By Jeff Arterburn Very few people encounter the mountainous region of southwestern New Mexico known as “The Gila” by accident. The nearest interstates track the open desert valleys far from the sierra. Locals here will still acknowledge the occurrence of oncoming vehicles with a finger raised momentarily from the steering wheel, and not the middle
Mr. Big Lived in a deep, cool pool in a tiny, unnamed tributary to the South Umpqua River in Douglas County, Ore. I spotted him for the first time on a chillly early summer morning in the late 1970s, when I was probably 12 or 13. Mr. Big became my obsession. I’ve been thinking about
By Garrett Hanks Wolf Creek pass in the San Juan mountains of Colorado serves as the tipping point between the westward San Juan basin, home to the recently rediscovered San Juan cutthroat trout, and the Rio Grande cutthroat’s namesake river to the east. Unlike trout, bear, mule deer and other wildlife are unhindered by the ridgeline; their tracks freely cross the divide. Look north and you’ll notice the burn scar from the West Fork fire of 2013. Setting off south along the Continental Divide Trail, you quickly
Trout Unlimited members, and many of our staff, love to fish. Perhaps none more than Scott Yates and Warren Colyer, both of whom co-lead our largest staff cohort, the Western Water and Habitat program. One of my favorite memories at TU was fishing on Wyoming’s Gros Ventre River at dusk. I was working the far
Growing up in New Mexico, I took for granted that there were fishing spots where no one would want to go. Steep hikes, brush and snags everywhere, places that required too much work to get to. “Joke’s on them,” was my thinking; if only people knew that it was so much more fun than work. The people who knew
Those of use who have the good fortune of living in the West might take for granted the public lands at our doorsteps—we literally have millions of acres of American lands spread out before us that offer some of the best fishing and hunting on the planet. And a lot of that acreage is designated
By Ty Churchwell No one in Durango nor Silverton, Colo., will ever forget Aug. 5, 2015 — the day of the Gold King mine spill that sent 3 million gallons of ugly, toxic mine water down the Animas River in southwest part of the state. To say the accident was highly visible is an understatement. In today’s digital world, photos of the orange
