow I totally forgot about Fish & Game stocking the acequias in North Valley. In the winter season, it's stocked with 10"-12" bows that are quite skittish. Perfect, I love a challenge and would feel guilty if I could just hit them over the head with a #16 flashback pheasant tail. The acequias are a 10 minute walk from our house.
Game on without even having to get in the truck and I have cell service if I needed to get home quickly. Brilliant!