The San Juan River - Habitat Improvement Project

Tim McCarty, 56, of Albuquerque shows off a trout caught in the renovated area below Simon Canyon during a recent fishing trip.

By KARL F. MOFFATT | For The Santa Fe New Mexican/Outdoors
June 7, 2007

Anglers looking for some good fishing and a little breathing room on New Mexico’s popular San Juan River need only look downstream to a stretch of recently improved trout habitat.

“Looks like money well spent,” said Tim McCarthy, 56, of Albuquerque, as he released a good-sized rainbow trout caught in the project area during a recent fishing trip. “It’s nice and fishy down here.”

That’s the response state and federal officials were hoping for when they finished the second stage of the three-phase project designed to entice fish and anglers to the lower reaches of the state’s premier trout stream.

Over the last two winters about 500 tons of strategically placed boulders have been installed in a three-quarter-of-a-mile stretch of previously barren and featureless water below Simon Canyon and just above the area known as The Gravel Pit.

The rock work will help directs water to the center of the river where it will create a deeper channel which will carry off sediment and provide trout with good cover. Boulders placed in the channel itself will churn up the water to add oxygen and provide protective areas where fish can hold, said Marc Wethington, state Game and Fish biologist for the San Juan River.

And the work is apparently beginning to pay off.

“We had hoped to see some results this fishing season,” Wethington said. “It should get even better with time.”

Wethington said too many anglers crowd into the Texas Hole area below Navajo Dam and neglect to use the rest of the estimated 4.25 miles of public access to the river.

“We wanted to relieve some of that congestion, spread out the anglers and make fishing here more enjoyable for everyone,” Wethington said.

A plan was hatched — spurred, in part, after offers from private energy firms operating in the area to contribute to such projects, Wethington said.

“We like to fish down there, too,” said Steve Zink, a production supervisor for Devon Energy which employs 32 people and operates about 500 oil and gas wells in the Navajo Dam area. “This is just Devon’s part in giving something back to the community, and the fish, too.”

Public agencies such as Game and Fish, the Bureau of Land Management, the Bureau of Reclamation, the Army Corp of Engineers and Navajo Lake State Park worked together on the project along with the San Juan Fly Fishing Federation and several energy firms including Devon Energy, Williams and ConocoPhillips. Adobe Construction of Bloomfield provided the heavy lifting for the job.

Wethington said his peer at the BLM, wildlife biologist John Hansen, was instrumental in the project, particularly in securing the use of federal Sikes Act funds to get the project off the ground.

Those who hunt, fish or trap on public lands pay an additional $5 for a Sikes Act “habitat stamp” when they purchase a license.

Those funds are typically used on projects such as providing water for wildlife through the installation of wells, rain- catchment systems and holding tanks or earthen ponds. Sikes funds might also be used for range management or wildlife reintroduction programs, Hansen said.

“But this is one of those cases where you can actually see that Sikes Act money put to work,” Hansen said. “It’s been one of the best projects I’ve worked on in my career considering how well everyone came together, the results and the public response.”

Fishing guides who ply the San Juan’s waters welcomed the project that aimed to improve conditions on the last stretch of water that many drift boats pass through before they reach the Gravel Pit takeout.

“This gives us a place to fish that we didn’t have before,” said Greg Faught of the Float and Fish fly shop and guide service of Navajo Dam. “During high water, it’ll do wonders to move sand and silt out of there. I give it a big thumbs-up.”

During high water season on the San Juan River, water flows from the dam are increased from 500 to 5,000 cubic-feet-per-second, or cfs, for several weeks to mimic spring runoff and deliver water downstream.

The higher flows serve to clear the riverbed of silt and sand as well as other debris that has built up during the year and can smother insect production, the primary food source for trout.

The high-water season ended the last week of May, and water has since scoured deep holes behind the boulders installed in the project area which will not give trout a new place to live.

It also moved out plenty of built-up sand and sediment which should improve the insect population in that area, Faught said.

“I think this is going to be great wading and dry-fly water,” Faught said.

Anglers wanting to test these waters should consider fishing the area in the mornings and early afternoons before the drift boats start coming through, Faught said.

The project represented several major engineering obstacles but proceeded smoothly nonetheless, Wethington said.

Boulders had to be trucked in about 50 miles from a quarry near Ignacio, Colo., with each weighing an estimated 11/2 to 2 tons and “about as big and round as the hood of a pickup,” Wethington said.

Heavy equipment couldn’t be driven along the riverbanks due to environmental restrictions, so workers had the water flow lowered to 250 cfs and brought in a high-clearance, all-wheel-drive dump truck to haul the boulders upstream through the river itself. A tractor, with a movable arm fitted with a pincher claw, worked out of the riverbed, picking up and positioning the boulders.

The project area represents the last mile of the San Juan’s quality waters which are home to an estimated 75,000 trout.

The first quarter-mile of the river is strictly catch and release, and the remaining four miles have a bag limit of one trout over 20 inches with the angler required to stop fishing once they have taken a fish that day. Single, barbless lures are required on the quality waters.

Below the quality waters, anglers can use bait, and the normal bag limit is in effect

on public access to another 3.5 miles of river.

The third and final phase of the project will target the Cottonwood Campground area in the bait water section of the river.

The design is expected to be functional as well as aesthetically pleasing as the state park campground serves as a highly visible centerpiece for the entire Navajo Lake State Park which encompasses the quality waters of the San Juan River.

The third phase will make use of downed cottonwood trees to provide structure as well as more boulders and excavations which will create suitable habitat for holding fish as well as reduce silt and sediment buildup.

Fish-holding areas created by the structure work will be particularly useful in this part of the river as it is regularly stocked with up to 60,000, 9- to 12-inch trout for anglers to catch and eat.

The fish habitat project has cost about $85,000 to date. According to Wethington, anglers spend about 250,000 hours a year fishing on San Juan River below Navajo Dam and contribute an estimated $20 million to $30 million to the state’s economy every year.

Also see this article at the Santa Fe New Mexican's web site)

NM News - 2007 Rafting Season Saved

(Photo courtesy of N.M. Dept. of Tourism)

Recent wet weather, cooler temperatures and good snow pack at Wolf Creek Pass in Southern Colorado have apparently saved the Rio Grande’s high water rafting season from what some feared would be an early end.

“We thought we were doomed in March,” said Mike Boren, a river raft guide for New Wave Rafting of Santa Fe.

That’s when a spell of warm, dry weather began quickly melting mountain snow pack and brought on peak water flows of about 2000 cubic-feet-per-second (cfs). Then the water began to come down, leading some to believe the high water season had already come and gone.

Instead the runoff season has picked up again and is fueling the high-water flows that allow rafting companies to offer their most exciting and lucrative trips through the Taos Box.

“To be profitable we really need a Box season,” said Boren’s boss, Steve Miller. “We have a lot of locals who come when there’s exciting water and right now the flows are fabulous.”

The Box was running at 950 cfs on Wednesday (May 30, 2007) and the higher flows could continue for a few more weeks to come if the weather cooperates, said Richard Armijo, a snow surveyor with the USDA’s Natural Resource Conservation Service in Albuquerque.

“There’s still pretty good snow pack in place at Wolf Creek Pass,” he said.
The 11,000-foot pass in Southern Colorado which feeds into the Rio Grande watershed is still holding 83-percent of its snow pack which accounts for almost 25 inches of water, Armijo said.

“That should be good for two or three more weeks,” he said.

That and good rains last summer and fall increased soil moisture content throughout the region to allow melting snow and recent rains to fill the creeks, streams and springs feeding the big river.

“We’re looking pretty good this year,” he said.

