Best Wild Places: Exploring Gila Country

Editor’s note: This is a story ostensibly about a fly-fishing trip. However, this Field and Stream editor found much more in this sportsman’s paradise, some of which was surprisingly disturbing.

I joined photographers Kevin Cooley and Bridget Batch, as well as Trout Unlimited’s Chris Hunt, Greg McReynolds, and Dylan Looze in Silver City, New Mexico. Silver City has a trendy restaurant row, art boutiques, and plenty of allure for outdoor aficionados, especially anglers, hunters, mountain bikers, and hikers.

My main objective wasn’t about finding a new outdoorsy place to be, however. I wanted to catch a rare Gila trout (oncoryhchus gilae gilae), a fish that can only be found in this area. Genetically related to cutthroats and rainbow trout, it is believed that as ancient oceans and floodwaters receded and the deserts enveloped this region, the Gila trout evolved and adapted in what is now a relatively tiny high country oasis, where coldwater streams still flow in alpine meadows. Once pressured to the brink, through the efforts of Trout Unlimited, New Mexico wildlife officials, and other conservation organizations, the Gila trout have made an impressive resurgence of late.

As this trip evolved, however, it would become much more than a quest to tick off a “bucket list” species on the fly. It was an eye-opening odyssey through a unique ecosystem that supports a wide array of animals. Frankly, having never been here, I came prepared for dusty mountains and tumbleweed. What I found instead were vast glades of vibrant wildflowers, and lush green thickets through which flowed crystalline brooks. And more animals—bigger, stronger, and more numerous—than I had planned to see.

For example, the area is home to some of the most prolific elk in the world (it’s one of the most coveted, and difficult-to-draw licenses in New Mexico). Local guides will tell you that they expect a herd bull to be 380-class, and 350-scoring satellite bulls are commonplace.

I am told it is the uniquely mild high desert-meets-alpine-climate that produces the habitat and forage needed to yield such species. But, almost ironically, the delicate balance that produces such natural wonder may also be the region’s Achilles’ heel. I was struck by the palpable fragility of this landscape.

Trout Unlimited’s mission in this area simply revolves around keeping the road access throughout the Gila limited, and also limiting the amount of ATV traffic off established trails… avoiding the so-called “chicken foot effect.” As much as hunters and anglers realize the benefits of open access, one cornerstone of conservation  thinking—particularly in this region—is that some places are best left alone… or at least we should tread on them very lightly.

It was conservation icon Aldo Leopold who once said: “Recreational development is a job not of building roads into lovely country, but of building receptivity into the still unlovely human mind.”

Species like the Gila trout benefit when their fragile spawning runs are not disturbed. Migrating elk herds flourish away from the noises and pressures roads bring. And so on, and so on…

As such, this would be a trip that involved a lot of hiking. We had noticed that the monsoon rains turned the main stem of the Gila River into a raging torrent of chocolate, but were able to find some clear water in the west fork of the Gila River. Chris Hunt caught a small brown trout on a grasshopper fly, but we didn’t find the elusive Gila trout that day.

On day two we got up early, and decided to head into the high country of the Black Mountains, in order to find a feeder creek that would be above most of the monsoon runoff. We knew if we could find clear water, we would also find Gila trout that would eat flies.

Trout Unlimited’s (TU) New Mexico Public Lands Coordinator, Greg McReynolds, led the way, and we were joined by TU volunteer and avid outdoorsman Garrett Veneklasen. Veneklasen runs a fishing travel business that connects anglers with some of the most exotic fishing locales in the world. Yet he also reminded me that he lives in New Mexico for a reason: this is some of the most stunning hunting and fishing land in the world.

That said, Veneklasen also pointed out that the high desert and alpine areas of New Mexico are also extremely fragile, which is part of the reason TU and Field & Stream organized this expedition.

The particular concern in this area is that the Gila National Forest is devising a “Travel Management Plan” for the area, which would establish a designated system of motorized trails. The problem, according to Trout Unlimited, is that the proposal could include a huge loophole by allowing motorized big game retrieval for up to a mile from any road.

That sounds good for many hunters… but there’s a catch. “The problem is that would make the off-road limits utterly unenforceable in a practical sense,” said McReynolds.

