Day 3 was a long day for us, but it was so worth it. Rio Grande cutthroat trout were still the target, but we had crossed state lines and were now fishing in southern Colorado. This was a new watershed for us and one that was far more open and inviting than the tight little bluelines we fished in northern New Mexico.
We parked at the trailhead access and unfortunately the lot was not empty. It wasn’t crowded, but it looked like we’d run into another fisherman or two. Then a van pulled up while we were rigging up and a whole family with fishing rods dumped out. Now I knew for sure we’d run into other anglers. We had to hike in to get to where wanted to fish and these folks appeared to be very casual anglers at best, so hopefully we weren’t vying for the same water.
We passed the family on the trail as we were hiking in. Then we ran into two anglers on the hike in and while chatting with one of them we learned that they had fished the same stream the two days prior and done well. Now they were fishing a section downstream and they pointed out where they planned to finish the day, which wasn’t much further, and if we started there we’d have fresh water (at least as today was concerned).
I wasn’t really sure why’d you fish the same small stream three days in a row, especially with all the other great water in the area, but after our day of fishing was over, I came to understand why.
On day two we continued fishing our way through the New Mexico Trout Challenge. We packed up camp and headed to a nearby lake that held both Rio Grande cutthroat and brook trout, at least according to my prior research. We both needed a brook trout and Blake still needed an RGCT before we could move on and try our luck for anything else. The stream we would pass on our way out supposedly held all four species of fish, so the idea was to knock out brook trout and RGCTs at the lake and rainbow trout in the stream and finish out the Challenge before we left for southern Colorado that afternoon.
We hiked around to the far end of the lake, away from the parking lot, looking for where the feeder stream entered the lake hoping to target fish there. In my limited experience with trout in lakes, the inlets and outlets of those systems tend to hold fish. That area of the lake was a little difficult to access, but after some bushwhacking we made it through. Sure enough, Blake caught a gorgeous brook trout behind me to start things off and after a bit of probing, I settled down in a spot where I could see fish moving about.
I caught a few Rio Grande cutthroat in that spot before I caught my first brook trout. I had found a pocket of cutts tucked up under some bushes and was teasing them out by swimming a nymph through the area they were holding in. After catching those I motioned to Blake to come over and give it a shot, which took a bit longer than expected, but he did manage to get on the board with an RGCT of his own.
The lake was a success and we accomplished what we needed to there, but curiosity got the better of us and we had to follow the stream on up and see if we couldn’t find any more cutts above the lake. It was a tight stream and finding good places to actually fish the stream was challenging; when we did find good holes they were occupied by brook trout. After catching a few of those we decided to head back to the truck for lunch and then make our way back down the mountain.
After a cold beer and a sandwich we went to fish the stream that paralleled the road we came in on and see if it did indeed have rainbow trout. It was small stream of it’s own, but it held plenty of trout, they just weren’t the kind we were after. We caught several gorgeous little browns. Brown trout, we learned, are very common in northern New Mexico.
It was at this point we decided to make a move upstream and head for some potential cutthroat water. I didn’t know of much more public water downstream, which is probably where the rainbows were, and I’d rather be catching native fish anyway, so we made our way back to the truck to keep following the stream up the road. When we got back to the truck Blake realized he didn’t have his phone……..this could be a problem. So we backtracked. Both of us searching anywhere we thought he had walked, fished, stopped to change flies; wherever. We learned that we covered a fair amount of stream in a short amount of time. Nothing was turning up. We surmised that should it have fallen in the water there would be no way we’d find it, it’s in a black case. Maybe for this very reason I shouldn’t have my phone in a black case. I was getting nervous. I know Blake was already nervous, but I had played it cool. Finally, with a gigantic sigh of relief, he found it! It was next to a laydown that he had to step over and it had slipped right out of his shirt pocket.
Something to keep in mind fishing shirt designers – we need cavernous chest pockets with legitimate closures – phones just keep getting bigger, that’s what we use to take pictures. Pants pockets get wet when you wet wade so storing my phone in the chest pocket makes sense. I’m not storing it in my waistpack – that takes too long to access. Figure it out. I have one or two fishing shirts that are adequately designed, too many are not.