More information regarding snow pack and reservoir levels and other water information can be found at their website .

“That’s great news. We were hoping to have a Box season through the end of June,” said Miller. For more info about trips check their website .

The Taos Box provides rafting enthusiasts with a 17-mile Rio Grande gorge trip from the John Dunn Bridge north of Taos near the village of Arroyo Hondo downstream to the Taos Junction bridge near Pilar.

Bill Blackstock of Far-Flung Adventures of Taos said the Taos Box trip is a big draw for his customers as it provides a full day’s adventure on the water with plenty of majestic gorge scenery, wildlife viewing and whitewater thrills.

“It starts out mellow,” Blackstock said. “But by the last four miles it’s nothing but rapids. If you love the water this is the place to be.”

Blackstone said he too hopes to stretch out the Taos Box season as long as possible. Check their website for trip details.

Rio Grande water flows from Colorado are dependent upon how much water is pulled from the river for irrigation and ground water recharge in southern Colorado.

If rains keeps farmers fields wet like they have recently and wind and temperatures remain moderate, the high water could keep coming.

But those flows could also begin to wane if the region begins to dry out.

“That’s why if you want to get in on some high water, your best bet is probably going to be the next couple of weeks,” said Rico Salazar of the Pilar Yacht Club Café, a retired rafting guide who books river trips and shuttles vehicles back and forth between the put-in and take-outs for rafting outfits such as Far Flung Adventures.

Most rafting companies will cease to offer the Taos Box trips once water flows get down around four to five hundred CFS and there’s no saying when that may occur as that’s entirely dependent upon the weather.

But even once the high water ends, the five-mile Race Course section of the Rio Grande will still continue to provide rafting enthusiasts with plenty of white water thrills from Pilar down to the Taos/Rio Arriba County line just north of the Dixon turn-off.

“We can always run the Race Course,” he said.

Bill Bailey, Recreation Manager for the Taos Field Office of the Bureau of Land Management which oversees rafting on the Rio Grande in northern New Mexico, said snow pack in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains was normal for this year and has helped keep water flows in the Rio Grande high.

Bailey noted that water flows on the Rio Grande on May 29 registered close to 400 cfs at the Colorado state line but had more than doubled to 950 cfs when measured at the mouth of the Taos Box the same day.

Bailey said natural springs along the Rio Grande in the Wild Rivers area north of Taos and streams such as the Red River and the Rio Pueblo de Taos feed into the Rio Grande and help boost its flows.

Bailey was guardedly optimistic that the river would continue to see good flows throughout the summer.

“A lot of us are feeling we’ll be running at 300 to 400 cfs,” he said. “And that would be good for recreation.”

Bailey noted that climatic change in recent years has forced river runners to adapt to lower water flows on the river and that has helped them alter their services and extend the rafting season.

“Back in the late 1980’s everybody would be disappointed it (the Rio Grande) wasn’t flowing at 2000 cfs this time of year,” Bailey said. “It was no fun unless it was roaring.”

During those days customers hung on for dear life while an oarsman piloted a big raft downstream. Those kinds of trips were dependent on big water and produced big thrills.

“It could be scary,” he said.

But now companies have smaller, more easily maneuverable rafts which can negotiate the river better during low water conditions. Customers can now also participate in helping paddle the raft or pilot their own inflatable kayak trip during a guided trip, Bailey said.

“It’s a different kind of river experience, there’s time to enjoy the scenery,” Bailey said. “I think people have responded to that well.”

But the Rio Grande isn’t the only game in town for river rafters.

The Rio Chama is also flowing well right now and has the added benefit of controlled flows out of upstream dams on weekends during the summer months, said Mary Scofield, President of Adobe Whitewater.

Pagosa Springs - Colorado Kool-Aide

This tale is dedicated to old friends, better times and the promise that summer can bring.

It was one of the best summers of my life.

The resounding ka-chink of a framing hammer driving a 16-penny nail. A gnawing hunger at the end of day and sleep that rolled over me like a heavy fog.

It was 1995 and I was on the run from the demons in my life. A series of bad decisions, heavy drinking and some lousy luck.

I tried to avoid thinking about the past year as I roared down the gravel road, stones plinking off the frame and the rear end swaying to George Thorogood’s “One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer.”

I was heading west out of the Valle Vidal in remote northern New Mexico, cutting through a canyon straight out of the old western series, “Bonanza.”

This was cattle country and in the middle of a long, lonely stretch of pasture lay a great bull with his head held high.

I slammed on the brakes and a cloud of dust enveloped the van.

I got down and looked across the barbed wire fence at the bull. If he noticed me, he didn’t show it.

I backed up and sat down on the bank of the road and began to cry. I didn’t have a clue what I was doing or where I was going and I was scared.

But the fear, indecision and self-pity slowly passed and as I dried my eyes, I found the bull was now staring over in my direction.

I got mad and yelled out, telling him where to go. I climbed back in my van and went looking for a phone and a friend at the other end of the line.

I found him in Pagosa Springs, just over the state line in southern Colorado.

“Forget Wyoming, why don’t you come up here?” my buddy Reggie Larkin said over the roadside, pay phone in Cimarron. “There’s plenty of work, the fishing’s great, the people are nice, you’ll love it, c’mon up!”

I had just spent the last six months riding out the winter in Las Cruces, New Mexico, right back where I had started six years earlier as a J-school student at the state university.

I had gone to college on the GI bill after having served as a truck mechanic in the Army where my skepticism of authority had thoroughly matured. Being a natural born hell raiser who thrived on confrontation and a good cause, I naturally wanted to become a newspaper reporter.

It seemed to me that those were the qualities they were looking for back then and I excelled at the work, advanced quickly and landed a gig after graduation as a crime and courts reporter at the Albuquerque Journal’s northern bureau in Santa Fe.

But what they didn’t teach me in J-school was that a big city newsroom can harbor any number of ego driven, dangerously desperate, power hungry psychopaths and I ended up running headlong into a few of them.

Things turned ugly and my big mouth and stubborn streak didn’t help matters either and after what had been a sweet run, it was time to walk away from the game.

I found I really didn’t like looking over both shoulders, one for the bad guys I might have pissed off on the beat and the other for the ladder-climbing, ambush artists in the office.

So here I was aimlessly tooling about northern New Mexico agonizing over what to do next. I had fantasized all winter about going north to the big country of Wyoming where there was supposed to be lots of work, plenty of fishing and no one who knew me.

But now that push had come to shove, I was running scared. That was until I talked to Reggie.

High Country Hide Out

Me and Reggie had become friends after having met through a mutual acquaintance down in Las Cruces, a newspaperman named Bill Diven, but that’s another story.

Larkin was a grizzled, union, pipeline welder and a desert rat that drove a push-car at the local dirt track on Saturday nights. He was well read, knew his politics and more importantly, was a straight talking guy.

So when he told me to take a deep breath and just head up to his favorite summer hideout in the mountains, I found myself extremely relieved.

Reggie was taking one of his self induced sabbaticals from his nomadic pipeline welding gig which required working long hours at remote sites for months at a time while living out of hotels or travel trailers.

Needless to say he has a sensitive stomach and twisted sense of humor.

We met up at the Hogs Breath, a bar and grill on the north end of Pagosa Springs where Reggie had secured a summer job. They featured a full-length bar over which plenty of dead animals hung, great steaks and even better bar-b-que.

I was sitting at the bar that first night when the guy next to me struck up a conversation and told me his name was Bob and he was in town from Denver to work on a bridge construction project.

“What’s there to do around here?” he asked. “Seems like they roll up the streets by nine o’clock.”

