Truchas Chapter of Trout Unlimited Gives Cutthroats a Hand

A Rio Grande Cutthroat from Alamitos Creek in Northern New Mexico.

Shadows dart back and forth in the cold, clear stream here in the mountains high above the Sipapu ski valley.

They’re native cutthroat trout and their purity and abundance in Alamitos Creek could be essential to the survival of the threatened species.

That’s why the Truchas Chapter of Trout Unlimited (TU) is spearheading an effort to build a barrier to protect the population of 4,000 to 5,000 pure strain Rio Grande cutthroats living in about seven miles of the remote creek.

“They may be one of the best allies the cutthroat has,” says Juan Martinez, fisheries biologist for the Carson National Forest. “They’re instrumental in getting projects like this done.”

Due to budget restrictions, manpower limitations and the nature of the federal bureaucracy, such a project could take years for the Forest Service to implement, Martinez says.

But with assistance from the local TU chapter, funds have already been secured to pay for an environmental analysis this winter and construction late next summer if approved.

“This is a beneficial project with minimal environmental impact so it shouldn’t be a problem,” says Martinez, a Taos native with a Fisheries and Wildlife Sciences degree from New Mexico State University.

A concrete fish barrier on the stream would prevent other non-native trout such as brown or rainbow trout from infiltrating the stream and taking over the habitat.

Alamitos Creek links up with the Rio Pueblo which flows through Peñasco and on down to the Rio Grande.

For years, an aging head gate on an irrigation ditch has helped keep invading trout from moving upstream into cutthroat habitat, but a new barrier is needed to guarantee that doesn’t happen.

Now all that protects the Alamitos Creek purestrain population of cutthroats is a vunerable wooden, irrigation headgate.

The pure strain cutthroats in Alamitos Creek could then provide an infusion of life for other cutthroat streams such as Comanche Creek in the Valle Vidal where an ambitious cutthroat restoration project is underway, says Kirk Patten, fisheries biologist with the state Department of Game and Fish (NMDGF).

Comanche Creek will undergo a second attempt at sterilization this summer to eliminate any non-native fish that remained in about 20 miles of stream after an initial treatment last summer.

The NMDGF then hopes to restock the creek and its tributaries by next summer with pure strain Rio Grande Cutthroats.

The overall plan is to return about 120 to 150 miles of water within the Valle Vidal watershed to exclusive cutthroat habitat.

The Rio Grande cutthroat is the state’s native fish but has seen its historic range reduced to just 10 percent with only 13 core populations left in the state, Patten says.

The colorful trout at one time ranged throughout the entire Rio Grande, Pecos and Canadian rivers watershed area, covering about 6,600 miles of water in Southern Colorado and Northern New Mexico, says Patten.

The population of pure strain cutthroats in Alamitos Creek could prove invaluable in helping the native trout recover.

“It’s very important to the overall status of the restoration effort,” he says.

Eggs from Alamitos Creek cutthroats can be used to raise fry at the state’s exclusive cutthroat hatchery at Seven Springs for eventual restocking in other rivers, creeks and steams.

Some of the cutthroats can also join others stored at McClure Reservoir above Santa Fe to be used as brood stock for future breeding applications.

And others could be directly transplanted into a cutthroat stream to mingle with a resident population and increase genetic diversity, Patten says.

Patten, who coordinates the state’s Rio Grande Cutthroat Recovery Project, agrees that without the help of organizations such as Trout Unlimited some of the recovery project’s goals might be hampered.

“We’re financially challenged on some of these projects,” he said. “It’s a big help to have them come up with funds for this.”

Arnold Atkins, current president of the Truchas Chapter of Trout Unlimited, said the Alamitos Creek barrier would be the second the organization has raised funds for.

The group helped raised $100,000 needed to construct a new fish barrier on Comanche Creek on Forest Road 1950 near the confluence of Little Costilla Creek last year.

That barrier will keep non-native fish in the Costilla Creek watershed from migrating upstream into the cutthroat restoration area.

Then work started on this latest project, which is considered a top priority.

“This may be one of the largest populations of pure strain cutthroats in the state,” says Atkins, a semi-retired surgeon who grew up in the Española Valley and graduated from Los Alamos High School in 1960. “This was something that could do the most good in the shortest period of time, so we got on it.”

