"Most rivers you use heavier stuff, because the fish aren't as smart, they don't get as much pressure and the water isn't as clear," Bailey says. "This is a very clear river. So it's important to use light tippet. It's a big mistake that people make who don't get guides who have never fished here before. ... A river in the middle of the wilderness you could use thick line and get away with it."

We get a couple of hits in the first few casts, but I'm too slow on the trigger. And with water as clear as a high-definition television, it's all too easy to see what we're missing. There are fish all around.

Wethington estimates there are 70,000 trout over the first four miles, mostly rainbow and brown.

Technically, the first quarter-mile below the dam is the only catch-and-release area, but you're allowed to keep only one fish per day, and it has to be 20 inches or larger.

"In truth, it's basically catch-and-release fishing," Wethington says, "because the number of legally harvested fish that I've seen in the last 12 years is probably less than 15."

While 20 inches sounds large, keep in mind someone landed a 30-inch rainbow there in June.

Still, these fish are heavily pressured and smart. For a first-timer, it helps having someone like Bailey, who's been guiding on the San Juan for the past 14 years.

Larry Johnson, who fly-fished in the likes of Iceland, Ireland and Scotland while working in marketing for Polaroid, has owned Soaring Eagle for nearly six years. It was a rough start for him.

"I closed on the deal on Sept. 10, 2001," Johnson says. "The next day, nearly everyone cancelled. They'd call and say, 'I can't do anything about it; I'm stuck in the airport."'

But things have worked out fine. He's living the good life on what he calls the best fly-fishing river in the country.

Bailey's story is just as interesting. Born in New Jersey, he went to school in Brooklyn and moved out West in 1979.

"I was a typical hippie story," Bailey says. "I drove a '61 Volkswagen bus from New York to California and found Mammoth (Lakes) and the beautiful girls that go with it."

Bailey taught skiing and fished on the side. An earthquake convinced him that California wasn't the place for him, so he loaded up and moved to Santa Fe, N.M.

Finding work in whitewater rafting, Bailey began guiding on the San Juan on the side.

"I fished here for years before I started guiding, and I saw this is where the business is," Bailey says. "We have people come two, three, four times a year because the fish are big."