Playing the role of the hardboiled local, I told him there wasn’t much else to do but fish.

“I ain’t here to fish,” he sputtered. “I’m here to work and screw some of your women.”

The whole bar turned and stared at this guy.

“Well, seeing as how you already got a job,” I said in my best western drawl. “Then I’d strongly suggest you learn to fish.”

With that everyone let out a good laugh and returned to their drinking.

It was a great little bar, the Texan tourists loved it but it was the locals who made it a great hang out. And there’s nothing like a local pub with a friend behind the bar to make a guy feel at home.

I spent the next couple days exploring the little town of Pagosa Springs. It sits in a bowl ringed by towering mountain peaks, surrounded by dense forest with a river running through it.

It’s a little town, maybe a couple thousand hardy year-round residents. Having been born during the lumber, mining and cattle era, the town now catered primarily to tourists and part-time luxury homeowners.

Pagosa Springs was a place where the locals wore Carhartt and the tourists L.L.Bean.

Recreational attractions include skiing the deep powder found at Wolf Creek, fishing the headwaters and forks of the fabled San Juan River and soaking in the town’s riverfront hot springs. There’s golf, hiking, camping, horseback riding, ballooning and plenty of shopping along the downtown historic district.

It’s a hospitable but not too nosey kind of town where locals are quick to ask where you’re from but reluctant to inquire as to what your name might be.

There may not be many available women but there sure was plenty of work. Especially for those willing to toil in construction, building high-end homes for wealthy retirees and others with cash to spend.

Big log homes with cathedral-like glass windows were going up all over the countryside when I had landed there in the summer of ‘95.

I had gone downtown that afternoon and was making the long, uphill climb back up to the northern edge of town when I stopped to pick up a young guy hitchhiking. He told me he had been down to the auto parts store and was heading back home to finish working on his car.

We exchanged the usual small talk and then I asked where the work was. He told me he just got fired for failing to show up at his laborer’s job for one of the local homebuilders, Southwest Custom Homes.

“I know they’re hiring, in fact that’s their office right there and there’s the boss’s truck,” he said as we passed a building on the roadside. “You should stop in and see Tim.”

“I think I’ll do that,” I said.

I dropped off the kid and went back to the office and asked for one of the owners, Tim Horning. A tall, rugged looking guy with a bushy mustache and thick eyebrows came out and asked what he could do for me.

I inquired about work and he looked me up and down and asked when was the last time I did a “day’s work.”

I had to laugh. It was true. I had been making a living off other people’s misery for the last four years and the only calluses I had were from banging on a computer keyboard.

But I told him I wasn’t afraid of a hard day’s work and had worked as a framer on a sub-floor crew when I got out of the Army.

He asked when that might have been?

I sheepishly noted it was back in the mid-80s, over ten years ago, building subdivisions for Pulte Homes on the plains outside of Denver.

“I even got my tool belt in the back of the van still,” I said hopefully.

“Okay, if you think you can still hack it,” he said and then gave me an address to show up at the next morning to help lay a foundation.

“And make sure you bring a pair of gloves, okay?” he said.

I shook his hand vigorously, told him I’d be there and went back to the bar to announce my success at finding a job.

Everyone there, carpenters, road workers, and other working stiffs seemed real happy for me, smiling and patting me on the back. But you could tell when they turned away that they must have been wondering, why anybody would be so happy about landing a laborer’s job on a construction crew and working on a Saturday morning?

Yeah it’s a bottom rung job and nothing but hard work but the way I figured it, that was just what I needed to get my mojo back, some good, honest, hard work and no office politics.

So there I was the next morning, tying off rebar, shoveling dirt and waiting with a bunch of other guys for the cement truck to arrive when a little Dodge pickup with a camper shell pulled up. A squat, barrel-chested, tough looking, older guy got out and came over to the site.

He was talking to Horning, smoking a cigarette and looking over the crew. It was obvious he was some kind of boss. He also looked kinda mean, so I stayed busy and out of his way.

Horning told us his name was Bob McNeil and he was a master carpenter out of Florida.

Sure seemed like I was running into a lot of out-of-towners named Bob up here, I thought.

By the end of the morning we had smoothed out the cement and were about finished for the day when Horning came over and asked me if I wanted to come back on Monday and work with Mr. McNeil. Horning had hired McNeil to be the lead carpenter on a custom home Horning was building for his wife. He said the job paid eight bucks an hour with a dollar raise if I survived the first couple weeks.

I looked over at McNeil as he squinted through his cigarette smoke at me.

“Sure,” I said with a grin.

And with that I had managed to land a job for the summer in one of the coolest little towns in Colorado. Suddenly Santa Fe’s petty politics sure seemed a long ways away.

Camping Colorado Style

Both Reggie and I were staying in our little camping trailers parked on one of his friend’s horse pasture located several miles outside of town.

Every once in a while I would awaken at night to find the trailer rocking as one of the horses outside rubbed himself up against it. There were plenty of flies too.

We had to haul in our water, there were no toilet facilities nearby and I soon went looking for a place, closer to town, where I could hunker down in my van and ride out the night instead.

One of those spots was under a couple of giant ponderosa trees down at Echo Canyon Reservoir, a few miles out on the south end of town. It was a little recreation area where I could park and cook up something on my Coleman stove and watch the ducks cavort and the fish rise as it grew dark. I spent many an evening down there casting flies to those rising fish, catching bluegill, perch, small mouth bass and the occasional trout.

Once it got dark I would try to pick up a ballgame or something else on my battery powered, transistor radio, but most of the times I’d just lay there in my bed listening to the wind in the trees.

I’d leave the van’s side door wide open, a curtain of mosquito netting to keep the bugs at bay and I’d nod off while the crickets chirped.

In the morning there was an outhouse nearby and while my cowboy coffee brewed in an old fashioned, blue and white spotted, enamel coffee pot, I’d stretch and do some calisthenics in the warm, morning sun.

My commute to work was a pleasant cruise through a nice, quiet little town to a job I found increasingly enjoyable.
The backside of Horning’s house was aligned to take in the view of the pasture and mountains and many times I would look up from my work to find a procession of billowing, white clouds marching across a piercing blue sky.

They’d cast a checkerboard pattern of shadows across a backdrop of towering peaks and I’d take a deep breath of that cool, clean Rocky Mountain air and feel my lungs expand and my mind relax.

My dog, Wiley, loved that job, too.

She’d sit out on the very end of the first floor’s main beam staring intently into the back yard, watching and waiting. Then she’d suddenly turn and scamper back across the beam to a plank leading to the basement steps, she’d patter down those wooden stairs, her nails clicking and then emerge from the basement patio at a dead run - just to scare the hell out some unsuspecting chipmunk.

She’d dig for hours out in that pasture, a steady stream of rich soil flying out from between her splayed legs. When she’d take a break and come back into the house she’d arrive with a ring of dirt around her snout.

It wasn’t pretty when she’d hit pay dirt and unearth a colony of mice, their little tails twitching out of the side of her mouth as she chewed them up.

Bob was a hard case at first, really coming down on me when I screwed up, messing with me to see how much I could handle, that kind of thing.

He was a blue-collar, Vietnam vet from Michigan who was on the run from his ex-girlfriend and the IRS. I was a second-generation hippie with a journalism degree who was afraid of power saws and heights.

One day Horning showed up as we were laying out tarpaper on the garage roof. I was crabbing around on my hands and knees while driving the roofing nails, too scared to stand up straight and risk seeing the dizzying height we were at.

Hell you could have jumped off that roof without getting hurt.