From left to right. Arnold Atkins, President of the Truchas Chapter of Trout Unlimited and John Miera, Carson National Forest's Camino Real District Ranger listen as Juan Martinez, Carson National Forest fisheries biologist, talks on the bank of Alamitos Creek.

The group raised about $7,000 from its members and during its annual banquet which features raffles and auctions.

Then they approached a sister Trout Unlimited chapter in Austin, Texas, the Guadalupe River Chapter, which apparently has plenty of money but little in the way of streams to spend it on and secured another $3,000, Atkins said.

The $10,000 should cover the environmental analysis of the project which is required by law.

A fund has been established, the Rio Grande Cutthroat Restoration Fund, specifically to collect funds to be used for environmental analysis because many granting organizations will not cover these costs, Atkins said.

The Truchas chapter, in conjunction with the Forest Service and state Game and Fish, applied for and received a $50,000 grant from the Western Native Trout Initiative for the barrier’s construction.

“They ranked this as one of their most important projects,” he said.

The estimated to cost of construction is $70,000 to $80,000, Atkins says.

Anyone interested in contributing to the cause can contact the organization through their website at www.truchas-tu.org.


The Rio Grande Cutthroat Restoration Project’s goal is to reduce threats to the state trout’s survival and improve its ability to prosper, says Patten.

Success of the department’s long-range plan would also nullify the need for the trout’s protection under the Federal Endangered Species Act. Such protection could result in land use and sport fishing restrictions.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFW) this spring filed notice of its intent to pursue listing of the trout on their threatened or endangered species list.

Success of the reintroduction effort in the Valle Vidal would go a long way towards addressing some of the USFW concerns for listing the trout, says Patten.

Much of the groundwork for that success has already been done, for example, roads have been closed off and in some cases eliminated because they cause excessive runoff and erosion that fouls waters.

Stream banks have been rebuilt and restored with native vegetation to create a healthier environment for fish to thrive. And non-native fish such as rainbow trout and white suckers have been eliminated to allow the Rio Grande cutthroats a clean start in their restored home waters.

Much of that work has involved volunteer groups such as the Truchas Chapter of Trout Unlimited, New Mexico Trout, the Quivera Coalition and the New Mexico Wildlife Federation.

Meanwhile, high in the mountains above the highway between Peñasco and Mora lies a creek teeming with cutthroats just waiting to play their role in the ongoing recovery effort.


This article was originally published in the print edition of the Santa Fe New Mexican on Aug. 28, 2008.

Valle Vidal Cutthroat Restoration Underway Again

A Rio Grande Cutthroat

State Department of Game and Fish staff are back in the Valle Vidal and Vermejo Park this summer for another shot at sterilizing streams to be restocked later with native Rio Grande cutthroat trout.

Crews in August will be re-treating about 20 miles of Comanche Creek and its tributaries north of the newly installed fish barrier on Forest Road 1950 near the confluence of Little Costilla Creek, said Kirk Patten, fisheries biologist for the state Department of Game and Fish.

Last summer, the creek's fish population underwent unlimited angler harvesting, physical removal through electro-shocking and then an application of the chemical rotenone to poison any remaining fish in an attempt to sanitize the creek for restocking with pure-strain, native, Rio Grande cutthroat trout.

But numerous fish survived the onslaught, requiring yet another attempt to eradicate the last of any remaining non-natives, Patten said.

Patten, coordinator of the state's Rio Grande cutthroat restoration effort, said it is not unusual to require repeated attempts at clearing a stream before it can be declared fit for restocking.

"The hope was we could put fish back in this fall," he said. "But it's more likely we won't stock until next summer."

Anglers this summer will be able to fish for cutthroats in the four-mile stretch of Comanche Creek upstream of the confluence of the Rio Costilla at Comanche Point to the barrier just below the confluence of Little Costilla Creek, Patten said.

"There's plenty of fish in there," he said.

An angler fishes at the confluence of the Rio Costilla and Comanche Creek.

