Thoughts on the San Juan Worm

San Juan Worm patterns found in my nymph box

Hooked up on The Mo.

After fishing the Missouri River  for the last few days ,the high water certainly had things stirred up .The river is very high  flooding  several back yards.Submerged lawn chairs and picnic tables are no doubt providing some man made habitat for the trout , and with the  river overflowing it's banks  the browns and rainbows are also keying in on a readily available food source ..worms .

The Missouri river is known for  technical match the hatch  fishing both on top and subsurface but with the high water  the  technical fishing is  out the window  replaced by "double worm ' rigs  and lots of lead, call it food source  food source matching.

Across the West the San Juan Worm  kicks fin on most of the fabled tailwaters .From Alberta's Bow River to Arizona's Lee's Ferry, anglers fish a variety of patterns that imitate both earth worms or aquatic worms  .When I first started my guiding career on the Bow River  The worm was a big hit and still is, to the point that few anglers wanted to switch to other flies or tactics.My observations are  that the worm works best during high water, the bigger the better   for good reason as naturals are being washed in the river,as the rivers drop then smaller patterns seem to work best .During high water worming usually the trout  caught puke up a bunch of worms before they are released ,proving that  the San Juan Worm is  matching something.This past week  on the Missouri  the fish where piping it , and in a variety of colors including ,brown ,orange ,pink and red .

Although some anglers don't want to lower(?) themselves to fishing the San Juan Worm , it can make the difference between some fish caught and a lot of fish caught.When the trout  are on it , they are all over it  in a big way .

A hefty worm eating  rainbow