El Rito- Carson National Forest
El Rito |
El Rito is a good sized stream running in a parallel valley to the larger
Rio Vallecitos on the east. And while I had heard of the Vallecitos
from articles in several New Mexico fishing books, El Rito barely rates
more than just a mention as a place where one might catch cutthroat
trout. On my first inspection of the stream, I began to understand why.
First, the two lower sections of the stream (along NM 111) that are on
Forest Service land have obviously been beaten down for years by
unrestricted grazing and dispersed camping. The conditions appear
better on the upper section, where there is some effort now to restrict the
streamside spider web of "roads" on the part of the Forest Service with
new regulations and various types of barriers. Second, much of this lower, more easily accessed part of the stream from the town of El Rito all the way to FR106 is on private land. In the spots I stopped to check, the stream was shallow, warm and filled with muck, but I still spied a few trout right in the
campground amidst the cow pies, beer cans and toilet paper.
Mostly like they were browns. I certainly did not want to fish here,
especially when the area begins filling up with campers on the weekend.
Lower section of El Rito |
I
now had my eye further upstream; past the last section of private
property just above FR 106. Here the roads (FR 173 and FR 274), not
maintained and not easily traversed, were not within a third to first
throw to the stream. This is where the cutthroats should be. We parked
our truck where unmaintained FR 173 and well maintained FR 106
intersect high above and to the east of El Rito. We began hiking north
on FR 173 turning west on an old (grass was growing on it) but clearly
defined road that eventually became a trail which brought us to a
clearing and a . . . fence. As I suspected we hadn't walked far enough
north to bypass the section of private property.
We trudged along the
cow trail next to the fence until we joyously entered into a beautiful,
unfettered semi -wooded valley with the clean, cool creek burbling
along in the middle. We had our picnic lunch under the shade of a large
evergreen. We hiked on little farther and then I began to fish. The action was fast and fun for
the many little cutthroats with a bite at almost every other cast. I
threw my dry flies to every spot that looked deep enough to hold a
fish and was rewarded with five or six in less than an hours time. It
seemed perfect until I reached the herd of cattle upstream. I don't how
many there were. They were under trees and bushes, in the meadows and in
the stream. I couldn't cast without the possibility of hooking one (they
weren't going anywhere either). So I turned downstream, trying my luck
in all the same spots and few new ones as well, bringing in a couple more
small, colorful cutts as I did.
Labels: flyfishing, hiking
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