Little Water and Feisty Fish

I've been wanting to make a trip into the Gila to fly fish for some smallmouth bass since I found out that there were smallies in the rivers. Thanks in large part to a buddy or two that was nice enough to give me some pointers, I finally marked another adventure off of my list here in the Land of Enchantment. I didn't catch a ton of fish. In fact, I only caught 4 fish all weekend, but it was still an awesome trip. It was different than any place I have fished before. The river never got over 20-25ft wide, and it's very shallow. I was completely out of my element being that all of my fly fishing has taken place on still water(ponds/lakes) or a wider and deeper river that was much easier to read. I still gave it a go and got to land a couple of small, albeit beautiful, fish. 

Me and my buddy RP left Cruces Saturday morning and got up to our first destination sometime around lunch. We hiked the 1/3rd of a mile or so down into the canyon and got rigged up. 

You can see the smokey haze from the Silver Fire trying to sneak in.

On my second cast, a little guy smashed my fly. Got a picture taken, but it didn't turn out(lens was set to manual focus and RP didn't realize it). Luckily, 2 casts later, a little bigger specimen attempted to eat my bugger(my wooly bugger, not a snot-created booger) .

We fished for another couple of hours, and I missed one more little smallie, but that was it. By then, the smoke was really starting to drop down into the canyon, and we headed back to the truck. The smoke was bad enough that it was starting to bother our throats and eyes, but we decided that since we were already in the Gila, we might as well head on down to destination #2.

Our second stop put us hiking into the Gila Wilderness. We had originally planned to backpack into the Wilderness and stay overnight, but between the smoke and us getting there so late, we decided to just hike in and back out that evening and just camp by the road. So we grabbed our packs and headed out. Luckily, when we got to where we were going, the wind had turned around and all the smoke started to clear out.

It took me awhile, but I finally caught my first Gila Wilderness fish.

I reared back and chunked this bug(my bugger)

 

close to that big clump of grass on the left

and made about two strips when I snagged this fish's lips.

I know that they aren't much to look at, but I sure enjoyed them. In my eyes, a fish caught on a flyrod is like an animal killed with a bow...they're just a little more special.

One of the really awesome features of the Gila country are the rock outcroppings. Here's one of them.

There's also a ton of mint just growing wild along the river. I'm not real sure how it got there, but it apparently really likes the habitat that the Gila provides. It really is everywhere.

Like I mentioned, we decided that we would just camp on the side of the road rather than backpacking in. So we found a place with a nice view(which isn't hard to do), set up the tipi, and pulled out the lazy boy camp chairs.

After we enjoyed some delicious chilled beverages, we decided it was supper time. We dug out some Mountain House meals, got our stoves out and fired them up, and got some water boiling to re-hydrate our astronaut food.

You know you're in elk country when your stove is setup beside elk crap.

We hit the hay not too long after that and got some much needed rest. Our alarm clock Sunday morning was a bunch of cow elk that were calling back and forth to each other, and that sounds a ton better than the blaring of an alarm clock that normally wakes me up. I rolled out of my sleeping bag and fired up my trusty stove again to make some go-go juice, walked over to the edge of the mesa and found the perfect place to drink my coffee.

There were a few elk already in the canyon, and before long, several more had joined them.

Once my coffee cup was empty, I headed back over to the tipi for an ultimate camping breakfast...astronaut eggs and ham washed down with a cold beer.

After breakfast, we packed up camp and headed to one last place that we wanted to check out. My second cast of the day led to me landing fish #4 for the trip. Again, we fished for another couple of hours with no fish anywhere to be found. When the sun started getting hot, we headed back to the truck and hit the road back to Cruces. While driving down a National Forest road, we saw some odd looking tracks in the road and got out to investigate them. Bear tracks! This bear decided that walking down the road was easier than walking through the woods, so that's exactly what he did...for about 2 miles or so. Eventually he headed back into the forest, but not before answering that age old question...Does a bear shit in the woods? Turns out, the answer is no...they shit in the middle of the road for everyone to see.

All in all it was another fantastic trip to the Gila, just like every other one. That place truly is a paradise and I'm extremely grateful to have the ability to spend time up there. I do wish that the rain gods would smile down on it(and all of the rest of New Mexico for that matter). This part of the world is dry enough to make a popcorn fart feel mushy...like the popcorn might need to go check itself. There is no grass other than right along the river. The elk are skinny(except for the ones living by the rivers), and the babies aren't as plentiful as I would like. Turkeys are dying, and poults are almost non-existant. I would be willing to say that 95% of all water tanks are dry. It's getting pretty rough on God's creatures, but hopefully He'll show some mercy and start letting the monsoons loose very soon, before a lightning strike burns down the whole Forest.

I'd like to give a big thanks to the couple of folks that steered me in the right direction for this trip, and for my buddy RP for tagging along. Good company always makes the trips more enjoyable. I also wanted to say thanks to all of the folks that have taken the time to read my blog. I really appreciate y'all taking the time to read my non-sensical(I think I just made that word up) ramblings. I didn't think that I would have almost 2000 views with just a handful of posts. It's kind of neat to know that enough people are interested in reading what I have to say. So thanks, again. 

Be sure to stay tuned this fall...I'm going to have lots of outdoor reports from the Southwest over the next 6 months. Everything from bears to elk to birds to antelope to deer to javalina and who knows what else. Till next time...