Slamming through the southwest

[Devan S.]

PART UNO-PLANNING AND BACKUPS/ARRIVAL

New Mexico slam requires you to catch one of each species(Rainbow, Brown, Brook, Rio cutt, and Gila)

Original plan was to arrive via Alb...drive to upper Pecos to fish jacks creek, upper Pecos, rio mora then jump over to tecolote creek. Rio cutts, bows, and browns and brook trout. All withing a short drive. Minimize drive time maximize fish time. An ill timed prescribed fire led to the largest wildfire in New Mexico history (300k acres and counting). Currently this fire has gone over the divide and is creeping toward the Pecos and other watersheds. Tecolote creek has burned. Brook trout have very limited range in New Mexico. Last week I began prepping backups based on Santa Fe and Carson national forest closures. 

New plan called for Cabresto lake for Brooks and ask fly shop in Taos, NM.

Land and head north and see this

Large smoke plumes for 40 miles straight north. We know we have to be fast as evacuation orders are moving north.

Fly shop gives us confirmation on cabresto lake and reccomends rio costilla for browns, bows, and cutts. However Rio cutts from Costilla is not on Western Native challenge but we have a backup option....fly shop says creek is too small and waste of time. Minimize wasted time and maximize fish time.

We made it to cabresto lake in a chevy traverse. Google says the road is 4x4 and it's awfully close. 

The guy I'm with only needs Cutties and Gila so all of the pressure is on me here.

I do what I feel comfortable with. Tie on a Lilleys jig and start casting......7 casts later and boom done.

Off we go another 45 minutes north to rio costilla hoping to check several more boxes. We fish several hours with only rainbows. Sorry @Johnsfolly no pictures yet. Teaser for later.

We fish until dark:30 only to realize cash is needed for camping fees. Back to town we go. On the way back after dark we manage to hit an elk. Lucky slowed way down and car is limpable to town for hotel.

Grab cheap motel in Questa. Minimize travel time now means limited driving in dark which isn't maximizing fish time.

 Rio costilla the next morning until noon and still no browns or cutties.

What to do?

Skip our backup creek or no? Fwiw Google doesn't have any information on backup creek. It only shows up on Western Native Challenge fish maps. So add in fly shops information and we are really negative about finding true Native cutties.

[netboy]

Sounds like some tough times out west with the drought.

Just keep on looking and you will find them.

[Devan S.]

PART DOS- HIGHS AND LOWS

We knew this trip was aggressive. New Mexico slam is 5 fish. Arizona is complicated. 5 wild(bows, browns, Brook, Gila, and Apache) but a second challenge includes those 5 plus 3 stocked fish(cutties, artic grayling, and tiger trout) you only need 6 of 8 of those. The only problem is doubling up on species in same river is not allowed(can't catch 2 wild browns in the same stream and count for both). This means Arizona basically requires 11 distinct species in different waters.

We always assumed we would end up short some specific fish and have to make a follow up.

So what do you do waste time against reccomendations or go after them.

Well another 4x4 road and a short hike and we find rio cutts. This not only satisfies our NM slam but checks a box for Western natives.

I will readily admit at this point, my picture taking sucks. I tried to document but these aren't stocker RR fish so I tried to be quick too.

We found both fish in small 5 gallon bucket pools about 200 yards apart. I mean small water and no casting just dipping and sneaking. BTW that's a running theme this week.

Also I will defend the fly shop. If people came asking about this creek I would say the same thing they did. I cannot imagine this isn't a super fragile resource.

If your keeping score......I'm still short a brown too so back to fly shop. They make some reccomendations but high water and forest closures have really done a number. At this point, my googling says the San Juan is my only good option but that's travelling the wrong way. 

Remember the part about accepting were going to be short somewhere? I've accepted day 2 brown in NM is my short and someday I'll come back and do ballonfest and trinity site and get my brown.

Off to the Gila National forest we go. Camp in Datil well campground. Nice campground. Arrive at dark and out at daylight. Black fire due west in Gila National Forest. Growing 20k+ acres per day ignited day we got here. Big plums again.

Let me add here. I've exchanged a bunch of emails with people in NM G&F and AZGF. All of them have been absolutely 100% helpful and responsive. @BilletHead went to one location for Gila trout and we decided on another based on ease of access. The Gila trout biologist for NM G&F had a slightly different option that didn't include a popular recreation area and would be less pressured. We in effect had A,B,C options and A and B were only 30 minutes apart.

Guess what? We didn't need option B.

This spot was amazing to fish in. Again not a lot of casting and fish were spooky....but they would hammer anything you threw in a pool.

Just like that were headed to Arizona by noon Monday. Good news is all the spots got much closer together. Our next target was Luna Lake in Alpine, Az looking for stocked fish. 

[Devan S.]

PART TRES- PLANNING ON THE FLY

We had assumed rainbows in Luna would be easy but cutthroat could be hard. Camping was nearby but were we willing to waste time on stocked fish?

Luck struck and cutthroat and rainbows happened and in less than 2 hours we had to build an expedited game plan. 

Arizona is a lot like New Mexico in that brook trout show up but generally game and fish focuses on Apache and/or Gila. I had 4 options for Brook trout but 2/4 had low prospects and limited information even from AZGF. 1 option shows up in some protected Apache waters, isn't  documented online and as I understand game and fish is actively trying to remove the brookies. I basically had 1 option where a contact said yes they are there and in catchable numbers. 

We decided to take off into the heart of the White mountains and scope out one of the 2 streams that shows to have wild brooks but has zero information available about it.

