Had an interesting chat the other day with friend Steven, he just back from a run to the Four Corners area including a few days (or was it just a day?) on the San Juan.
He caught a decent weather window and was impressed, as we all have been at one time or another, with the number of fish sipping in his eddy stream even without shuffling, which is of course illegal in NM (it’s considered chumming and specifically prohibited in the regs so my Land of Enchantment based friends tell me).
He did snag some pretty nifty Go Pro footage above.
Like most of us, I can still recall pretty damned vividly the first few times I saw decent-sized to hot damn sized fish feeding at my feet on the Green below Flaming Gorge, the Bighorn and even on the Missouri.
I was too naive (read dumb) to intentionally shuffle during my earliest learning curve years, though several mentors pointed out the shuffling-induced gravel stripping on the Green one season several years later. It was impressive to see some gravel runs basically stripped bare to the limit of the wading line – thankfully fishers and managers started cracking down like crazy on the shuffle about that time.
It’s interesting to see folks try and sneak a shuffle in now and again these days, they’re pretty damned easy to spot and more often than not that behavior draws a well deserved shout from a pissed off guide or other fishers.
While we’re of the mind that those shuffling to chum trout should have their license stripped for a year, the more extreme among our fishing chums opine that gear and waders should be garnished on the spot as well. If you see a nekked guy standing on a gravel bar in the middle of Missouri, assume he was shuffling and got tagged.
Walk softly and carry a 9 and 1/2 foot 5 weight.