Bob started making fun of me and left me crimson with shame. Horning reached into the cab of his truck and pulled out a cold six-pack of beer and tossed one up to each of us.

“There,” he said with a grin. “Have a little courage in a can.”

It was cold, crisp and refreshing but lacked the kick I’d expected.

It was “3.2 “ beer, the only kind they sell at the convenience stores and supermarkets in Colorado, Horning explained.

I fell in love with that stuff, plenty of beer satisfaction and only the slightest buzz, what a concept!

“What a crew!” Bob said while shaking his head at me.

Then one day we were racking an outside wall on the second floor above the garage. Bob was yelling at me to hold the damn wall steady, as he got ready to nail it off. He held a 16-penny wedged between his index and middle finger, palm facing him, awaiting the framing hammer’s blow, when I grabbed his cocked arm.

“What’re you doing? Let go of me!” he raged.

“Look in your hand, Bro,” I said calmly.

Bob looked back at the framing hammer clenched in his fist and saw that he had the head turned around with the claw end facing his open palm. Bob twirled the hammer in his hand and drove the nail with a resounding ca-chunk.

Bob took me out for beers at the Hogs Breath after work that night and even let me play “my” music on the battered, boom box the next day.

It was kind of funny to watch a guy his age nod his head and hum along to the likes of George Thorogood and the Destroyers.

But Bob loved that tape and asked for it all the time after that. He liked to start the workday with some good, hard-driving music and we’d rock on throughout the day.

That house brought us together and we forged a bond building it.

Buy Ford Stock Now!

One day Bob said we were getting offsite and going on a little road trip.We were taking a borrowed Ford pickup with a Power Stroke diesel engine and hauling a flatbed trailer up over Wolf Creek Pass to the sawmill in Saguache to pick up a bunch of beams for the house.

We motored out of town and started up the mountain, past the scenic waterfall, the runaway trucks ramps, the overheated RVs on the hillside and hauled ass all the way up to the 11,000 foot, snow covered summit.

Man that Ford sure could pull, we giggled, as the motor roared and we soared across the Continental Divide and down the other side of the Rockies. Across the mighty Rio Grande, past the beer barley and potato fields, wondering what all those piles of rocks were in the corners were for, trying out our Spanish on the Mexican field hands at the crossroads’ store.

We loaded up at the mill, too much it seemed as the trailer wandered and swayed as we headed down the road. Back we went to unload a few and we were off again. That truck climbed the mountain going as fast as it had coming up.

I’d buy me one of those Fords if I had a good reason to.

I ended up spending many a day using an adze on all those beams, giving them that authentic, rough-cut look. Stripped down to just my shorts and boots, I’d stand astraddle one of those beams with the adze swinging down between my legs, chipping off a thin layer of wood, working my way back until I was done with one side. Then I’d muscle the beam over and get to work on another other side.

It was tedious work and you had to pay close attention or risk burying that adze blade in one of your shins.

The sweat would drip from my forehead and sting my eyes, somewhere a power saw buzzed like a horny cicada, a car passed on the gravel road, the crunch of its tires causing me to stop and stare.

Only a few more to go before we’d bring in the Pettibone to hoist them up for the ceiling, I’d tell myself as I got back to work and waited for Bob to call it a day.

But I did such a good job on those beams that Bob put me to work on some more for a log home we were building on the side for another guy.

That guy’s place was further out in the country, surrounded by thick pasture and tall ponderosas. I’d roll up in my van, crank up Deep Purple’s “Machine Head” and get to work on sculpting those mill cut logs with a Dewalt power planer.

The vibration from that tool left my hands tingling for hours afterwards but at least I didn’t have to worry about lopping off a leg.

Those logs sure looked pretty by the time I got through with them and all that hard work was melting the winter fat off my body, but it was also taking a toll on my 37-year-old muscles and bones.

So one of my favorite payday rituals was to go downtown to the hot springs and soak in the healing waters for a while.

I was able to manage that because they had a really affordable monthly pass for locals that I managed to buy by just showing them a payroll stub and a sincere smile.

I liked to slip a couple of cold ones into my gym bag and then sit in the upper pool sipping a forbidden but well-hidden beer.

From that vantage point I could watch from behind my shades as the tourists frolicked in the lower pools, their steaming, white bodies glistening under the setting sun.

One night I was doing just that when a couple of fine looking young women climbed into the upper pool with me. I was checking them out from behind my shades when one of the gals asked me in German-accented English if I would mind if they removed their tops.

I reached up and slowly lowered the sunglasses so they could see my eyes and said “Bitte.” - that’s German for please, I’d learned that when I was stationed overseas with the Army.

The Fräuleins giggled wickedly, stripped off their tops and I put my shades back up and slipped down a little further into the water.

It was a wonderful evening in Pagosa with two friendly, topless German women sharing my hot tub, a river slowly flowing by and a cold Coors in my hand.

And they said there were no women in this town.

Trout Bumming

What a summer I was having and as it progressed, it got even better. I was exploring and finding great fishing all over the place.

Within an hour’s drive I could be deep into the San Juan or Rio Grande national forests from which flowed the headwaters of the San Juan and Rio Grande and an abundance of creeks, streams, rivers, ponds and lakes.

One night I could be fishing the evening hatch on the Piedra River and sleeping in my van perched on a nearby cliff. The next night I might be found fishing in the San Juan behind the downtown ice cream parlor while the tourists licked their cones and watched from up on a deck.

When Horning let us go early on Friday around noon I might find myself a few hours later, knee deep in the south fork of the Rio Grande, under a canopy of trees, wading in a pair of sneakers and shorts, flicking a short leader armed with grasshopper and a dropper. I’d catch brown trout in the lower stretch, brookies in the middle and rainbows up below the dam.

And I’d be laughing to myself the whole way just like those crazy men you see on the street. I loved that stretch of stream on a hot afternoon.

Maybe I’d find myself high up in the mountains, wending my way between the pines to get to one of the lakes where I’d spend the evening trying to keep my fly out of the trees as I made an incredibly long cast towards the expanding ripples where a fat trout just rose.

It was a trout bum’s kind of summer and I was living it.

Back to Reality

But it all started winding down the day Bob left town, headed back to Florida and his real life.

I stayed on the job a little while longer working with another lead carpenter to finish off the roof and on what was to be my last day on the job I walked over to my van and cranked the engine, only to have it spin noisily and fail to start.

Reggie came over with a compression tester and we soon discovered the engine was shot.

Well, Tim Horning came to the rescue again, this time ordering me an engine at his cost from Knighton's machine shop down in Albuquerque and then allowing me to stay at a mobile home he owned in a nearby subdivision.

We towed the van over and parked it and I did some work around town till they got the engine done, staining all the 2x6 wooden planks inside a woman’s newly built horse barn for $10 a hour one day and finding grunt work on a construction crew on another.

It seemed a man willing and able to work in Pagosa Springs could always find something to do for a buck.

In the evenings I’d sit cross-legged on the living room floor of the empty mobile home and sip a quart of beer as I watched the World Series on a little black and white TV perched on a kitchen chair.

I awoke one morning to find snow and my new engine in the driveway. A bare block of iron, encased in plastic wrap and a wooden crate sat there as the UPS truck pulled away in a cloud of exhaust and clattering gears.

For some reason I thought of the Blues Brothers’ line from the movie where Akroyd says “It's a hundred and six miles to Chicago, we've got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, it's dark, and we're wearing sunglasses.”

I got an engine hoist and got to work on the van out under the carport, jacking up the body to pull the engine out through the front where the grill and radiator had been. I worked long into the night and finally got it all buttoned up, poured some gas down the carb and fired her up.