Crews will also be heading back into Ted Turner's Vermejo Park ranch adjacent to the Valle Vidal to re-treat another stretch of stream that had been previously cleared and restocked with what were supposed to have been pure-strain cutthroats.

But after restocking the stream with trout from the state's cutthroat hatchery at Seven Springs, Turner ranch personnel reported finding a cross- breed of rainbow and cutthroat trout known as a "cutbow" inhabiting the stream.

Turner has long pursued his own wildlife conservation and reintroduction efforts on his private ranches and is cooperating with state Game and Fish officials to reintroduce the cutthroat throughout the shared watershed in the Valle Vidal area.

Mike Sloan, chief of the Fisheries Division for the state, told state game commissioners at a November 2007 meeting in Raton that rainbow trout were used to test the Seven Springs Cutthroat Hatchery before it came online and some of those were undetected and apparently got mixed in with the cutthroats delivered to Turner's ranch.

The department has since taken a number of measures to ensure that its brood stock of cutthroat trout remains pure and no more mix-ups occur, Patten said.

The department efforts include keeping a population of its cutthroat brood stock in Santa Fe's protected reservoirs and raising their young at the cutthroat-only hatchery at Seven Springs in the Jemez Mountains.

The effort is part of an ambitious, overall restoration plan to return the state's native fish to its historic ranges, such as the Valle Vidal watershed.

Comanche Creek in the Valle Vidal.

Competition from non-native fish, such as rainbow and brown trout; environmental impacts such as mining, logging and cattle grazing; and human development have reduced the trout's habitat to about 10 percent of its native range with only 13 core populations left in the state.

The state's goal is to reduce threats to the Rio Grande cutthroat trout's survival and improve its ability to prosper, Patten said.

Success of the department's long-range plan would also nullify the need for the trout's protection under the Federal Endangered Species Act, which could result in land-use and sport-fishing restrictions.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in May filed notice of its intent to pursue listing of the trout on its threatened or endangered species list.

Success of the reintroduction effort in the Valle Vidal would go a long way toward addressing some of the agency's concerns for listing the trout, Patten said.

Much of the groundwork for that success has already been greatly enhanced by habitat work done on Comanche Creek and the surrounding countryside.

Roads are nearly closed off or, in some cases, roads that cause excessive runoff and erosion that fouls waters have been eliminated.

Stream banks have been rebuilt and restored with native vegetation to create a healthier environment for fish to thrive. And non-native fish such as rainbow trout and white suckers have been eliminated to allow the Rio Grande cutthroats a clean start in their restored home waters.

Much of that work has involved volunteer groups such as the Truchas Chapter of Trout Unlimited, New Mexico Trout, the Quivera Coalition and the New Mexico Wildlife Federation.

This article also appeared in the Santa Fe New Mexican's Outdoors section.

Valle Caldera Opens East Fork of Jemez River to Public Fishing

The Valles Caldera National Preserve has opened the East Fork of the Jemez River to fishing by reservation and for a fee.

The new program is more flexible than the lottery system already in place for those who want to fish the Rio San Antonio on the backside of the sprawling ranch located between Los Alamos and Jemez Springs on State Road 4, says Preserve Manager Dennis Trujillo.

Customers can now spend a day on the front half of the 89,000-acre ranch, stalking trout in about 10 miles of stream including the East Fork of the Jemez River and Jaramillo Creek, he said.

Ten reservation slots are available daily, six for the public and four for preserve-approved guides and the cost to the public is $50 for a day’s access and fishing and $125 for guides’ clients, Trujillo said.

Interested anglers can reserve slots online for a future date or call the preserve at (505) 670-1612 or drop by to see if any slots remain unfilled on any given day.

Fishing is catch and release with barbless hooks, no waders of nets allowed to protect against whirling disease. Pets are not allowed.

Anglers can then hike in and fish anywhere they want on the East Fork of the Jemez River and Jaramillo Creek anytime between 7 a.m. and 5 p.m. and will share the water with their fellow anglers.

“It offers more flexibility for the customer,” Trujillo said.

In contrast, the San Antonio fishing program relegates anglers to a “beat” or section of the stream about a mile or so long with no swapping of beats allowed.

Fishing is catch and release with barbless hooks, no waders of nets allowed and a bag limit of five fish.

