I found myself in Albuquerque for a conference a week ago, and couldn't resist sneaking away to enjoy some small stream trout chasing and a fish fauna that's dramatically different than Tennessee. My plans to run south for Gila and Apache trout were dashed when I heard from a friend (formerly with NM Game & Fish) that they were still hurting from the big Whitewater-Baldy fire of last year. I'll be back for those… Most of the National Forests were closed due to fires and high fire risk, but we got a bit of rain mid-trip that caused them to be reopened.
The second day of the meeting a friend suggested we bail and make a run north for Rio Grande cutthroats. I couldn't pass up such an offer, it's one of only a few cutt subspecies that I haven't caught, and I've never met a cutt that I didn't like. It was a bit of a hike in, but the valley opened up to a meadow section and grasshoppers scattered with every step.
This was going to be good -- and the first splat of a hopper produced the first of many
I made some new friends -- a Western Terrestrial Garter Snake,
Thamnophis elegans With thunder rumbling off in the distance, I hoofed it up the trail to a lake at about 10,000 ft elevation in the headwaters…
…and was very glad I did.
After the conference ended, a couple other friends and I spent a few days chasing fish across the northern half of the state, in everything from low elevation prairie rivers...
to the mainstem Rio Grande in a few places
from foothill streams...
to some more high elevation creeks looking for trout.
There were lots of cool fish…
Rio Grande Sucker,
Catostomus plebeiusRoundnose Minnow,
Dionda episcopaFlathead Chub,
Platygobio gracilisRed Shiner,
Cyprinella lutrensisLongnose Dace,
Rhinichthys cataractaeRio Grande Chub,
Gila pandoraas well as some other fun critters
The birds were awesome but other than this blue grouse, managed to elude the camera
There were lots more trout, too. Given that we were mostly looking in tiny headwater creeks you could step across, they were small in stature, but wild and colorful and willing to eat dries if you could get a cast under/through the willows, or get lucky and stumble upon some beaver ponds
I can't wait for a chance to go back