After the successful scavenger hunt we did indeed make the move upstream and the I caught a beauty of a Rio out of the first hole I walked up on. The stream opened up a bit more in this stretch, the canopy wasn’t so tight, it felt like cutthroat water, but we caught a variety of different trout – still no rainbows though.
After a little while we made another move, this time to Southern Colorado, onto our next campsite. The rainbow trout would have to wait until another day. On day three we would target native Rio Grande cutthroat in Colorado in a watershed that was kind of the whole reason for this trip in the first place. I had seen pictures from a few different folks of the fish and the stream we would be headed to next and I had high hopes for this place; which is not something I ever want to do, because anything can happen. I always try to downplay everything, but this place looked badass and I was really excited to see if it was or was not.
Earlier this month I had an opportunity to get back out in the still-new-to-me kayak, the Crescent Crew, and settled on fishing down around Shell Beach, over in St. Bernard Parish. The wind forecast on the eastern side of the state looked a little more favorable than that of the central coast, which drove my decision to fish over there. I made it out after sunrise and paddled my way toward some familiar marsh. The water clarity was a little stained in some areas, but crystal clear over the thickly vegetated ponds. I started with one of the bigger Ron Braud stippled poppers I won last year, working it at the usual fishy looking spots – points, cuts, intersections, potholes, and the like. I caught a few cookie cutter 10-12″ largemouth bass and then decided I would start looking for redfish.
The white flowers of the arrowhead were blooming in the marsh, interrupting the sea of green of the Spartina grass. It was pretty cool to see so I stopped to snap a pic of one to help me figure out what plant was actually blooming; that’s when I realized that if I was taking pictures of flowers in the marsh than the fishing was pretty darn slow. Five hours passed, nearly the entire morning, before I caught my next fish. I caught those three bass pretty early and then had very few opportunities at redfish after that. Those opportunities I did get were all botched. Either I messed up the cast, saw the fish late and he spooked, or it just wasn’t a great situation to get a good cast off, nothing went right in that time. I did eventually put it all together and ended up catching three reds on back-to-back-to-back chances.
Those three fish all came after I tied on a new fly. I tried my darnedest to catch a fish on the awful Clouser minnow I tied at the first Flies & Flights, but it was honestly off-putting and scaring them away. I switched to a fly that David Rodgers gave me and it was just what I needed to be throwing. The flash tied in made the fly glow in the water and the slow sink rate was perfect for these grassy ponds. I took the pic above just to give anyone reading an idea of what the water looked like. The 30″ red was big fish on the day and he was one of the smartest fish I’ve ever caught. It was a hell of a fight on my 7wt! He would bulldog himself deep in the grass, I’d then have to paddle over to him and negotiate my rod trying to free him without coming up with pounds of matted grass on the leader, then when I’d get him out, he’d do all over again a little further away. It was a forearm workout for sure. I was thankful that my knot and my tippet held and I had something to post up for the fly rod category of the BCKFC Massey’s Fish Pics tourney. I failed to catch anything else after the stroke of genius I had catching those three redfish in a row. I didn’t stay out long after that, but there were more opportunities that were blown. I slowly made my way back to the launch content to call it a day.
A few observations I had on the day:
Gar were all over the place and the spawn was on for some of them. There were mostly spotted gar, but there were a few big alligator gar out there as well. I didn’t fool with them too much, but that’s as good a place as any to target gar.
I still need to figure out a better way to sight fish from the Crew. My paddle clip belt has worn itself out to the point where the paddle falls out unless it’s perfectly situated. As soon as the paddle falls out it makes a loud bang on the deck and you may as well be playing death metal underwater when that happens. Nothing will eat at that point. It seems like a long way down to drop a paddle and that deck is loud.
Speaking of long way down, I need to shorten the distance between the fly rod and myself while standing. In most of my Jacksons, I don’t remember that ever being an issue, but in the Crew it just seems so far away. The seat riser helps, but I’ve got to figure out how to raise up my rod without impeding my paddle stroke.
I’ve got a fix on the way, or at least ideas, for both of those situations, so hopefully I can hammer it down and be totally comfortable sight fishing out of this boat. I like it, it paddles great, but it needs a little help to turn it into a fishing machine.
Mountains to Marsh 