San Antonio anglers are also ferried to their assigned location on the river and must remain there until picked up by a preserve employee or volunteer.

And San Antonio anglers must arrive by 5:45 a.m. and leave by 2 p.m. They pay $5 per chance to win in the lottery and $25 to fish if they win.

The author and a fishing partner, former Albuquerque Tribune fishing columnist and Rio Grande Sun reporter, Glenn May, were recently granted access to try out the fishing on the ranch formerly known as the Baca.

Purchased by the federal government from the Dunigan family of Texas in 2000 for a little over a $100 million, the preserve is mandated to operate as a working ranch with public access and become self sufficient by 2015.

According to its latest report to Congress the preserve was budgeted $3.5 million in 2007 for operations, earned $750,000 from its recreation and other programs and saw about 12,000 visitors that year.

See the preserves' website at www.vallescaldera.gov for more information about its operations.

Driving through the early morning fog as elk bounded across the gravel road, we couldn’t help but be struck by the beauty of the ranch, its wildlife and scenery.

Coming around a corner as we searched for the headwaters of the East Fork we encountered two bull elk staring us down, their velvet covered racks impressively highlighted by the mist behind them.

At another point a wary coyote ran up a hillside, constantly looking over its shoulder as it headed for safety.

And elk herds hung out in the tree line, gazing down at us before slowly disappearing into the shade.

We never did find the headwaters of the East Fork but we did stumble across little Jaramillo Creek meandering through the tall grass.

And a few casts in a pool by the road produced strikes from one of its residents.
On to the lower East Fork of the Jemez River we choose a stretch between the parking area and the front gate. We felt rushed as menacing thunderclouds loomed overhead and the possibility of lightning advanced.

Fighting through relentless swarms of painful deer flies and eager strikes from chubs sharing this slow moving, shallow stretch of creek, May caught and released a nice, 14-inch rainbow trout while I picked up a smaller version upstream.

Photo courtesy of Glenn F. May.

Trujillo says the stream is chock full of 8- to 12-inch average sized fish with some bigger ones in the lower stretch of the stream and some anglers have reported 50 fish days.

May noted one might have similar luck on other public streams for far less money but concluded it was the scenery that really made it worth the trip.

“This would be a great gift to give someone who loves the outdoors and fishes,” he said.

And perhaps that’s really what makes the Valles Caldera so unique, it’s a special treat to visit and enjoy for a day.


If You Go:

From Santa Fe head north on US84/285 to Pojoaque and take State Road 502 to White Rock and then follow State Road 4 up through the mountains and upon emerging into a great, open area look for the entrance to the preserve on your right, about 65 miles. A much longer but scenic round trip involves heading south on I-25 to Bernalillo and taking State Road 550 west to the State Road 4 turnoff at San Ysidro, passing through Jemez Pueblo, Jemez Springs and La Cueva to the preserve and then heading back to Santa Fe through White Rock and Pojoaque, about 170 miles.

This article also appeared in what was the last edition of the Santa Fe New Mexican's Outdoors section which has since been eliminated along with several other sections as a cost cutting measure.

Ant Fall on the San Juan River Amazes Anglers

Glenn F. May shows off a nice San Juan River Rainbow Trout caught during an ant fall on July 21, 2008. Photo courtesy of a passing angler.

They landed on the water with a plop and then began to wiggle and squirm.

Big, black, flying ants and plenty of them.

It didn’t take long for the trout to rise from the bottom and start gulping them down.

We had lucked into the rare and legendary ant fall on the trophy class waters of the San Juan River below Navajo Dam in the northwestern corner of New Mexico.


Our luck started with a stop in at Abe’s Motel and Fly shop where the guy behind the counter noted the previous evening’s heavy rain and suggested conditions were ripe for such an event.

Then Ron of Resolution Guide Service wandered in looking for Chernobyl Ants and offered us suggestions on where and how to fish them, in the fast water with a splash, he said.

This was the same guy who went out of his way pick me up one day while I was trying to thumb a ride from the “take-out” at the gravel pit back up to the “put-in” at Texas Hole.

My brother-in-law was up there waiting for me with his drift boat. I had driven the truck down under the mistaken assumption that it would be easy to thumb a ride back up.

