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A Restoration Program Takes Root in the Rio Grande and Gila Headwaters
How TU's team in New Mexico is restoring the state's most enchanting waters and lands in 2025
As summer winds down and we transition to the shorter days and cooler temperatures of fall, project season is in full swing for us. As TU’s project footprint grows in New Mexico, our intent is to better tell our story and provide more opportunities for TU members and the angling community to engage in the…
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Faces of Restoration: Jim Brooks guards the Gila
TU works with some extremely talented people while developing and completing projects in the field that help make fishing better. We are excited to bring you a series highlighting these contractors. We hire equipment operators, truck drivers, laborers, material suppliers, engineers, technicians and water testing labs. They are unique, talented, humble and some are downright wild, but TU’s contractors are a…
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Another serving of Turkey (Creek) for the Gila Centennial
Multi-million-dollar effort to restore headwater streams in Gila National Forest takes flight ahead of 100th Anniversary of Gila Wilderness Since the catastrophic Whitewater Baldy Fire of 2012, Gila trout have had a difficult time in the headwater streams of the Gila National Forest. While fire has always been a part of the Gila landscape, in…
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Celebrating the Gila River while asking for ‘wild and scenic’ designation
Seventeen years after I first visited, I finally made my way back to the Gila River. Last week, about 75 attendees convened in Silver City, N.M., to celebrate the Gila River, expand our knowledge of the area and its extensive list of supporters, and of course, got out on the stunning landscape to renew our…
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Taking in the infrastructure of nature in New Mexico
Humans are coming to grips with the damage we've done ... and the need to repair it Even in New Mexico, a state so over-endowed with emptiness that one can find a place to hide a body almost anywhere, Gila country is about the loneliest place imaginable. The closer you get, as I realized on…
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Seeking treasure in Apache trout country
Invasives and overconfidence cloud early efforts to bring an Apache trout to hand Daniel Ritz is fishing across the Western United States this summer in an attempt to reach the Master Caster class of the Western Native Trout Challenge, attempting to land each of the 20 native trout species in their historical ranges of the 12 states in the…
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Little water and big hopes
Shortly before departing for the nearly 20-hour drive south from my home in Idaho my contact in New Mexico casually mentioned on a call how the snowpack was only 16 percent compared to the average and to keep my fishing expectations low
Western Native Trout Challenge: Pursuing one of the world's rarest trout across scorched earth Editor's note: Daniel Ritz is fishing across the Western United States this summer in an attempt to accomplish the Master Caster class of the Western Native Trout Challenge. He will attempt to land each of the 20 native trout species in their historical ranges of…
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