We hiked and hiked and hiked and cleared the meadow and headed up the mountain. True pocket water covered in dead fall. Dipping and looking but not seeing fish scare. Finally we spot movement. Start focusing more dipping more pockets when this happens.

I feel like this fish is a giant. This water was smaller than the NM cutts. All the other fish we saw were tiny. Hindsight being 20/20 I wouldn't do the hike again. Mosquitos ate us up something fierce.....like swat your arm and kill 5 or 6 at a time. This is the only brookie we caught here. Now knowing what I know there are other locations where the time and outcome is about the same but this is the fish I'm second most proud of on this trip(another teaser for @Johnsfolly)

We head into Greer, Az to camp and chase wild trout again.

4 fish species day for me so today is a high......want to guess how tomorrow goes?

[Devan S.]

PART FOUR- LOST MOJO

Monday was great.....Tuesday was well......bad. Plan was to hit the west fork of the Little Colorado above Greer(sheep's crossing) early. Rumor has that it is home to wild browns and apache. My best guess is they were on vacation too because we didn't see anything for miles. Our second option was another wild Apache stream not far away. We showed up to a nice meadow with horses. I had 2 or 3 fish absolutely crush a dry but nothing would stay buttoned. My buddy did manage an Apache and had a nice brookie on(this is actually the stream that has brooks that aren't supposed to be there). At this point, we can add sunburn to our mosquito bites.

Frustrated we return to the Little Colorado in town looking for browns. My buddy has no problem catching them but I can't get them hooked. Finally I landed 1 fish to salvage a bad day. I had mentally hoped we might be able to catch all the apache we needed and a brown or 2.

Now we're gonna head west looking for Gila trout in Az. We stopped by a second brookie spot and scoped it out on the way west. I was worried so I used my phone a friend. He assured me fish were there so we carried on and will fish it and the lake above for tigers the following day on the way back.

Spent the night in Payson and drove up to the creek the next morning. The pressure of 1 small creek after a bad day was terrible and we fished until 10am and I couldn't catch them. Heck I couldn't see them but my buddy finally caught one. I had mentally given up and decided I would add AZ Gila to my return trip. I did however commit to dipping all the pockets on the way out and it finally happened.

We fished the East Verde river as well for stocked Gila trout as well. Fairly confident they were on vacation too.

We headed back east to the lake with tigers and the creek below with brookies. Met a guy walking out and he said its on but 3 people in front of us.

Small water again. At this point, my luck would change. Quickly I caught a small brown which meant I was done with browns in Az.

This was my micro-fishing part of the trip. I think I caught 4 browns this size prior to a brookie.

whew a whopper.....if your keeping track I'm now 3/5 on wild fish and 4/6 on the stocked or wild fish.

However my buddy hasn't caught a brookie yet so he has to have one here. From here on out we begin feeling the pressure at every stop. We need very specific fish in very specific spots.

We will camp at the lake here and try again in the morning for his brookie and I will fish for tigers above in the lake.

 

[Hawg]

This is great! Thanks so much for posting. Hopefully I can bring my son with me next year and follow your lead

[BilletHead]

                  @Devan S.

  Thank you for posting and letting Pat and I take a walk down memory lane. We will get back there someday and would like to repeat our trip out there and recatch the natives of the Apachie, Gila and Rio Grande species. Congratulations on your success young man. You will never forget trips like this. 

 Marty and Pat

[Devan S.]

PART 5-FINISH LINE IS IN SIGHT

My buddy took off below the lake which gave me time up top to look for tiger trout. He committed to bailing by 9:30 so I had a solid 3-4 hours of dinking around and fishing. No tigers but the next best thing.

I probably caught somewhere north of 30+ of these. Nothing huge. Honestly was a nice break from lots of hiking and running and gunning. 

He comes up right at 9:30 with his brook checked off. 

Headed East and back into the White Mountains and the stream that had Wild Apache and the Brookies. We decide to split. He heads about half way up the meadow and I start right at the car and almost immediately check off the Apache. 

I keep fishing on and catch another Brook. At this point I'm done with Brook so I am starting to get concerned that I may be working fish he needs so I tie on a much bigger dry hoping to limit myself to a better fish. Not long and he is walking back to me. He got his brook checked off too so off we go. Headed father east and south this time.  

Picture of where we were fishing with horses in the background.

 

 

[Devan S.]

PART 6- NOT SO ARTIC GRAYLING

Arizona maybe the southern most Artic Graylings in the country. I'm not 100% sure of that but I know for a fact it didn't feel like a place to catch them. In fact, I was hesitant to plan on needing them in my quest but here we are. We had originally planned to fish this small stocked lake for Grayling and stocked apache on day 1 of Arizona. As luck would have it, I found out they were planning to stock the week of the 16th so we pushed our arrival back hoping for a stocking. We arrived to this.

Really a pretty place and all to ourselves. It didn't take long and we see tons of fish cruising. It felt so easy it was almost like cheating. We probably caught 15 or so Apaches and 1 grayling each. Hindsight being 20/20 we both wish we would have just stayed and beat up on these fish. They were eager compared to everything else this week. 

Grayling:

 

 

[Devan S.]

Stocked Apache:

Now full disclosure. I realize these are stocked fish but they are so pretty and pictures can't do them justice. I assume Arizona raised these fish and they do it right because these fish did not have the usual look of stocked fish. No skinned spots, no missing fins. There was only 2 things that gave away the stocked status.: 1. Internet 2. Their eagerness to bite ANYTHING MOVING.