Ron picked me up and told me otherwise.

Nice guy, most fishermen are, but it seems there’s plenty of others in this neck of the woods who couldn’t be bothered.

So we grabbed a few of the Chernobyls along with a number of smaller ant patterns featuring florescent green foam indicators on top.

Armed with these big, heavy flies we set out for our old haunting grounds at Baetis Bend.

I was fishing with my oldest, best fishing buddy and also a fellow former, newspaper reporter, Glenn Foster May, who just returned from a two-year stint with the Peace Corps in Africa.

His return to the San Juan was to be the opening act in several weeks of fishing New Mexico and Colorado to celebrate his homecoming.

We waded into the river through the a foggy mist and set up shop by the island where May got right into them while fishing deep with the gray, RS2, Baetis emerger for a dropper.


My time came when the ants began to fall since I prefer dry flies off the top.

I took to the top water action with a passion, casting to each rising fish and then hooking into them with satisfaction.

I always looked at fishing nymphs as a way to simply pass the time till the risers appeared, especially here on the San Juan.

These fish fought hard, ran deep and leaped magnificently.

They were beautifully colored Rainbow Trout with the occasional Brown Trout mixed in, all well within the 16 to 19-inch range and one 20-incher to May’s credit.

I couldn’t help but wonder what the "doom and gloomers" who constantly whine about the San Juan’s decline would have to say on a day like today.

Probably something like it used to be even better, young fella!

But on this day the river was in great condition due to an unusually wet winter that forced the Bureau of Reclamation to release reservoir water at a much higher rate and for much longer than usual.

The high flows scoured out silt and sediment which improves insect production and gave the river’s dense population of trout a break from near constant fishing pressure found at lower flows.

Now we were enjoying the benefit as we caught and released one amazing fish after another.

But it was up in the seam of the deep run just below the lower flats that I hooked into the fish of the trip, a monster that refused to come out of the deep water and seemed to have fought forever.

I finally landed her by the bank and hurried to take some photos before returning her to the water.


Then I realized she wasn’t recovering well once she was back in the water.

I held her tail and slipped a hand under her belly and began to gently sway her back and forth to get some water flowing over her gills.

She seemed to recover so I let her go and watched as she slowly moved off to a nearby underwater outcrop where she stopped and rested.

I watched as she sat motionless, her mouth opening and closing and then she began to roll over onto her side.

I waded out and reached in to right her and held her again, swaying her back and forth in the water in an effort to keep her alive.

I felt ashamed for subjecting her to the added strain of suffocating on the bank while she waited for me to take her photograph.

I hoped and prayed she would recover and then suddenly she just seemed to snap awake and struggled to escape my grip.

I let her go and she swam off into the deeper water where she returned to the surface several times to seemingly take a breath of air.

Then she disappeared back into the depths.


We figured that the fish must have been 24 or 25 inches long when comparing her to the 22-inch, overall length of my net.

The rain of ants ended soon that overcast morning but I found that the trout up in the lower flats were still keying in on the surface so I switched to a stimulator and earned plenty more strikes.

We had stumbled into a rare day that normally only those who work on the river have the chance experience.

The following morning we decided to fish in the quiet, lower stretch of the river where San Juan Fisheries Biologist, Marc Wethington, of the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish had installed strategically placed boulders to improve the habitat for trout.


We found plenty of willing fish here to take our flies but were more impressed with the depth of some of the pools that had been carved out by the high water behind the installed boulders.

The stream bottom here also featured a clean gravel bed, free of the heavy layer of silt and sand that used to be found here before the habitat work had been done.

Apparently the boulders did their job in keeping the water churned up so sediment remained suspended in the water to be carried downstream.

Add some more seed stock here and this area will be great place to get away from the crowds found upstream.

This too was another subject the "doom and gloomers" of the San Juan who claimed this project was just a waste of time and money.

They point fingers at the oil and gas industry and the bureau of reclamation and claim they're ruining the river.

But do they offer anything in the way of concrete solutions to the problem of low water flows and silt like this project did?


I just wonder sometimes what it is these folks want anyhow?

