First fish(es) of the year...

I don't fish much these days, and so this TR documents
the first fish I caught this year, and several thereafter.

I actually did break out my flyrod earlier this year, as
I mentioned on ROFF before. In march I fished about 20min
on the Middle Fork of the Gila, during a lunch break on
a horseback ride into the Middle Fork. The river was high
and I caught nothing.

Two weekends ago my wife and I did a one-night pack-in
with our horse, mule, and burro into the Mimbres River
in the Aldo Leopold Wilderness Area. While we've done
plenty of truck camping, this was our first pack-in camp,
and was an experiment in seeing how we overcame certain
logistical difficulties, you can see pictures he

http://www.cs.nmsu.edu/~jcook/Pics/mimbres-packtrip/

It went well, and I had my 3wt with me, but again I didn't
catch anything on my 20min lunch break! The river was
extremely low, dry in some places, and the fish were
incredibly shy. With the low clear water and predators
around (we spooked two herons off the river), the trout
were virtually impossible to cast to. I was unsuccessful
on a couple of pools, and then lunch was over. But I did
see good numbers of fish up to about 6-7".

Two days later we left for a trip up to Colorado to visit
family. But we took our time, and stayed two days in
Angel Fire, NM for our 9th anniversary. Nice place! If
you're thinking of going in the near future, "Rustic
Retreats" has great rates on nice, new cabins. Email me
for info.

On the way we stopped at Coyote Creek State Park, a little
park with a creek and beaver ponds that a friend recommended
to us. It was here I hooked (and landed) my first fish of
the year -- unfortunately a stocker bow, followed by a bunch
more. Anyways, it was good casting practice :-)

On our anniversary day, my wife insisted I take some time
and fish the Cimmaron River below Eagle Nest Lake. Who am
I to argue? We were driving up from the town of Cimarron
(visited there and the Philmont Scout Ranch), and so I
stopped in the regular waters just above the Scout land.
Over 30 minutes of plinking in the pools I hooked but
didn't land several fish, including probably a couple of
about a foot, one at least definitely a wild brown. It
was raining and I was soaked by then, but it was warm so
no big deal.

I stopped one more place, up in the special regs water, to
see if it would be any better (regs are 1 fish over 16").
Some baetis were flying about so I put on a brown SJW with
an #20 RS2 trailing it. Fishing was _very_ good, with bigger
fish around. I didn't fish long but hooked two bows about
12-13", and hooked and landed two browns about 13" and 14",
both deep bodied and strong (and both jumped). The bigger
brown took the RS2, but the smaller one took the SJW just
as it hit the water on a cast I had to flick under the
overhanging willows. It was way cool to see his yellow shape
come up and take it.

Though named a river, this water is pretty small (USGS shows
about 18cfs during the time I was there), and those fish fought
like big fish, shaking their heads and peeling a little
line off my 3wt. A good way to start the year ;-)

Jon.