Rio Grande cutthroat

Since I moved to New Mexico a year ago, my friend, the artist who created my Issa fly rod, has been after me to get a photo of the rod with one of New Mexico's native trout. Well, he's been kinda after me. I think he knows I'm not really a fisherman.

I've been eyeing Peralta Creek for a while now. The Rio Grande cutthroat trout - native only to New Mexico and southern Colorado, and now found in only about 10-20 percent of their historic range - are still there and still pure, according to "Fly Fishing in Northern New Mexico." The book said it's a 4-mile hike to the creek, which is 4 feet wide and 2 feet deep at the most and holds tiny trout - "8 inches is a great fish, 10 inches is a monster" - that will "strike at almost anything that drifts by with a natural float."

My kind of creek. After all, who would hike 4 miles to a 4-foot-wide creek with nothing in it larger than 10 inches? Nobody but me, I hoped.

The four-mile hike ended up being a rough, four-mile drive. But there was still no one there on this Saturday before Labor Day.

So I walked along this tiny creek thinking, "There are no fish in here. No way. At least nothing larger than my thumb." And, "Devin should be here; he'd catch something." Really, this is more his kind of creek than mine. He taught me to appreciate these little trickles.

I looked in every tiny hole, trying to spook a fish to prove there was anything there. Couldn't see a thing. Then, from downstream, I saw this hole.















I crept up toward the hole, put my rod together, tied on a little caddis-style attractor fly, and cast to the head of the hole. The fly drifted a little, then was slurped under. Here's the fish:




This monster is 11 inches - a new Peralta Creek record! Unfortunately for Mr. Issa, the camera was in video mode and I didn't notice until the fish had been swimming in the creek again for about an hour.

Just wait'll next year.