Good Times, with Great People @ Sacred Waters Co.

Hello All,

Hope you all have had a Great Summer so far!  As you may have noticed in the slideshow above, our Sacred Waters Donors sure are!  I must say, for someone who doesn't have a "Real Job", I've sure been busy. We've had some Awesome Dry Fly fishing going on, all through August and most of September so far. 

What's been going on at Sacred Waters Co? 
Other than some fantastic dry fly fishing for Trophy Sized Wild Trout a lot has been going on. As for with myself I am no longer employed at the Ski and Bow Rack,  Now I have all my time and energy wrapped up in Sacred Waters Co. and the Charities we support. So if you need to get in contact with me please call (970)444-2187 or email joe@sacredwaters.co .

I would like to take this moment to Thank all of our Donors for the support that helped make this Dream a Reality and help give us the opportunities to start fulfilling our Mission goals.

We are experiencing some of the best "real" dry fly fishing you could ask for by fulfilling the Mission of spreading out pressure through our 10+miles of rivers and lakes on our Ranches and the fishes are happy & healthy.

My Professional Anglers', my personal & ranch availability to our Donors has made scheduling quick and easy. As well as looking into the future booking extending our donors fishing season to the truly "Best" times to fish this area. Yes, July and August aren't the only times to fish around here actually they can some of the worst times. I have been pushing this through retail tourist outfitting for years and have taught a lot of people this but through Sacred Waters it's made it much easier and our donors are only loving every minute of it, as well as learning more on becoming well rounded anglers... And it's just the start of the So-Called "Off-Season". 

We have been able to Donate some Guided Fly Fishing Trips to Local Charities and other Non-Profits to provide Quality Fishing, Learning, & Healing Experiences to others in our community as well as help raise monies for their organizations. None of which was easily or at all possible with overbooked, over pressured Retail Guided Waters or for over worked, under paid Guides in the past. I would like to Thank everyone who made it to the Veterans Memorial Park of Archuleta County Golf Outing last month thank you for helping raise money for a good cause.
 
We have had some fishery surveying done on our Sacred Waters/Ranches, and started hashing out plans on how to improve our waters even more.  For you, for everyone, and for the future of every fishery. What we do to improve our waters improves the whole ecosystem. Quality headwaters upstream enhance all waters downstream, plus fish don't have boundaries... We are working on tweaking some stream habitat work to improve spawning. sanctuary side channel waters should boost wild fish reproduction and survival through the entire river system, since a majority of our Sacred Waters Ranches are in the headwaters. As well as bank stabilization and cooling/shading from long, on-going willow planting.  This slows silt distribution downstream as well as keeping water temperatures cooler. We had planted/stocked a few small hatchery raised rainbow trout fingerlings and will continue to do so through next Spring/Early Summer on an experiment to boost Wild Rainbow Trout Reproduction in the San Juan River Drainage. Reasoning behind this is a fisheries biomass/diversity survey stated we were below expected average of juvenile wild rainbow population. So my plan is in effect.  Small stocking of different age classes of rainbows as well as different genetic biodiversity, by varying sized of 9-13" fish in small quantity, then 3-4" fish in higher quantity, then 5-7" fish in slightly less higher quantity over the next two years, and finally leave it be for a few years with the hopes of varying ages of fish, different strains/subspecies &/or parents/genetics, and being in the Wild at an early age should increase survival rates, chances of natural reproduction, and at worst case scenario have some beautiful healthy semi-wild holdovers for years to come. So to my Donor Members and guest you all know I try to mange everything as Wild as possible so if we happen to catch a few of these little guys that may look different then your used to seeing in the San Juan Drainage this is why. Reasoning I could go on for days, but long story short we as humans have screwed a lot of things up and we as humans now a responsible to fix the screw ups of the past.  Maybe I'll elaborate more later.....