She roared and then died, I tried some more gas and she caught right off and then died again.

Hmmmm, I thought. She wasn’t getting any gas so I pulled the fuel line off and cranked the engine. There was no gas coming out of there like there should have been, so I pulled the fuel pump back out of the block. I hand pumped the arm that rides inside the engine and works off a cam on the crankshaft and watched as gas spewed out across the driveway.

Hmmm, I thought again, the pump’s working so that means what?

I looked over at the old engine block and saw the fuel pump’s crankshaft cam still bolted to the timing gear on the old engine.

I had forgot to swap it out. I hung my head and thought of crying, again. Instead I grabbed a wrench and got back to work, pulling out the radiator, water pump and everything else to get at the engine again.

I drove the van out of Pagosa Springs the next morning.

A couple of weeks later I was sitting on the porch out at Reggie’s place in the desert east of Las Cruces soaking up the sun while Reggie was reading the want ads in the local paper.

We looked great but we were both unemployed again and trying to figure out what to do next.

“Hey Moffatt, check this out,” Reggie said. “Wanted: Reporter wanted to work for a modest wage, during an election year, at the worst, small-town paper in the country.”
“Let me see that,” I said.

It was the fiesty Rio Grande Sun up in Española where there was plenty of juicy news, a legendary, old-school publisher and lots of good fishing to be had.

I called the editor, Mike Kaemper, who remembered me from my work at the Journal and invited me to come on up for an interview.

This was the guy who kicked the Journal’s butt covering the Ricky Abeyta massacre in Chimayo, a domestic dispute gone bad that left seven dead including two cops and a baby. At the time it was the worst mass murder in state history and the Sun outdid everyone covering it.

It’d be a pleasure to work for these guys so I took the cops and courts reporter’s position when they offered it to me and I went back to work in the news game.
One of the first stories I wrote on that job earned us a first place newswriting award from the New Mexico Press Association.

It seemed somehow I had gotten my mojo back

Thanks, guys.

The Valle Vidal - My Hard Sided Unit

I awoke to rain tattooing the roof.

It was fall in Northern New Mexico.

In the backyard my aging Dodge van’s faded black skin glistened under a rare bath.

She was waiting to take me to the river.

But three-dollar-a-gallon gas did what 10 years of hard driving and several near-death experiences failed to do.

I had to park my beloved van.

For the past 10 years I’d been tooling around in the V-8 driven, one-ton, behemoth, rigged up with a full-size bed, propane heat, a working kitchen in the back and all the spare parts, tools, camping and fishing gear I could haul.

With a stiff tailwind and a long downgrade I was lucky to get 12-mpg.

But now I had a little, five-speed, four-wheel-drive, high-clearance, short-wheel-base 1996 Geo Tracker with a soft-top to run around in.

And it got 30 mpg and was a non-descript, sun-faded green, too!

I lucked into the little SUV, having dropped an e-mail to an old friend, Reggie Larkin, who works out of an automotive shop up in Pagosa Springs, Colorado and told him I was in the market for one of those little Japanese jeeps.

Turns out his shop had just picked up a newer, prettier, four-door, hardtop version of their trusty little shop truck and now the old two-door, convertible was up for grabs.

“I’d buy it,” he said.

That’s all I needed to hear. I talked to his boss who told me if I showed up with two grand, it was mine.

Me and my girlfriend, Wren, talked it over, pulled some cash out of the bank and headed north the following weekend to check out the little jeep.

It was just what we were looking for to compete with Santa Fe’s legions of high-end, monster SUVs - Range Rovers, Escalades, Expeditions, Land Cruisers.

We broke it in on the ride home, crossing over the San Juan Mountains and heading down to the Conejos River. The washboard dirt road that runs alongside this river for many miles would serve well as a shakedown cruise.

The little truck worked out fine as did the fishing and a few weeks later we decided we’d really break the little jeep in with a trip up to the Valle Vidal, in the high country north of Taos on the Colorado border.

I was looking forward to this trip because I knew we’d get into some reliable afternoon thunderstorms and slick roads that would really give the little jeep’s four-wheel drive capabilities a tryout.

It would be ironic because this is where a tragic, fatal encounter with a bear many years ago led me to buy my van in the first place.

I had been fishing at Shuree Ponds where on occasion a well-placed caddis fly can entice a hefty rainbow to the surface. It’s rumored the State Game and Fish boys plant retired brood stock in the ponds, which accounts for their legendary size.

I was fishing with a former co-worker from my newspapering days in the early 1990’s when I worked as a cops and courts reporter with the Albuquerque Journal’s Northern bureau in Santa Fe.

This was the guy who taught me the basics of fly-fishing and the formula news lead.

He had pulled in a big rainbow that evening and was anxious to cook it up back at Cimarron campground, about a mile from the pond. It is one of only two campsites located within the estimated 100,000-acre Valle Vidal and usually crowded.

We rolled in late and took one of the last sites located at the far end of the loop. It looked like an overflow spot, just an old road that ran off into the woods with a picnic table parked in the middle. Stands of trees bordered each side of the road.

When we paid for our site at the self-service fee station there were warning signs posted to tell campers that bears had been raiding the campground recently and to take the usual precautions to avoid tempting them any further.

Nonetheless, my fishing partner decided to clean his catch under the public water spigot and then fried it up in a great cast-iron skillet with bacon grease. Seems I remember eating my usual hamburger and Ranch Style “Husband Pleasing” chili beans.

And it wasn’t long before the aroma of our supper brought the bears in.

I was brushing my teeth by my little Isuzu Pup truck with my back to the tree line when I heard something rustle in the leaves. I turned to find a young bear at arms length looking at me quizzically.

I literally jumped out of my boots, scrambled up onto the picnic table and started spitting toothpaste as I screamed bloody murder.

The little bear took off running and I calmed down after awhile.

We thought about leaving but it would be a long drive off the mountain to find another spot to camp since there’s no camping “at-large” within the Valle Vidal.

Instead we decided it would be okay to ride out the night in our bedrolls under a couple of tarps strung up in the far tree line since it appeared we had scared the bear off.


Besides, we had my fishing partner’s dog, Pete, with us. He was a feisty male chow/husky-looking mix with one blue eye whose manhood was intact and he wasn’t afraid of a fight.

We also had my dog Wiley, a slight, whippet/Boston terrier mix, with us. I had only recently picked her up during a fishing trip up in the Jemez Mountains. She was out with us on the first of many camping trips and just a few days earlier she had disappeared during an evening lighting storm only to nonchalantly reappear the following morning.

The fight in her remained to be seen but there was the added peace of mind brought on by my partner’s big 12-guage, pump shotgun and my .357 Magnum pistol.

I soon drifted off to sleep curled up with my dog and my pistol. But within a short time I was awakened by a series of loud whispers urging me to “wake up!”

My buddy was whispering hoarsely that he thought the bear was back and rooting around in my little Isuzu pickup truck. Then he turned his flashlight on and in the powerful beam we saw a much bigger bear than before.

She was seated with her rump on top of the toolbox behind the cab and leaning over into the open bed. I saw the top of my cooler fly through the air before my partner’s flashlight suddenly went out.

We couldn’t believe it. His bulb had apparently chosen that moment to burn out.

While I frantically searched around for my flashlight, I could hear Pete going wild, barking and straining at my partner’s grip. It was too dark to see but I could smell and hear the bear.

I finally found my flashlight and when I turned it upon the truck we could see the bear looking over at us. We tried yelling and throwing things at the bear to scare her off but she wasn’t fazed in the least by our efforts.

