Don’t blink or you’ll miss the north fork on your drive over La Manga Pass. Though your eye catches the valley as you come over the pass, I’m sure it’s commonly overlooked due to the size of the river. In it’s widest points you could still jump across it and though there aren’t many trees to get hung up on, it can be difficult to land the fly in the river with any wind given it’s width. This small creek holds some small trout, but is a great place to throw a single dry fly and really enjoy some simple and uncomplicated fly fishing for a few hours. It flows through a gorgeous valley and in late June through August, the wildflowers along with the insects and green grass and trees makes for a charming and picture filled outing.

The North Fork doesn’t warrant a full day trip or even a trip down to the Conejos valley, but with all the fishing around, this is a great little gem to enjoy while exploring the area if you’re into small stream fishing and putting a few eager trout to net.  There is some good camping around La Manga pass which is what first brought me to the area and after seeing the valley and knowing it was national forest, I just couldn’t pass up throwing a fly for a couple hours to explore this little creek.  The bugs were pretty rough, but nothing some strong deet wouldn’t prevent or long sleeves and pants can’t resolve.

As far as the fishing, the trout weren’t stacked in there, but every likely holding place that had more than 1ft of water seemed to create a strike.  It can be hard to land the fly in the water with any wind with it being such a small creek and you can’t stand right on top of the fish or you’ll spook them.  This was the enjoyable challenge.  You had to cast 25 – 40′ upstream over a variety of water and land to land the fly in the water far enough upstream that your presence didn’t spook the trout.  Then when you hooked the trout, you had to guide him through the water downstream to your net.  This may have just been the day I was fishing as it was high skies, but they seemed a little spooky so I gave them some extra respect and made some distance casts to ensure I didn’t spook them.  Many of the fish are likely too small to hook on a standard dry fly, but that’s probably for the best as every 5th or 6th strike drew a larger fish in the 8 – 12” class.  Their colors were great and it reminded me of my early days fly fishing when it was just about me, the fly and connecting it with any trout that was willing.  It was cool to feel so nostalgic on a river that I had never fished before.  Reminds me that all rivers share common threads and that is what we enjoy as anglers is finding those threads in every new stream we explore.

Standard dry flies like elk hair caddis, stimulators (smaller cause the fish can’t eat a size #10, try #14 – 16) or little hoppers that float well and keep things easy is all you really need here.  Nymphs unless unweighted probably aren’t wroth the effort given they are so willing to rise to a dry.  All kinds of hatches of caddis, mosquitos, midges, and mayflies were flying around when I was there in mid July.  Check out this great little gem if you’re in the area and are camping nearby or just want to try it out for an hour.   Please treat the fish with extra care as they don’t get fished often and young trout like this need extra protection or they can die easily after being poorly handled.  Use a landing net and keep em in the water as much as possible.  Keep your hands wet when touching trout always, no matter the size.