Fishing Reports

Your leader should be getting finer, your dry flies smaller to get these pounded fish.  Zebra midges fished close or down deep should produce in the sloughs.  I won't say brown worms (See?  I didn't say it).
Look for baetis, caddis, and PMDs and fish accordingly.  The clock is ticking to the end of the season, and I think the trout everywhere are beginning to sense it.  So don't assume they're not eating if the normal stuff doesn't work.  They just might not be eating what you're throwing, so get to work.

As is normal with the Conejos, it's pretty much up to you.  You can have the right flies on, but the fishing can be wrong if you're not on top of your Ps and Qs.  This means pattern choice up top, observing what kind of water your action is coming from, being at the right depth, and drag free if the pattern you're fishing doesn't naturally race around like a motorboat.
Turd is the word as usual, and brown worms.  Terrestrials of the black variety (be they crickets or ants), and small caddis will score on top.  Keep in mind that the adult caddis you fish came from something, and in this case, the pupae seem to be green.  If I had the time and the ganas, I'd search the undercuts with streamers for a bit, maybe lose a few flies, maybe hang a lote.

Midge larvae in the top stretch near the cable, black beauties, zebras in olive, gray, two-tone, and black, and red annelids, all in #22 or smaller.  RS2s will work of course, and I like the copper ribbed ones too and the foam wings.  Flashback PTs in 22 or 24.
Brown worms should ring too, at least as your attractor.  You might trail and RS2 or gray Ray behind one.
For you dry fliers, searching with a power ant, foam ant, or just a hard shell should produce well near the banks.  Sight fishing with them should be plenty of fun as well.  Cluster midges, patch adams, and comparaduns should be enough for any specific emergences.

Good reports from the Caldera.  Three weights are best and tiny patch adams and ants.  Good time to work on your blind game, gauging your cast lengths, looking for subtleties to indicate strikes.  Terrestrials are still the ticket, though what fish up there won't sucker for a well-presented bug?

See Taos area waters this week.

All the creeks are in prime shape, a little stained sometimes, but full of happy trout.  I like a floaty dry, nothing else, like a bugmeister, Chernobyl anything, H&L, or trudes.  Bow and arrow casts and dapping.  If you want to do this and not have your line and leader fall back towards your reel when you hold your rod up straight, tie on another dry real close, a hard shell ant being my choice.
Costilla is beautiful, but it's getting absolutely hammered.  Bank paths are like bear trails in Alaska.  To get away from people, hunker down in the brushy stretches (there are more unwhacked fish in there anyway) and let them get away from you.  Everyone seems to think it's the Costilla of old, when every single fish was stupid and couldn't get enough of a sore lip.