It wasn’t until Pete broke loose and launched himself at the side of the truck that the bear responded, rearing up on its hind legs in the bed of the pickup, big as a church.

It was a quick decision to fire, my partner his shotgun and I my pistol, a single blast each and the bear tumbled from the back of the truck and out of sight.

We cautiously made our way over to the truck and peered around the front end to see the bear struggling to get up. She was a big, cinnamon-brown bruiser and my partner put her down with another load of double-aught buck.

It was a sad affair. I remember the feeling of guilt and remorse that washed over me. To top it off my dog had run off again during all the action. Then we began to wonder what kind of trouble we might be in.

We left the dead bear and my dog behind as we dragged our sorry asses down off that mountain. We drove about 15 miles to the payphone at the gas station in Amalia where we reported the shooting to the State Game and Fish.

The officer who took our report told my partner not to feel too bad about it. Most nuisance bears are doomed to such a fate and they had been expecting something like that to happen since there had been so many bear encounters in the campground that summer.

Nonetheless, I still felt bad about what happened. We were to blame for killing that bear no matter how we tried to justify it.

My co-worker and me parted ways that morning, he headed north to Wyoming to continue his vacation and I, back up the mountain to search for my dog. I was relieved to find her, shivering in the middle of the road by the campsite.

Nearby was the body of the dead bear we had covered up with an old blue tarp. The Game and Fish officer said he would come pick it up later.

I got a good look at her in the morning light and remember the shame of it all, having to kill that great creature, especially since she was obviously the mother of the other little bear we had encountered earlier.

What had happened to that little guy? Would he end up like all the other trash picking bears in New Mexico - doomed to die?

I surveyed the scene and in the clear morning light was shocked to see through the trees a group of tents in line with where my truck had been parked the night before.

I turned and looked real hard at the line of sight from where I had been bedded down and then turned and walked through the trees looking at them closely. There it was, a fresh wound in the bark of a tree no thicker than my forearm where a round had embedded itself.

I continued through the tree line over to the next camp and announced myself and a head of shaggy dreadlocks poked out from inside a tent.

“Hey, what’s up?” the guy asked.

“Everybody okay over here?” I asked. ”We shot a bear over there last night”

“Yeah, I guess. I didn’t hear anything,” he responded.

I told him I was worried about any stray rounds and the new-age hippie crawled out and checked with his campmates and found everyone was okay.

I left relieved we hadn’t ruined anyone else’s life and I rolled off that mountain with a whole new attitude about camping.

That’s when I went out and bought the Dodge van, a “hard-sided” unit, and figured I’d let the bears and other woodland creatures do all the rooting around they wanted without any interference from me.

Return to the Scene

As we rolled into the canyon leading up into the Valle Vidal a steady rain began to fall on the soft top of the little jeep. We splashed our way through puddles in the gravel road under a canopy of thick, gray, angry clouds.

I was psyched, up ahead the road would split and one fork would climb steadily up the mountain to the ponds and the other would continue on up a valley to the upper meadows of the Rio Costilla.

It was the high road I was interested in because when it rained it typically turned into a soupy, slippery, just “floor it and pray” kind of mess.

A couple years back I had skated down that stretch of road in the van during a rainstorm as Wren and me were returning from a long road trip to Wyoming.

We decided to cut through the Valle Vidal on our way home and were doing fine until we popped over the top of the mountain and skidded to a stop.

It was raining and I knew the road down the mountain would be nothing short of treacherous. Driving the van under such slick conditions was like riding a brick. All you could do was try to aim the van, stay off the brakes and pray.

As we began our way down I looked over at Wren and found her was covering her eyes with her hands, refusing to watch. I looked back at Wiley who was asleep curled up in a ball.

See, she wasn’t worried! But I was, my knuckles had turned white from the firm grip I had on the wheel.

I was inching my way down the mountain with my outside set of wheels riding in some gravel mounded up on the very edge of the road when I noticed something in the rear view mirror.

It was a big pickup towing a horse trailer coming down the hill behind me and he was blinking his lights and coming down fast.

I slowed the van down as best I could and stayed where I was on the outside edge of the road.

Looking down off to my left I imagined the van rolling down the long, slippery slope into the rock strewn ravine below.

I then watched in my passenger side-view mirror as the truck’s headlights grew and then the van quaked as the big rig barreled past me in a shower of rain and mud.

Wren screamed, Wiley awoke and I breathed a great sigh of relief.

I cut across the road as we entered the upcoming corner and aimed for the rain filled gutter on the inside edge.

The van’s rear end fought to break free but I steered into the skid and managed to keep the right front tire in the ditch and rode out the corner.

We made it around the bend and then it was a straight shot through the muck for another mile or so. At the end of this run the gravel resumed and we’d be home free.

We made it and I sheepishly suggested we stop and do some fishing. Wren slowly peeled her fingers off the dash and told me it was time to go home.

That damn road had sunk me again.

So it was with some sense of vengeance that I returned to the Valle Vidal on such a rainy day armed with four-wheel drive. I was relishing the thought of churning through the van-stopping slop, mud flecking my windshield as I powered up the mountain with confidence.

I looked over at Wren who was grinning at my giddiness; this time we were going to have some fun.

I stopped and engaged the front hubs and then as we peeled off onto the high road I could only watch in dismay as the rain petered out, the road grew dry and the sun emerged over the valley.

The San Juan River - A Glenn May Kinda Day

The hip-waders started leaking just as I managed to settle into a promising spot a couple hundred yards below Navajo Dam on New Mexico’s fabled San Juan River.

I had worked my way below a gravel bar that split the current and settled into a quiet, V-shaped pool where the two channels came back together. It was the kind of water where trout could lay up and easily pick off food in the passing current.

It looked real good but then an icy-cold dampness began to creep down my pants leg. In a few minutes a pool of freezing water had collected in the bottom of my boot.

I tried to ignore the situation, made a few casts, and then looked back to find two guys had waded into the water just below me.

Damn!

I looked across the river at my fishing buddy, Glenn May. He was all alone and waist deep in his neoprene, chest waders. With his rod held high, he was dead drifting his rig through the edge of the current.

He wasn’t slaying them yet but I knew he would be soon.

Overhead the sky threatened. Grey, pregnant clouds hung low over the dam. A damp, nippy breeze carried a slight hint of winter to come. It would be a cold, wet, miserable day if I didn’t get my wader's problem fixed soon.

“Damn!” I thought to myself again. “Hey dude. I think I found my leak!” I yelled across the din of the passing water.

May looked up, waved and grinned. The crazy son of a bitch was wearing a short-sleeve shirt.

I had complained of a wet boot last evening but figured I had stepped in too deep, once too often.

Now I knew better. I leaned over and started groping around between my legs, looking at the tops of my waders. There it was, a small hole had worn through one of the inside thighs where the boots rubbed together.

If I had caught this the night before, the glue would have cured by now, I thought to myself with disgust.

I pulled out the small roll of medical adhesive tape I carried in one of my vest pockets. It actually stuck and held for a couple minutes before it started coming off at the edges.

“Oh, man,” I whined to myself.

“Hey, May!” I yelled. “This ain’t happening for me. I gotta get these waders patched.”

May nodded and yelled back that he was going to stay on the far bank. He’d meet me later, a couple miles downstream at Jack’s Hole or the Lower Flats.

“Okay, see ya then,” I yelled and turned my back on the river.

He’d be fishing a couple of miles of really good, solitary water while I’d be dealing with a wardrobe malfunction. What lousy luck, I thought as I shuffled and slipped my way across the slick, rocky bottom.

I tried to ward off the negative vibe I was getting, that nagging feeling that it was going to be one of those days. Wind fouled lines, busted gear, lousy fishing and a bad attitude!