Our United States of America Disabled Veterans Groups and Events have been wonderful experiences for all involved from our Professional Anglers, to our Volunteers, to our Veterans. To give back to those who've sacrificed so much for all of us as citizens of this country is so rewarding it's hard for me to explain in written word. All I can say is I have been doing these events for a long time now and this year's because of Sacred Waters was even better to actually be able to dedicate all of my time before, and during, to the event.  Being able to personally Guide everyday, to provide Professional Anglers to our Vets, to provide well rested high quality private waters to our Vets, PA's, and Volunteers. To be able to hang out and socialize with everyone. To stay up all night listening to peoples stories, being able to share my knowledge of the environment, of fishing, of life without prior work related obligations pulling me away. Since I can't really express it as well as I feel it I do plan on adding a Testimonials Page to the site as soon as I can and maybe those involved in these events can say it for me or at least better than I can.
We had Hosted two Groups recently Patriot Anglers of North Texas and Project Healing Waters Fly Fishing of Ft. Hood, TX. we had a beautiful log cabin right on the San Juan River with semi-private fishing access provided by the McEacharn Family at San Juan River Village and other lodging with our regular annual volunteer guide Sherman Winters.  Plenty of delicious food cooked by our Volunteers Michelle Visel, Bonnie Weathers, Carol & John Frakes, Lesley & Greg Burroughs, Joni & Shawn Felts. The Money Donation from Archuleta County Vets for Vets. Finally, of course all the Volunteer Guides & PA's, thank you Dennis Davis, Stan Zuege, Michael "Feathers" Moats, Sherman Winters, Doug Hampton, and Richard "Big Dick from Wolf Crick" Baldwin.
Special Thanks to Mark "Pop's" Miller at Let it Fly for donating all the Fishing Licenses, waders, and Flies for the event, Doug Dragoo Chairman of Mayfly Outdoors for yet another year of donations of Abel Reels & Ross Reels USA products & reels for door prizes,  Jeff Abel of JTA Products/ The Measure Net for donating a Free Net for every Veteran. Thank you all for these donations not only did it make for a fun, rewarding, and exciting bonus to the event you did help provide these men & women of our US Armed Forces the ability to continue fly fishing and healing well into the future. Thank You.....
This year's event was missing one thing though Mr. Joseph "Russ" Weathers, Russ had been a volunteer Guide for all of our Veterans Events here in Pagosa Springs over the years as well as a Marine Veteran himself. Russ had passed away this year and was missed by all whom had known him this year. 

We are hosting one more Patriot Anglers Group of Veterans Oct. 25-26th 2017, so Donors please keep that in mind and it is on the Calendar. There will be somewhat limited availability of Professional Anglers & Ranches for that time-frame. This is a smaller group and shorter stay than most our events in the past so we do have some of our PA's and waters still available.  

(* Photos in slideshow below of our Veterans Events also many more on Sacred Waters Instagram & Facebook Pages* )

Sacred Waters Charter Donor updates:
We have had a ton of fishing fun so far this year and still much more to come in the next few months, Thank you for your support.

Those of you still having any troubles with your Private Log-in for the Booking Calendar please call or email us so we can help walk you through it or to schedule your guided trips.

The Sacred Waters Stickers, Hats, T-Shirts, Fishing Shirts, and Custom Abel Reels are in production and hope to have them soon, I'll keep you updated, I do have your sizes but will be in contact because I do have some variety of color combinations.

A quick heads up too those of you who have not booked up or used all your guided fishing days we do fish year-round as you know, but some Ranches availability or access could be in question moving into Autumn & Winter Seasons due to snow, road closures &/or freezing waters. So in order the East Fork Ranch is accessed by a Forest Service Road that will close when the USFS feels it's time usually Nov. also depends on Brown & Brook Trout Spawning season(I will shutdown EFR for the Spawn), Weber Ranches are accessible till the river freezes usually Nov.-Dec. the river is large enough that our fishing & strategic wading won't effect the spawn(reminder Our PA's will NOT let you fish for bedded up spawners , and little to no worries on Pick_Bar Ranch open year-round.  Just keep that in mind.....

As always I update my personal & Sacred Waters Social Media more often than the website cause I can from my cell phone. So please check those Instagram & Facebook pages to see up to date happenings in our area and with Sacred Waters. Please feel free to call us or email for any up to date fishing conditions, reports, to book a guided trip &/or upcoming events/volunteer opportunities.  

Lastly, we did restructure the lay out of quantities of donor fishing levels, since we did not fill every level quantity this year we did open more Silver Levels just for 2017, any one interested in donating at a Silver Level we do have 3 1/2 months of the 2017 left. Anyone interested in renewing, or donating for 2018 we can do so at anytime. Thanks 

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