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Go fish yourself
Last year was quite a ride, wasn’t it? Aside from all the good stuff, - I hope we all found lots to be thankful for throughout 2025 – we saw plenty of ugliness that we hopefully won’t see again. Without going into detail, I will simply opine that our nation may be as angry now…
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New Mexico Legislature 2025: A banner year for trout
It’s not every year that a state can protect and restore its natural resources or reimagine how they are managed. In its 2025 session, New Mexico state legislators had three such opportunities and admirably met the moment. In no small part due to the efforts of Trout Unlimited, the legislature prioritized modern wildlife management, its…
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Sustaining wildlife and ancestral land uses together
It started with a mouse, the New Mexico Meadow Jumping Mouse, which was listed in 2014 under the Endangered Species Act. The listing closed an important pasture to grazing and also locked out trout anglers from fishing the Rio Cebolla. United in their belief that the mouse could be preserved along with ranching and fishing,…
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Our digital conservation future
Having finished the online NYT crossword over morning coffee, retweeting some delicious burns on climate deniers, checking Facebook and Instagram, liking a picture of a steelhead, and prioritizing work emails before a day of zoom calls, he/she remarked, “Kids these days are hopelessly addicted to their devices,” as though the Peleton screen was an actual…
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Unfishing Season
Abstaining from fishing doesn’t just happen. There must be a reason. As New Mexico swims through its third fat month of monsoon season, I’ve barely noticed how much water is in our streams. Winter was scary dry, then our shirt-sleeve spring collided with New Mexico’s largest-ever wildfire. Every morning from April to July, I stepped…
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An angler’s bucket list
Later in life, a new credo beckons: Get out, before you can't.
Later in life, a new credo beckons: Get out early and often When I ran a fly shop long ago, I fell into the habit of buying flies on the store discount instead of tying my own. Perhaps not a bad move for someone with my ham-handed tying skills, but since my favorite patterns don’t…
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Home water, economic engine
Mining proposal is another reason that New Mexico’s Pecos River needs protection I’m fortunate to have grown up close enough to a trout stream that I could go fishing at the drop of a hat. In the summers during high school, my best fishing buddy and I ran a little yard business in Santa Fe,…
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