Went to the Conejos with my two younger brothers and fished Aug 18th-20th. Had a hard time the first day, with the only fish being my youngest brother netting about a 6 inch brook. This was my 2nd time fly fishing for trout and my brothers first time so we are on a hard learning curve. (Thanks to a really nice man up at the Conejos River Anglers fly shop, we received some pointers that would help begin to turn things around.) We started out the first day down off of hwy 17 in some heavily pressured water...so that probably didn't help matters. That evening we went up the fire lane 250 and fished some more high pressured waters with no luck. Camped out up near Platoro Res for the remainder of the trip. Second day was beautiful and sunny out, we drove past Platoro and hiked into some meadows and got into some rainbow trout. I caught 5 rainbows, my middle brother caught 3 rainbows, and the youngest broke one off and lost a second. So we were excited and thought we were figuring things out. Come Sunday morning it was cloudy and hazy out, and none of us could buy a bite in those same meadows from Saturday. We decided to hike on in to the three forks and chose to go up the middle fork. Couldn't get any dry fly action going so i turned over a couple rocks to see what we might could tie on. I'm new so I might be mis-naming here, but I think what I was seeing was stonefly nymphs. Ended up tying on a small pheasant tail nymph below my yellow/green hopper and bam, fish within second or third cast. I lost that pheasant tail eventually and went to a small copper john which worked just as well. My brothers tied on the same setup and we worked our way up the middle fork just wrecking shop. I lost count of how many trout were caught by myself, much less by my brothers. Since the stream was pretty small in areas, we kind of just took turns on who was going to catch the next fish. I have several other photos aside from the ones below but am currently trying to get my bro to send them to me. We finally just quit taking photos and focused on fishing and enjoying the moment. I can't wait to go back another time! I love it up there!

Not sure what the deal is but I'm not able to upload a couple of the photos I would like. Had another one of a rainbow and my youngest brother with a nice brown. Guess these will do

Absolutely fantastic fish and trip guys glad the brothers could get together for a memorable trip like that. Just be ready the feeling of planning the next trip only gets worse from here lol

sounds like a great trip in great country!

Haha...we are already discussing where to go next and whether to go back to the Conejos or somewhere new. I need to find some places that are closer to Lubbock with good fishing if possible. I'm open to suggestions. Be nice to be able to do a quick weekend trip and not spend all our time on the road.

Beautiful area up there. The meadows are incredible and the "grand slam" nature is very unique. All 4 species inhabit the area. Very nice catch!

The only closer place to Lubbock (except Ruidoso or Mayhill) would be the Pecos River. Still a far drive for just a weekend trip.

When I lived in Lubbock, I went to Platoro every summer.

ive been to both, and the conejos drainage just has far more to offer and more species variety.

i will say +1000 on that no comparison and drive not that much more. From Lubbock conejo drainage would be my home water.

Yah, I was afraid of that, Lubbock is kind of far from anything in every direction. We have limited fishing locations around here. Thanks for the info. I'd still like to go back up to the three forks above Platoro and catch some cutthroat. I've caught brooks, browns and rainbows now. Maybe next year!

lake fork is a better option and a much shorter hike! Almost all of the tributaries have cutthroats, you just have to get a map and go exploring some times up there. You'll never be dissapointed because every inch of water holds some species of trout.

Glad you all had a good trip up here.it is a very special place. Now that school has started and bow season starts saturday...now is the time. My first pinnacles trip of the season will be monday

Those are all pretty good fish for high mountain creeks! A 12 inch brookie is a trophy up there. Who had the rio grande cuttie in pic #1? Whenever you can't buy a surface bite, attach that size 18 dropper on 5x and hold on. Those fish have to be opportunistic this time of year.

About the only thing closer to Lubbock would be Cimarron Canyon in NM. Costilla is the same as Conejos. If you like small stream hiking and fishing, try the Purgatoire, LaJara, and Torsido creeks outside Trinidad.

I am headed that way in about 159 hours, but who's counting? Great pics. Pic #6 is a near trophy brown for being over 10,000 feet.

Honestly I don't know my fish that well. I am really fresh to the trout scene. Prob shouldn't tell this on myself, but I actually thought we were catching some cutthroat when it turns out they were brooks...because of the orangish underside, lol. That first pic is me with a bow out of the meadows. The one below that with just the rubber net in the photo is one my youngest brother caught, if that's the one you are referring to.

And yes, I was surprised at the size of some of the fish that came out of the smaller streams. The bigger fish came out of deep pools here and there. In one pool you could see fish stacked up looking upstream. We caught three decent fish out from under the same tree in one pool. I couldn't believe it. What really shocked me was on the third one, my youngest bro was unhooking a fish when my middle brother walked up and was basically standing right over the pool and threw his rig out there. I was sitting there telling him he was going to have a tough time catching anything standing on top of them when he hooked up with #3. It was definitely different from fishing the meadows or by the highway where you had to stalk them, to say the least. When we moved on you could still see them stacked up under the tree. You'd think they were starving seeing as how we are a bunch of amateurs.

Have fun on your trip! That was me for literally about 2 months, almost counting minutes. I seriously had my bag packed and everything ready about 2 months ahead of time. Thanks for the heads up on the fishing holes. i'm already going to be looking for even the slightest window of opportunity to go. I broke a rod when I was in the meadows and had to walk back to the truck to get my back up... an 8 wt. That's liking hunting prairie dogs with a grenade launcher. Long story short I came up with a new 5 wt rig and had Cabela's replace the broken 6 wt rod. Needed a smaller backup rig than an 8, lol! Anyhow, now I must go try out my new 5 wt somehow right?