Currently browsing… New Mexico
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Chama 2.0
Big browns can live in the Chama thanks to restoration work
A restored channel below Abiquiu Dam reinvents a New Mexico trout stream In the first "Rocky" movie, the title character dreams of being a prizefighter, yet understands that he will never rise above being a heart-of-gold jaw breaker for a small-time Philadelphia mobster. The Rio Chama below Abiquiu dam can relate; like Rocky Balboa, Abiquiu’s flood control and water storage day job is far from sexy. During irrigation…
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Running toward it
Thoughts of recreation and even fishing now feel indulgent
We were just at the point of beginning to wash our hands all the time, after the first few cases were confirmed in New Mexico during my son’s spring break. The plan was to head to Utah and fish the San Juan on the way home. We camped the first three nights at Canyonlands, where we took a couple long…
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Restoring a future with Gila trout
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…
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Legacy
The drawing of the trout is from the hand of a small child. The description even more so: “This was the first fish I ever cot [sic] on a rod. When I first felt the feeling of reeling in the fish, I was amased [sic].” In the span of 15 years, Jeremy Brooks’ writing and…
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What Esther Garcia meant for fishing
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…
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San Juan New Years in the Old Years
It’s difficult to remember exactly when it began, our annual New Years fishing trip on the San Juan River below Navajo Dam. We had hair and it wasn’t gray, and some of us still had muscles. We brought our kitchen kits and coolers, cooking our meals and washing dishes, then staying up half the night playing cribbage,…
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Faith
I was driving home the other morning from my son’s school, where a prospective head of school had fielded questions from an auditorium full of parents. One father had asked how the candidate would promote critical thinking in an environment so well known for its “indoctrination” of our nation’s youth. He seemed to accept this reality, yet expressed hope that debate would be encouraged on controversial topics. One of them, no surprise, was…