The following is an excerpt from Fishing Through the Apocalypse, by Matthew L. Miller and published by Lyons Press. The book is available online and in retailers. The last time I’d set foot in Gila National Forest, my quest had proved futile. My dad and I had joined my cousin David and Uncle Bill to hunt…
A Snake River fine-spotted cutthroat trout. Cutthroat trout today occupy less than 10 percent of their native habitat, and the waters where they do persist are largely headwater streams that could impacted by the EPA’s decision to gut the Clean Water Rule. If the fly fishing media didn’t cover the issue, many anglers wouldn’t know…
After another two feet of mountain snow in mid-May, I’m starting to wonder when fishing season will begin. I know, I know, there’s fishing right now. All one has to do is make peace with less fishable holding water that’s cold and muddy. Don’t wade too deep, fish big stuff, and keep your line tight enough to feel the…
Beyond its confluence with Cow Creek near the village of San Ysidro, the Pecos River’s southward crawl is rarely supplemented by significant inputs other than random flash floods. Deriving its existence from how much snow falls on a mere six percent of its watershed, the Pecos flows most of its length through a desert, which is why I’ve always had difficulty believing that it’s the sixteenth longest river…
Homeward bound out of Phoenix, I couldn’t believe how much water was on the landscape. More exactly, how much water was in the landscape, for as we all know, water in its physical, palpable form is a rare sight among the rocks and draws of the Sonoran hardscrabble. The water I saw was in the form of plants,…
Jim looked at me in disbelief. “What?” I repeated my question, “Why is it important that we recover southwestern native trout?” “Let me tell you a story,” he said. Jim Brooks was the longtime lead of the Gila Trout recovery team. Gila trout are native to the tributaries of the Gila River in New Mexico…
By Toner Mitchell For the past 10 springs, the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish has hosted a release of Rio Grande cutthroat trout fingerlings at the – as of 2014 – Rio Grande del Norte National Monument just west of the village of Questa. Initially the event drew decent crowds, 10 to 20…
