Currently browsing… New Mexico
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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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In New Mexico, beavers and people aren’t so different
By Abelino Fernandez Leger In fall of 2020, I worked with Trout Unlimited and Defenders of Wildlife and River Source — a small company specializing in watershed restoration, education and research in New Mexico — on a beaver habitat assessment survey in northern New Mexico. The project goal was to find rivers where beavers could be relocatedand where beavers could do the work…
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It takes a suite of tools to recover native trout in the Pecos River of New Mexico
The Pecos River, its tributaries and surrounding wilderness area, is where much of northern New Mexico comes to fish. In fact, many of us learned how to fish on the Pecos. The variety of fishing options in the Pecos watershed is almost limitless: fly or lure, small creeks to larger streams, wild brown and rainbow…
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Long live the Gila trout
Seven of us pierced the Gila wildlands that day, and, despite the best efforts of a clueless pot-shotter, all seven of us made it out without holes in our hides. We never figured out who was shooting or what they were shooting at
Huddled as close to the fallen tree as we could get, Kirk and I looked at each other, our eyes wide with surprise and a touch of fear. The bullet had missed us by a wide margin, but the fact that we could hear it as it zinged overhead after the ricochet was unnerving. "Wait…
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Keeping a secret, even when the secret’s out
Given its dearth of trout fisheries, the state of New Mexico can boast of very few secret hot spots. One of these, a favorite of mine forever, is prone to extreme high water temperatures during the summer but becomes decent at the end of irrigation season. Its browns and cuttbows come out to play when the leaves turn yellow, hitting…
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Looking for America
A drive deep into the West can heal the soul and freshen commitment to causes
The original plan was to drive east to meet my wife’s family in North Carolina. The time away from her mother, sisters and Gus’ cousins had been torture, but every state along our route was preparing to open up while the virus was still out of control. As we saw it, forcing customers and employees…
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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…