Rio Ruidoso- Upper Canyon

Before we left to return to Las Cruces last Wednesday morning ( 8/1/18), I got in a couple of hours fishing on the Ruidoso River. I've fished it four times now: once on the Mescalero Reservation when it was still available to do so, twice going downstream from Two Rivers Park and now this time: my first visit to the Upper Canyon.
 I parked at a pullout near where Main Rd. crosses back over the river to the south side. I rigged up my bright yellow and brand new Redington Butter Stick rod and headed upstream. The water looked pretty good, considering the  stream had been flooding over bridges and brown as YooHoo just two days before. It was still at its normal summertime level of murky, (you could only see the bottom in the  shallower runs) but clear enough for flies. My low expectations of success, fishing so close on the heels of flood event, were quickly met, but I continued on upstream.
This really is a beautiful river. Shaded by tall conifers, wide enough for easy casting with only the occasional box elder trying to snag your fly, with beautiful small falls and chutes through gray bedrock, you can almost forget you are right in the middle of a busy little tourist city. Almost. Apparently Wednesday is trash day in the neighborhood, so the constant beeping of the garbage truck and the clanging of the dumpsters as they set them down was a good reminder.
 I headed back downstream after about an hour, some of that precious time wasted trying to thread on flies and tie knots with glasses of an insufficient magnification ( only later did I realized I had the more powerful 2.5X pair in my backpack all along), with not even a single bite, approach or even a glimpse of a fish.
 I walked around the bridge, half stumbling down the rocks and stirring up a bunch brown garter snakes in the process. The pools below the culvert and deep water where the stream ran up against a concrete retaining wall were my last remaining hope. I got a bite. Then another as I let the falling water push my fly below the surface. Finally, I got the fish on. It was a very different feeling with the super slow action of the fiberglass four weight. I had to play it a little more than I'm used to because of that, but also because the fish was a heavy rainbow that ran to 12 or 13 inches.  I released him and then continued fishing downstream but with no luck. Still, that was nice prize for 2 hours of effort and a fun way to start off with the new rod hopefully on a long friendship.