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Teaching Dad
One would think my fishing addiction would be at least partially hereditary, and this is true, insofar as my father’s family fell in love with New Mexico upon first laying eyes on the mountains around the Moreno Valley. My grandfather and his sons couldn’t get enough of fishing those creeks, the Cimarron, Rio Chiquito and Pot Creek, by worm, spinner or fly. By sons,…
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The Land Ethic
We can turn to Aldo Leopold for important lessons that are ideal for the times.
Aldo Leopold was a philosopher, an ecologist and, very importantly, a writer. As though possessed of his talent for translating the universal, we quote him ad nauseam. And though the southwest still bears scars from his killing of wolves, cougars and other varmints, his eventual embrace of the predator as a force for ecological balance exemplifies a flexible and evolving mind that left a significant mark whenever it…
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Nick point
Nick points abound in nature, but are also created by man
For good or ill, nick points change rivers, sometimes forever To put my amateur science skills on full display, I’ve always associated the term with the sins humans have committed against rivers. We built our structures too close, grazed and beat down their banks. We diverted their flows, channelized and dammed them until they were forced to remind us, often…
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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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Querencia: A love of place
In 2011, when I was still president of New Mexico’s Santa Fe (Truchas) Chapter, I was approached by Nick Streit, president of the Taos (Enchanted Circle) Chapter and owner of the Taos Fly Shop, about restoring a section of the Red River in Questa. The Red had been a workhorse for several decades, impacted by…
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Still on top
Efforts to fix habitat are as much for people as they are for the planet It’s legislature season in New Mexico, a time I’ve come to abhor for how it represents my species and, perhaps more likely, my deficiencies as a chess player. Sausage making is a circus, spectacular flights of ethical and logical acrobatics…
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