Thursday August 10, 2023
Fishing Tackle Retailer —
Anglers are the archetypal optimists and there is much to look forward to in Colorado and New Mexico if you like to catch Rio Grande cutthroat trout. That’s thanks to conservation endeavors by biologists with Colorado Parks and Wildlife and the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish, and their diligent work funded by federal excise taxes paid by tackle manufacturers. Sport Fish Restoration (Dingell-Johnson) dollars partly pay the way to conserve this gem with fins with a natural distribution that lies over the artificial state line in the upper Rio Grande and Canadian River drainages.
This cutthroat by all accounts is among the prettiest of fishes. Their colors reflect the high-elevation southern Rocky Mountain forests and valleys where they dwell: the olive of conifer needles. The cream of a faded alder leaf. The smudge of carmine on the cheek and throat and a belly that carries the flush of crimson like the swollen rose hips or ripe raspberries that grow along cutthroat creeks when the trout have procreation in mind. Their spotting varies a bit from place to place, like freshly milled pepper flakes in the upper Rio Grande watershed of Colorado to large peppercorns in the upper Pecos River in New Mexico. In most all cases, the black spots are concentrated toward the tail.
They are really something to behold.