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New Mexico Easter 2002 New Mexico Fishing 3/23/02 Hours fished ~3
I fished Rio Cebolla at the first bridge above Fenton Lake. I had planned to fish the meadow section but the road is still closed. Fenton Lake was just at Ice Out and while fishing the lake was tempting, I would be fishing lakes all summer. The Rio was much lower than it was last year. I started with a size 14 Royal Wulff, a pattern that had worked very well last year. I went fishless for the first hour or hour and half and then changed to a size 12 Prince Nymph. On the second cast to the inside of a sweeping left hand bend I landed a 10 inch Rainbow. The fishing improved as I relaxed and became comfortable with my tight, brushy surroundings. Short accurate casts to areas where one could achieve a good drift were the ticket. Loud plopping casts near the bank drew larger fish out from underneath the bank. Fish actively rising were taken with a size 16 parachute Adams. Played fish from 5 to 13 inches with most fish being in the 10 inch range. I scared one 18inch fish from its feeding lie as I made my way back to the car. I must admit, he startled me as much as I startled him. It’s hard to believe that a fish that large could live in such a tiny stream. It barely had enough room to turn around. 3/24/02 Los Huertos Creek Hours fished ~2
The drive up to the Los Huertos Creek today
was a little more distressing than usual. During a normal year there’s not
much water in the creek. This year, the first area I expected to see water was
frozen over. The next area, were I would normally start fishing was bone dry and
the area where I park was low and still. I parked the car and did a little scouting,
deliberately trying to scare up some fish. Nothing. As I was walking back to the
car, a fellow in a truck drove up and shouted “cool, there’s water!”
“Yeah, but NO fish”, I replied. Undaunted, he continued up stream. Back at the car I almost packed it in. Fortunately, I had nothing better to do and nothing to loose by fishing a probably dead creek. The gamble paid off and I managed to move some fish by dapping a bead head Prince Nymph next to cover in the deeper (12 to 15 inch) plunge pools. This stream is so brushy that at times I had no more 6 inches of leader outside of my tip top. The trout in this stream are so well camouflaged against their environment that they are almost black in color. This fact makes me think that these trout are not recent planters as I had been told in the past but are either wild or hold over fish. The creek had a similar amount of water in it last Thanksgiving and is quite shaded. There may actually be a reproducing population of fish here.
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