As I slogged back that Thursday morning through the marsh, fighting aside the suffocating willows, I thought back to the week’s beginning.

Sure Beats Looking for Work

May had driven in on Monday from Colorado where he’d been visiting his sister since he flew in from Pittsburgh on Friday night. I’d gotten here from Santa Fe on Sunday night and camped out in my van at Simon Canyon.

The trip was timely, May was looking to get out of his job while I was looking to get into one. We figured if we didn’t get this trip in now it probably wouldn’t happen.

We met up at Baetis Bend around noon. It was a sunny and warm day and after getting caught up over a couple of cold Coors that May thoughtfully brought with him, we got to fishing.

We should have stuck to drinking.

The fish were rarely striking. And when they did, it was on the soft side, resulting in many missed opportunities and few hook-ups. It was hard, frustrating work.

We retired early to the cheery glow of a kerosene lamp, a pint of Captain Morgan’s and plenty of talk. A dinner of grilled chicken breast, Ranch Style beans and boil-in-bag rice did little to slow us down.

We talked long into the night of the drought and fire restrictions, various streams and their fishing conditions and our days working together as newspaper reporters.

When we rolled out of our sleeping bags early the next morning it was with slightly swollen heads. It had rained overnight too and the weather looked ominous. We liked it that way and prayed it would hold long enough for a good hatch to come off.

At the parking lot my dog Wiley took one look at the gray skies, sniffed at the wind and declined to come out to play. She was getting old and had earned the right to sleep through the morning’s festivities.

The long slog upstream to the Lower Flats and the sight of rising fish cleared my head. I could see May up ahead in the corner pocket. He was already reeling them in.

I tiptoed my way across the wide expanse of water and snuck up on a shallow run where I found several good-sized trout rising.

I tied on a dry fly, flipped it out into the current and watched it float slowly over a dark shadow hugging the bottom. The form moved and began to come up. The trout’s features slowly emerged, a thick, heavily colored rainbow, and it was headed straight for my fly.

I steeled myself, it opened its mouth and then turned away at the last possible moment and slowly descended back to the bottom.

I laughed to myself and reeled up the fly. In this shallow, slow water these crafty trout had all day to check things out. And if my fly didn’t look just right then they weren’t going to touch it.

I pulled out my fly box, rooted through my collection and pulled out an even smaller version of the same fly.

This time the trout took it, shook its massive head and lit out for deeper water. The reel sang, the fish splashed and I howled with glee. May looked over and gave me the thumbs up. We were on!

We successfully fished undisturbed in the lower flats for a couple hours. At one point I wandered over to watch May perform his magic in the shelf just below the terminus of Three Mile Run.

I was watching from streamside, chewing on a piece of carne seca, dried beef. On the river we lived off apples, bananas, trail mix, little tins of tuna, snack packs of cheese and crackers, beef jerky, peanuts and lots of purified river water.

The morning’s overcast conditions had lifted and it had turned out to be a fine day after all. I was enjoying the sunshine and chewing endlessly on this piece of gristle when I finally tired of it and spit it out into the river.

I watched as a big brown slowly emerged from the current and snatched up the passing morsel.

What a hoot! A fly is born!

May had hooked into another fish and was yelling for me to come take a picture. I followed as he fought the fish downstream and around the corner into the upper reaches of the flats. He got the fish settled down in some shallower water and handed his camera over to me. It was a nice brown and we got the photo.

I decided to work my way back downstream on the far bank to get away from the drift boats and other waders that were starting to show up. I managed to hook into one in every spot I worked. And, it seemed every time I looked upstream there was May with his rod held high over his head with another one on the line.

It had turned out to be a fine day. That evening we visited with Bruce Holthouse out of Taos who was camping under the cottonwoods on the far side of the parking lot from us. He said he had just come down from fishing the Green River up in Utah where it had turned cold on him.

He seemed to be a serious, old-time trout bum and got a good kick out of us when we told of our scheme to float the river tomorrow in our latest equipment addition, a used, Sevylor, vinyl raft.

Let’s Go Boating

The following morning I took my time cooking up some breakfast burritos while May was down on the river. Working out of the back of the van off a two-burner Coleman gas stove, I fried up some canned potatoes with slab bacon, scrambled some eggs with diced onions, green chile and diced tomatoes and rolled it all up with some shredded Colby/Jack cheese into a burrito-sized tortilla.

Funny how May was there looking over my shoulder just as I was getting ready to bite into that burrito.

The smell of frying bacon must have brought him in. He stood there grinning and drooling until I forked it over to him and got started on another.

We had always eaten and camped pretty good on these trips, what with the old Dodge, one-ton Maxi-Van hauling everything we needed. Several coolers full of block ice, food and beer. Plenty of water, sleeping bags, tents, camp chairs, fishing gear, extra clothes, tarps, tools, spare parts, you name it we had it stashed away in there.

I slept in it and Wiley, my dog, literally lived out of it, it was a rolling doghouse.

We left May’s rental car behind and climbed into the old workhorse and set off upstream for the parking lot at Baetis Bend. Since we didn’t have a clue what we were doing we decided to make it a short float. It’s maybe a mile from there back down to Simon Canyon.

The boat is a Sevylor. They make lots of these things and seem to know what they’re doing. It has five inflatable chambers and seems quite safe. I checked it out on the Internet.

The only problem is it’s kinda small for a couple of guys and a dog, even a little Whippet/Boston terrier cross like Wiley.

Nonetheless, we hauled it down to the river and climbed in. Floating in the side channel off Baetis Bend we looked out onto the river where several drift boats floated by.

The well-muscled, deeply tanned guides in their rakish broad-rimmed hats sneered haughtily at us and our little craft.

We were in their house now.

As “wet-waders” we always did our utmost to upstage the drift boat guides. Staking claim to prime holes in places like the Lower Flats, forcing the guides to steer clear of us as we steadfastly stood our ground in the middle of the river.

It was an adversarial relationship and one we relished. There was no greater feeling than hooking into a fish, especially on a dry fly, as a guide and his bottom-fishing client looked on with slack lines.

But now we would be an annoying speed-bump out in the deep water and the guides could extract their revenge. I rowed out about a stone’s throw from the side channel and dropped anchor, a plastic, gallon jug full of sand.

May looked at me like, “What’s this? I could have waded out this far!”

The dog peered out over the edge of the raft and looked at nearby shoreline. She was obviously thinking the same thing.

I looked over the edge myself and saw the bottom wasn’t five feet down. After a few half-hearted casts May asked if we could head for the opposing bank.

“At least we’ll be in some water we don’t normally fish over there,” he said.

I inhaled deeply and paddled heartily between a couple of passing boats and beached the raft on the far bank.

We had made it!

Never mind the fact we could have simply waded over to this bank further upstream and then hiked back down. But having floated across somehow made it special. We started fishing and got into a couple big ones right off.

May was jazzed but the real thrills lay around the corner and downstream. There was deep water down there, water we knew couldn’t be waded and had never messed with, water only the boats could get to, water that was just now beginning to boil with risers.


Let the Battle Begin

We climbed into our trusty raft and headed downstream and as we drifted, it was right through a pocket of big bruisers rising to the surface. Their mouths opened wide as they sipped flies an arm’s reach from the boat. We watched in jaw-dropping amazement. You could have reached out and touched them on the head. We had reached the Promised Land.

“Stop the boat!” May pleaded as we floated away from the risers.
“I’m trying,” I cried.

But the anchor wasn’t working, neither was my rowing and when we finally got it turned around we were running afoul of the drift boat guides parked on the edge of the run. They were obviously annoyed with our amateur antics and glared heavily.