According to Veneklasen, who considers himself an avid ATVer, there is a point where we need to draw clearer boundaries in order to protect the overall experience.

“I’m a 17-year ATV guy, but as an elk hunter, I have also come to learn that engine noise is definitely equated by elk with predation,” said Veneklasen. “The point is to have a regressive experience, and in fact, that is a huge reason why the elk hunting, bird hunting and fishing experience is so unique here.”

“The problem is, the more you drive off road, the more the elk are pushed away, and the more need there is to hunt with an ATV. It’s a spiral effect. We need to prevent that from happening.”

Indeed, it isn’t an issue of irresponsible ATVers rip-snorting around the mountains and marking up the landscape as much as it is a matter of people who love the landscape—hunters, anglers, and ATVers included (often one in the same)—perhaps loving it so much, and wanting to experience it so easily, that we risk loving the region to death. By the same token, we limit hunting licenses in the Gila, which is one of the most prolific trophy elk areas in the world. We also should look at the way we access the resource. In conservation icon Aldo Leopold’s spirit, keeping the true wilderness nature of an area requires maintaining roadless areas.

What that boiled down to for us anglers on this day was some serious hiking—a few miles along a creek, through a canyon, and over a small ridge to a spot where we could see the Gila Trout shimmering in the runs of the narrow creek. On the first cast, I lobbed a size #10 Stimulator fly into the heart of a choppy run, and a Gila trout surged to inhale the bug. They’re sporty little fish; this one bulldogged upstream on a first run, and then turned back into an eddy, where I could cradle it in my hand, unhook it, hold it for a few images by photographer Kevin Cooley, and then let it go.

Mission accomplished. As I held that small fish in my hands, considering the fragility of the ecosystem and the rarity of this species, I ranked it right up there with the most rewarding outdoor adventures I have ever had.

The trick now is finding ways to work together to ensure that same impression and experience for future generations.

The trip also forced a reckoning with a difficult issue that faces all of us hunters and anglers who hope to experience as much as we can… share that opportunity with as many others as possible… and at the same time, preserve the natural landscape (and the fish/animals therein) for future generations as best we can.

Trout Unlimited volunteer Garrett VeneKlasen summed it up with a question he asked as we hiked up the Gila River on day three: “Is wilderness really wilderness if you build roads through it?”

Garrett’s query wasn’t unique by any stretch. It reflects a concern sportsmen and women have wrestled with for generations.

Aldo Leopold wrote in his classic A Sand County Almanac decades ago: “The trophy-recreationalist has peculiarities that contribute in subtle ways to his undoing. To enjoy he must possess, invade, appropriate. Hence the wilderness that he cannot personally see has no value to him. Hence the universal assumption that an unused hinterland is rendering no service to society. To those devoid of imagination, a blank place on the map is a useless waste; to others, the most valuable part.”

And therein lies the rub.

The Gila National Forest’s proposed travel management hopes to designate certain routes for all-terrain vehicles and others for motorized use. Done right, it could open opportunity in this amazing place. Done wrong, however, TU New Mexico public lands coordinator Greg McReynolds, thinks it could lead to a “chicken-foot” effect, where trails encroach virtually unchecked into critical habitat.

“The chicken foot effect is when a trail ends, and someone creates a new fork, then the next person comes along, and forks off that trail… eventually there’s a chicken foot network of trails that might not have been intended, but form because of regulations that can’t be effectively enforced,” explained McReynolds.

“I think all sportsmen, from hunters, to anglers, to ATVers, and hikers share a common goal. The trick now will be working together to achieve the best scenario for the Gila.”

As I thought on what Veneklasen and McReynolds had to say, it occurred to me that, while there are few universal “truths” in the finicky fly fishing world, one constant I have always experienced is that the further one ventures from the road or the parking lot… the more foot miles you put on… the better the experience is.

And so that would be the mantra for the final day of our Gila country adventure. We walked up the West Fork of the Gila River. And walked… and walked some more.

It is, without question, one of the most beautiful wild places I have seen. And it is worth experiencing yourselves… and protecting for many generations that will follow us.