If you haven’t had a chance to fishing Comanche Creek in the Valle Vidal, you owe it to yourself to get up there.  TU spent $100,000 installing a barrier and working with the state and federal agencies to restore the native Rio Grande cutthroats in the stream.  It’s now been a year since the the cutts have been reintroduced and I’m glad to report they are doing well.  The biggest factor may be the removal of the overwhelming number of non-native white suckers from the stream.  There are fish holding …

Over the last few weeks, some very serious and completely untrue allegations have been leveled at Trout Unlimited here in New Mexico regarding the San Juan and New Mexico House Bill 51, which failed in the New Mexico Legislature last month after it ran out of time in the short legislative session.
It is obvious to those of us who fish the river that the San Juan has been in decline over the last decade and is in serious need of restoration efforts. Because of this decline, last year TU …

No one will ever accuse Alamitos Creek of being a destination trout fishery. You are going to come out of a day on the stream with a more bumps, bruises, scrapes and cuts than you will fish. Like a bad golfer, you’re going to spend a lot of time in the trees. On a long cast you might have 5 feet of actual fly line out of the rod. And you better know how to roll cast.

That said, this is an important little piece of water …

At the TU Annual Meeting last month, I won a trip to the Philmont Fly Fishing Invitational, held each September at the Philmont Scout Ranch in Cimarron.   The trip, hosted by Enchanted Circle Chapter Past-President Doug Palmer and the Philmont staff, was this past Thursday through Sunday.  We stayed at Waite Phillips’ old Fish Camp and fished Rayado and Agua Fria creeks.  We had a great time living as the well-to-do did back in the 1920’s.  With no electricity, we used oil lamps for light.  The fishing was pretty good …

Kevin Reilly and I are in Michigan for the TU 50th Anniversary meeting. We’re fishing in Grayling for a few day before the meeting starts in Traverse City. The fishing is great, the catching…not so much.
We’ll have a report from the meeting after we return.
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The first segment of the large Rio Costilla project was completed today as the  NM Department of Game and Fish, the federal agencies, and volunteers from TU stocked out the first batch of Rio Grande Cutthroat.  Kevin Reilly participated in the stocking, and hopefully he’ll have some pictures next week.
TU has contributed over $100,000 and countless hours to this project.
Here is the press release from NMDGF:
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The New Mexico Council of Trout Unlimited has joined with several other sportsmen’s groups to form the San Juan Quality Waters Coalition.  The purpose of this group is to address the issues that have resulted in a general decline in the trout fisheries on the San Juan since the Bureau of Reclaimation changed the flow regime out of Navajo Dam in 2002.
Though the stated purpose of the flow change was to improve habitat for the Colorado Pikeminnow, it was fairly obvious to anyone who read through the EIS, that the …

Tim Pinnow of Las Cruces pulled this monster out of the Gila River last week.

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The New Mexico Department of Game and Fish as put out a salvage order for the Santa Fe River from June 5th, 2008 through June 9th.
They stocked out 500 fish for the kids fishing day last weekend, and they’ve offered up the opportunity for anyone to go get the left-overs by any means possible.  They are doing this to allow anglers to get the fish out before the city turns off the water (sounds kind of stupid doesn’t it - to turn off a river?).
Here’s the text of the news release:
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UPDATE: The NM Game Commission did indeed approve this regulation change for the upper 4 mile stretch of the San Juan.
At the Game Commission meeting in Farmington on Thursday, May 29th, the commission will take up a proposal from the NM Dept. of Game and Fish (NMDGF) to limit anglers to two hooks on the San Juan River from Navajo Dam down to the Hammond Diversion. Basically this is targeted at the Special Regulation water.
At the April meeting, they put forth this same proposal for all …