This wasn't working so we decided to beach it and try from the shore.

Bad idea.

The cast was too far, the brush kept snagging our lines, and the water was so deep we couldn’t get out any closer. We missed several strikes and now the hatch was beginning to wane. It was maddening.

A number of drifts boats had moved on although there were still several trout rising steadily out in the middle, so we decided to head back out onto the river again. We paddled across to the other side where we dropped anchor just off the bank.

To our amazement, we discovered we were in a strange eddy pool where a vortex of sorts kept us spinning lazily in one place.

This was a little more like it, we nodded in agreement. We tossed out the drys and proceeded to chase the remaining risers.

The time passed as they kept coming and nudged aside our flys for the real things. We still weren’t having any luck.

And then all hell broke loose as I hooked into a big one.

The fish made a run for the deep. The reel screeched and I prayed my knots would hold as the weight of the fleeing fish and the deep water strained the line. This was a strong fish and it hauled us around in circles in our little boat.

May finally figured out how to keep the boat pointed in one direction so I could fight the fish and the seesaw battle continued. When the fished stopped running, I reeled furiously to bring it back in. As it came closer the fish would then struggle mightily to pull off line and swim away again.

This went on for what seemed forever. My arm was killing me and then the fish finally tired and let me bring it up to the surface.

We let out a collective groan of admiration as we saw its size and coloring. It was a beauty!

May offered to net it, but I really wanted to bring it in myself. As I got the net under its undulating body I discovered there was no way it would fit.

Using the net frame like a kitchen spatula I managed to partially lift the trout out of the water only to see it arch its back and spring away - straight back at us and into the boat.

The fish landed on our outstretched legs in the bottom of the boat where it lay still for a moment.

It was as long as my leg from the heel to the knee.

A horrified Wiley scrambled up May’s chest and perched herself atop his head and shoulders.

We all stared in wonder for a moment and then May yelled for me to grab the fish as he dug out his camera. I wet my hands and gently cradled the fish, clipped the line to the fly in its mouth and then held her up for the picture. The fish stirred and then was over the edge and off into the water.


We both sighed with relief. What a catch. And we even had a photo!
After that I was pretty much through for the day and took over the oars again. I know May nabbed a few more but I don’t really recall because I was still replaying that catch over and over in my mind as we drifted slowly downstream.

We beached the raft right at the mouth of Simon Canyon and carried it up the arroyo to the parking lot where Mr. Holthouse was relaxing in the sun. He was obviously impressed at our survival and got a kick out of our big fish story.

That night we dined on American chop suey - boiled elbow macaroni with bottled spaghetti sauce fattened up with fried hamburger, sliced onions and green peppers and then topped with plenty of grated Parmesan cheese. We washed it all down with cold beer.

Around the kerosene lantern later there were many tales told including Mr. Holthouse’s story of how he tore up his new breathable waders walking into a barbed wire fence that day. He went on about how he had some amazing new glue from Loon that works on wet waders and cures by sunlight -in seconds - and how it literally saved his day.

Lucky for me I’m a good listener.

Back to Reality

I splashed out of the marsh willows and humped up the hill to the van parked by the side of the road. Sliding back the side door I sat down with a grunt and began wrestling with the wet boot. It came off with a loud pop and out poured a gallon of water.

No fish though.

I peeled off my sodden wool sock and wiggled out of my wet jeans. Meanwhile Wiley had crawled out from under the sleeping bags to see what was going on and began licking the water off my wet leg.

It’s a dog thing.

Just then an oil field truck drove by and the driver tooted his horn as I stood there in my underwear with a dog licking my leg.

Yup, this was definitely turning out to be one of those days.

I got into some dry clothes and drove down to the fly shop to see if they had any of this wet patch Holthouse was talking about last night. They did and I bought it and slapped some on my wet, leaky wader and sure enough it cured up even though it was cloudy outside.

This was some good stuff I thought as I headed back to the river.

With May working his way downstream I figured I’d catch up with him at Jack’s Hole and we’d fish downstream together from there. I parked the van at Baetis Bend where we’d end up and began hiking up the dirt service road.

I walked along a great marshy area laced with back channels and beaver ponds that separated the river from the road and remembered from past trips that finding just the right spot to cross over might prove tricky.

I hiked just shy of Texas hole and then began working my way over to the river, cutting through the willows on game trails. I came out a couple hundred yards shy of where the river split with the back channel that fed the marsh.

Splashing through the water with Wiley tucked under my arm I finally came around the corner at the head of Jack’s Hole.

There was one guy just above me fishing for risers in the shallows at the head of the back channel. His partner was just below me in one of the secondary holes just below the big drop off at the head of Jack’s Hole.

I recognized the first guy from yesterday when we had chatted down on the Lower Flats. He was wearing a Boston Baseball cap, name of Bob, he had told me how he was at the local bar here, The Sportsman, when the Red Sox won the final game of the World Series last year.

We were there too last year and it seemed to me that I did remember a lone guy wearing a Red Sox cap cheering them on that night.

“That was me,” he said.

Turns out Bob was from Lawrence, Mass. and since I’m from Malden, Mass. we hit it off just fine.

“Hey, Bob, how’s the fishing?” I asked him.

“Not bad,” he said.

“Were you going to hit this hole here?” I asked pointing to the drop-off.

“Already did,” he said. “Have at it.”

I waded out to the top of the hole and tied up a triple rig with a burnt orange worm up top, a red, lava-lace grub in the middle and a brown Johnny Flash on the bottom.

I floated it down over the edge of the shelf and it dropped into the boil below. I saw a shadow move just below the shelf, felt the line dip and I was on.

The fish turned and ran back into the big water, peeling off line as it ran, and ran and ran. It took me well downstream and into the next big hole. Then there was nothing. Broke off? Spit the hook? Either way, it was gone.

As I reeled up the slack line I looked across the river and saw May picking his way down the hillside.

Right on time. He gave me the thumbs up.

I checked my rig -- everything was still intact. The fish had simply outrun me and spit out the hook as the line slackened.

I tossed it back in and Bam! I was on again.

I laughed. Hey, maybe it was going to be one of those days.

We ended up fishing opposite sides of the same hole, rod tips twitching, lines singing, joyous hoots as one fish after the other took our rigs and ran.

A guide parked his boat on the far bank just above the hole, setting out a table and chairs for lunch. His client never took his eyes off us as he ate.

It seemed we were always on and a lot of times at the same time. That poor guide sure had had his work cut out for him now.

At one point I waded out into the fast water, dangerously close to my wader tops, headed for a rock island. I tiptoed my way to it and climbed up where I could see way down into the current. Then I watched as a fish took my rig on the tail end of the cast. Its sides flashed silver, red and blue as it twisted and rolled in the current.

That fish turned out to be a fairly stout and lengthy rainbow just bursting with color, vitality and strength. As I cradled it in the net and backed the barb-less hook from its mouth I knew I was finally having one of those days.

A Glenn May kinda day.

I was back in 2003 when I first coined that phrase. We were fishing the river with another guy, James Sandoval of Los Lunas, and he and I were doing poorly but there was Glenn off on the far bank, hooked up as usual.

I remember James asking, “What’s up with this guy?” I told him how May lived a trout bum’s life, the gods found him worthy and he could do no wrong.

And I told him the best that guys like us could ever ask for was a Glenn May kinda day.

This story is dedicated to Glenn Foster May who has since retired from the news racket and moved on to the Peace Corps where he is currently stationed in Cameroon, Africa teaching English. God bless and watch over him.