Howdy Y'all,

​​Well it’s the end of another successful season here at Sacred Waters CO. Kind of a lackluster end due to our flash drought here locally that started in September. We were hoping to end the season with a bang but hey what do “they” say?  “You can’t control the weather”, right…. We never seen it coming honestly as much as a weather & water nerd that I am wasn’t even paying much attention due to the extremely large snowpack we received and the monsoons keeping things well above average for most the Summer to the point of unfishable for a lot of our local waters till mid- August. But when the monsoons stopped, they stopped completely, and we had a bad dry spell until just a few weeks ago with winter & snow slowly starting. So unfortunately, we never got our normal Fall rains or snow, kind of just went from Summer to Winter while in a flash drought too. The “Refresher” I always speak of around the Fall and in my last newsletter/blog post never happened and the “one & done”, “no margin for error” fishing continued till we started getting too cold & icy to fish. In turn unfortunately Patriot Anglers & the Southern Ute Tribe Jr. High After School Program had cancel their guided fly fishing trips at the end of Oct & Nov. The last few Donor trips were also cancelled due to the poor weather & water conditions. We really wanted to end the season with one last blast of Charity event photos & stories as well as last Donor trips especially if the Fall “Refresher” happened it could have been awesome Fall Fishing as usual. But again, unfortunately we can’t control the weather and as many of you know we strive to provide the very best guided fishing when possible and protect our fishes and fisheries when necessary.  Thank you, Donors, for making this all possible, always understanding and supporting our Mission we could not do this without you. 

What's New @ SWCO: ​
Not all was lost though, what is the other thing “they” say… “one door closes another one opens”, we have had plans and done the most we can as per our budget towards our Mission goals and Charity works but as our Fishing/Guiding Season comes towards an end generally that’s about the end of our work & budget till the next season. We are getting a few steps closer to keeping our C.A.R.E. Mission activity going all year-round now. This 2019/2020 season with some extra funds due to not having the expenses of hosting (6-8) Veterans from Patriot Anglers for (5) days we were able to start a fly-fishing & fly-tying program with the Southern Ute Tribe’s Afterschool Program in Ignacio, CO. We were able to purchase (10) fully stocked fly-tying kits for the kids from our partners @ Scientific Anglers.  Our first fly-tying & fly-casting class was a huge success and so much fun, I couldn’t believe the excitement and overall skills of these 6th-8th grade kids. We are currently working out a regular schedule with the program staff to be able to teach theses fly fishing classes as frequently as possible and grow the program as well as adding Ice fishing & Fly Fishing field trip days throughout the Winter as conditions allow with this youth group. As some of you know we started our first youth program here with Pagosa Springs High School Special Needs/Disabled kids. As of most recently after adding the Southern Ute/Ignacio students I am now trying to rehash a plan with an afterschool program in Durango that another former board member was working on last year, but we didn’t have the budget due to the record drought of 2018 and the resignation of the board member before 2019 season. I had also conveniently been introduced to a similar program here in Pagosa Springs as of yesterday and hope to get another fly-fishing, fly-tying, ice fishing class here for our Pagosa kids. As well as in Dulce, NM with the Jicarilla Apache school &/or Fish & Game Dept. as our budget allows. All of this had always been in our long-term plans and is finally becoming a reality and growing after three years of building Sacred Waters CO. If the budgetary projections allow we will hopefully have classes & events all throughout the area in 2020-2021, but we can't do any of this without your help and generosity. Hence the recent social media donation campaigns on Instagram and Facebook on our posts from the 1st kids class and our most recent last blog, newsletter, and social media posts for #GivingTuesday donation campaign with Facebook matching donations, in hopes to raise even more funds through the off-season to establish and grow these youth programs more and more now that we have an easier opportunity this year and “our foot in the door” per se. We never really pushed too hard on fundraising in hopes of just growing organically which we have done well enough so far and to not annoy people too much as if we were always just constantly begging for money. After posting the 1st fly-tying & fly-casting class posts on social media our followers’ responses and support was awesome with people wanting to donate and help out so we promoted said post afterwards with a donate button and was very well received did a similar deal on Giving Tuesday with the advantage to double the funds with Facebook's Donation Matching Pledge. Even though the FB match pledge was only for one day you can still always Donate Tax-Deductible Donations to Sacred Waters CO Charity Foundation via our Facebook page or on either of our websites www.sacredwaters.co or www.sacred-waters.org with all of your Donation monies going towards our Charity Missions and receive a possible tax write-off, some Free SWCO Gifts, &/or Guided Fishing.  Don’t worry we are not going to bombard you with Fundraisers everyday either just a little FYI that we have these New Programs taking off and you can always Donate to help it all grow all year-round. 

Fishing & Hatches Report: 
​Recapping the end of the fishing/guiding season for the most part as for the the last few weeks. As stated above and in my last newsletter and blog it was a tough end of the year as our waters continued to drop to extremely low and clear as well as cold making our fishes extremely skittish and lethargic but we pulled off somewhat surprisingly highly successful trips to end the year by choosing the best locations, timeframes and techniques for our last few trips of the season. At present we have got some small fairly short little bumps of flow here & there lately with some rain and snow but nothing too exciting to promote or push any guided fishing trips. Those of you that may take advantage of some fishing opportunities here locally at present or throughout Winter here’s what’s going on currently and what to expect throughout the Winter months. I have done a couple end of season half-day (best of day) guide trips and some scouting/fishing around every recent weather event in hopes of a boost in flows to try to get the last TBD trips out before we got too cold & icy. On none of these days did we really get enough moisture to change anything for the better as for providing the very highest quality fishing conditions. But we do have some Baetis/Blue-winged Olive Mayflies hatching when conditions are right for them to hatch and of course at this time of year the nymphs are always more active and available to the fishes. Of course, the staple of Winter there’s always midge activity daily. Finally egg patterns due to spawning brookies, browns, &/or kokanee the last 2-3 months have been producing and will continue to as the fishes are used to eating eggs and looking for them now that we are pretty much in post spawn now.  Best fly patterns for myself and the other PA’s have been the best #1 fly combo lately Baetis/BWO type nymphs #16-22, and egg patterns, but smaller #10-14 stonefly type nymphs are producing as well as midge larva & pupa patterns. As we look towards the rest of the Winter these patterns will continue to produce all throughout the winter here wherever you may be able to find some open water to fish. You will notice a slight change though as we get to mid-Winter of egg patterns not producing quit as well and midges picking up as the other go to with your baetis nymphs which will produce most days but you may notice a slight drop off of activity on the baetis and more towards the midges and a pickup of activity on stonefly nymphs producing better. As we get to later winter & early spring it’ll flip again as the rainbows, cuttbows, and cutthroat get spawny eggs will start be a go to more & more again and so will stonefly nymphs as they will be getting closer to maturity with Early Blackstone/Needle flies hatching 1st, then Skwalas, then early brown stones, and finally Salmon Flies. If we get any kind of boost of water through this timeframe you can have some fantastic streamer action also just tough right now due to the low, clear, cold water at present. And if we do get any boost in flows and/or added turbidity worm patterns can be extremely productive at these times too.