Days 27-29, June 16-18, Jack Creek New Mexico

“Don't be afraid to be alone.”

That’s the advice my camping neighbor Mike received from a football coach a few decades ago, and I thought it was good counsel.  Mike’s the President of a private equity firm based in Austin, TX.  When I was a practicing CPA, many of my clients were private equity firms, so I could relate to Mike's work easily, and we struck up a nice conversation. He told me about being a football player at Texas A&M.  Mike didn’t have a father figure in his life, so he often cast about for life lessons from male authorities he met, including the aforementioned coach.  The advice about being alone surprised him, but he never forgot it, and it's wisdom I've long held to.

On Day 27 of my long journey I awakened in the morning twilight and looked out of one of Camelot’s windows to see a full yellow moon just above the horizon. I took that as a good omen and soon launched off for New Mexico, about six hours to the west. Passing through west Oklahoma, then the panhandle of Texas, and finally into eastern New Mexico, Excalibur bucked a fierce crosswind as the landscape transitioned from the red dirt hills to high desert, and finally to mountains as I approached the town of Pecos in the middle of the afternoon.

My goal was to make it to the Pecos River northeast of Santa Fe to fish and camp, but as I drove upstream from the town, I was shocked and disappointed by the number of people I saw at the public access points. I kept driving, aiming for the Jack Creek campground at the end of the road. That’s where I met Mike, who had been there for a couple of days, contemplating his next business deal and hiking. Mike isn’t a fly fisherman and didn’t have any advice for me on that front, but he had a topo map that showed me it was possible to hike down the ridge behind my campsite to find the creek for which the campground was named, a tributary of the Pecos River. Here’s a shot of my rig parked at the Jack Creek campground, where hosts Dave and Barb (who formerly flew for Delta) preside over a beautiful and quiet space surrounded by giant aspens and firs:

Although it was already late in the afternoon, I rigged up my little Murray Mountain rod, a 6’11” Scott 3-weight that served me well back in Shenandoah National Park, and I began the steep traverse into the creek canyon, passing a young elk on the way to the stream. My disappointment about the Pecos River was not immediately mitigated when I came to Jack Creek and found that it was tiny and brush-covered in most spots. When I finally found a little pool that was open enough to throw a fly into, I was thrilled when a fish came up and tried to eat my fly on the first cast. Four more times I cast back into that hole and on the fourth try I snagged a 9” Rio Grande cutthroat trout, the New Mexico state fish. That experience reminded me of what I’ve long known, that the best fishing is often available to those who are willing to drive the farthest, hike the farthest, and cast into the most secret of streams. I was to discover over the next two days that Jack Creek abounded with these native beauties whose last bastions are the remote headwater streams high in the New Mexico mountains. Although all species of trout produce some gorgeous specimens, I’ve long thought that cutthroat trout are the most consistently beautiful, and especially those rare subspecies like the Rio Grande, or the Greenbacks further north in the Rockies. Here’s what a Rio Grande cutthroat looks like:

Informed by my experience that first evening, high up in the Sangre de Cristo (Blood of Christ) Mountains, I hiked for the better part of the next two days on Jack Creek with my camera and tripod close at hand.  I hiked down to the Pecos River at one point on Day 29 and caught a dozen or so little brown trout in an hour or two, but that was too easy so I focused my attention on the creek. Like many small rivers that are over-fished, the Pecos fishery relies on stocking and non-native species (browns and rainbows, primarily). The river is much wider than the tributary creeks and it’s much easier to cast there, but the far greater challenges and rewards were in the feeder streams.

It’s easier to show you than to fully describe what was involved in fishing on Jack Creek, so I made a little video that suggests what it was about. I’ll just say this, that the little pools containing the larger trout were, with few exceptions, very nearly impossible to cast into. Most fisherman simply won’t attempt this kind of fishing, not only because of the hiking and bushwhacking required, but because it requires preternatural stealth and the most precise casting imaginable (often to four-square-inch targets). I’ve long enjoyed this kind of challenge, but I found on this occasion that I relished it even more. I’m a much calmer person now than I’ve been for decades, and that’s a big advantage in situations like this. When I was working, every task needed to be performed yesterday, and I was almost always in a rush. But in the past few days I’ve been able to practice mental skills that I’ve longed to repossess - patience and slowness - characteristics that were prerequisites for catching these wily trout.

In the 1-minute video at the link below, you’ll see a Rio Grande cutthroat going about his daily business in a quiet pool under close cover. There were lots of smaller trout in the runs and riffles and tailouts of pools, but the larger trout almost always occupied places like this. When you watch the video, focus your attention on the little branch protruding down into the water on the right part of the screen. The trout finned quietly under that branch most of the time because the branch represents excellent cover (and a major obstacle for a fly fisherman trying to cast there).  He can hover on the edge of the calm pool and the current that carries food to him along the bank. A couple of times you’ll see him circumnavigate the pool or pop his head up to feed.  What the fish wasn’t counting on was a persistent guy with a beard who excels at the bow-and-arrow cast and is capable of hurling a tiny fly precisely into his window of vision through a maze of branches. The result? You’ll have to watch the video to find out.  Here's the link:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9W3p660hVa0


Mike drove off early on June 18, heading back to Austin. He had come to the mountains to spend a few days alone and to think. Perhaps the advice he got from his coach long ago was just the direction he needed.  I understand that.  As I've said many times before, I sorely miss my wife and friends, but I'm finding valuable lessons in solitude.  I am not afraid to be alone.  As I sat in a camp chair outside Camelot last night and watched a hummingbird repeatedly buzz the red reflectors along the roof, I realized that I had gone for days without TV, internet, a phone or even music.  I was not even attracted to the idea of reading a book.  I was perfectly content just to watch the hummingbirds, listen to the aspen leaves twirling in the wind, and smell the plume of black smoke wafting over the campground.

Did I just say "plume of black smoke"?  Early in the evening a fire started near the Santa Fe ski area, about ten miles to the west of our campground, directly upwind.  It was interesting to observe the ensuing mob behavior.  Within a couple of hours, 80% of the campers had departed in a panic, only to be stuck behind a road-blocking accident half way down the mountain to Pecos, I later learned.  I was one of the brave or foolish ones who remained behind, and enjoyed the quietest night yet.  There was little evidence of the fire this morning when I pulled out of my site, again on the road west.