It seems that they’ve forgotten that the dam was created to store and deliver water and the great fishing is simply a byproduct of that much larger mission.

They should try spending a day on some of New Mexico's real streams where sucessful fishing can be tough work and reeling in a single, 14-inch Brown is a real prize.

I mean it’s great to get into the number and size of the fish found below Navajo Dam but lets get real, the San Juan fishery is nothing more than an artificially created theme park that only exists because of the dam’s greater mission.

Some of these guys might want to tone down the rhetoric and instead come up with some real, workable solutions to the issues before they completely alienate those whose support they'll really need to "save the river."

Photo courtesy of Glenn F. May.

Santa Cruz Lake Delivers

It’s a fine way to wile away a summer afternoon, sitting under the cool shade of a towering cottonwood, watching the clouds build up and waiting for a fish to bite.

And Santa Cruz Lake in the hills overlooking Española delivers in a big way.

Located just 35 miles north of Santa Fe, this Bureau of Land Management (BLM) operated recreation area provides camping and picnic shelters, a boat dock and floating fishing pier and some of the cleanest restrooms in the business.

“We’re well known for that,” Karen Martinez says with pride after she checks a visitor’s permit at the lake’s office one recent day.

In years past the lake might have been better known for its rowdy residents, auto break-ins, random thefts and trashed-out atmosphere.

But conditions have improved at the lake with regular patrols and oversight from hardworking locals like Martinez, 49, of Rio Chiquito.

“Because someone’s here all the time now, things have quieted down,” she says with guarded optimism. “We try different things to keep it that way.”

Martinez, a seasonal BLM worker, says local law enforcement officers also make it a habit to swing through the recreation area on a routine basis, especially on the weekends and evenings, to keep a lid on things.

Nonetheless, she cautions those who visit the remote lake located below the historic Spanish settlement of Cundiyo.

“I wouldn’t leave a generator sitting out while you go fishing all day,” she said. “It’s just common sense. Secure your valuables.”

And while the lake has always been a favorite spot for Española Valley locals, the high price of gas these days has made it even more popular.

“We’ve got people from Española bringing up their motor homes,” she says with a laugh.

That’s quite a feat considering the steep, narrow, twisty road that leads down to the lake’s recreation area and the limited number of campsites that can accommodate such vehicles.

The lake is well known among anglers for another reason.


It is the home of the state record rainbow trout held by Peter Romero of Santa Fe who in March 1999 while fishing with six-pound test line and a homemade jig is said to have hooked and landed a 31-pound, 33½-inch rainbow trout.

A battered picture of Romero holding the fish graces the bulletin board inside the BLM’s office at the lake.

The lake is popular with boaters and allows their use at trolling speed only. The facilities at the lake include a good ramp and a spacious parking lot.

Those who fish from the bank can find plenty of trails leading around the lake to prime fishing spots including a steep, tortuous trail from the overlook campground down to the north end of the lake where Santa Cruz creek enters.

The overlook campground features several campsites situated along the rim of a mesa high above the lake. It is a remote campground occasionally visited by locals and not as well patrolled as the lakeside recreation area.

The overlook campground offers greats views of the lake and Española Valley below and the Sangre de Cristo Mountains to the rear.


Martinez said what with the price of gas being what it is these days there seems to be more out-of-towners stopping by at the lake.

“We’re getting a lots of new folks asking for information,” she says.

Martinez notes that a season’s pass for admission to the lake and other BLM recreation areas in northern New Mexico like the Rio Grande at Pilar and at the Wild Rivers at Cerro is a bargain for only $20 a year.

The season pass allows unlimited day use at these areas while a one-day pass costs $5.

Martinez said visitors should know swimming isn’t allowed at the lake but waist deep wading is tolerated. Well-behaved and leashed dogs are welcome and alcohol consumption is not prohibited.


If You Go:

From Santa Fe take 84/285 north to the Nambe turnoff just north of Pojoaque. Take State Road 503 up through the village of Cundiyo and follow the sign down to Santa Cruz Lake. On the way, just past the turnoff to Chimayo, you will see the entrance to the Santa Cruz overlook; pull in here for a great view of the lake and surrounding valley. About 35 miles one-way. Last chance for gas and groceries in Pojoaque.