So Brian H asked for a follow up on this trip. Unfortunately, there’s not much to report in terms of fishing (or at least good fishing). But here’s what happened…
We left Santa Fe late and underestimated how long it would take to get to our desired entry point. We ended up camping on the side of the road at 10:30p (or later?) over an hour shy of our destination. Got up the next day and drove the rest of the way, but couldn’t find the trailhead we wanted. Ended up parking on a small dirt road we found and bushwhacked to the trail. We started just West of Lake Roberts on Hwy 35 in the Gila Natl Forest, and hiked in the trail that follows Sapillo Creek for a short time, then is on the hillside above the substantial canyon it runs through to the Gila River.
We were planning a pretty ambitious trip (at least for us) covering 30+ miles in 2.5 days w/ fishing, and hitchhiking from the end point back to our car. Not far into the first morning though, my hiking partner was looking VERY tired, rundown and just all-together “not good”. We talked it out and determined he must have been much more worn down than expected after a pretty intense work week we’d just gone through at the camp we both work at. We decided to modify our plan substantially. Instead of a long point to point trip, going through Granny Mountain & Miller Springs to the Gila Cliff Dwelling area, we made it two out-and-backs. So we continued down to the Gila River (~6 mi one way) and camped/fished there. The next day, hiked out fishing along the way a little, and drove up to the Gila Cliff Dwellings, hiked in 2-3 miles and camped/fished there. Then we fished the next morning, hiked out and drove home. So we ended up fishing the areas we’d wanted to, but skipped ~20 mi of hiking in between.
On to the fishing report… we did not fish Sapillo creek on the hike in since that was supposed to be a pretty long day w/ a substantial elev gain. Plans changed after we’d left the creek so once we got to the Gila River, we did fish there for 1.5-2 hr. Neither of us caught, hooked, nor even saw a single fish. the water was easily 70F+ though, which I later realized was likely largely due to hot springs on the Gila upstream around the Cliff Dwellings area. I’d think there are warm water fish somewhere in that area, but little to no trout. On day 2 as we hiked back out, we did stop and fish a few small sections of Sapillo Creek, which was probably closer to 55-60F. We found a pool w/ 4-5 small trout, probably Gila Trout hybrids, but not sure. I caught one and my buddy caught two in an hour. We opted to return them to the water quickly so didn’t get any pics.
Then we drove up to the West Fork of the Gila River, west of the Cliff Dwellings. We hiked in and fished a number of fishy looking areas but again, got skunked over ~2 hr. The last day, we fished a good 4+ hr and covered a fair bit of water between the two of us… and again were skunked. Neither of us saw a single fish. Going back to the NM Fish & Game Gila Trout website, I reread the descriptions of the areas again and it sure seemed like there should have been fish where we were… maybe not Gila’s, but def trout. They do distinguish between the Gila Hot Springs, the Cliff Dwellings (where we were) and the head waters. They aren’t clear on where exactly the head waters area is, but the West Fork goes 20+ mi into the Wilderness, and I have a feeling they’re talking about the last 5-10 miles, which we were nowhere close to.
The most positive aspects of the trip were two-fold. First, was getting to explore the Gila Wilderness, at least a little. Its a stunning area and I’d think well worth a visit for anyone even close to it. It is very large and you could easily make a 100 mi trip w/o much zigzagging. I live right next to the Pecos Wilderness and found the Gila to be much more “grand” if you will. Second was a pretty decent test of my ultralight kit as it got down to 15F one night. My base weight was roughly 12lb. I’ve been slowly developing it for over 3+ years now, and haven’t gotten to use a ton (mostly thanks to having a kid 2.5 years ago). I was very pleased w/ ALL the gear I brought, most notably an ArcTeryx Cerium hoodie I’d just gotten on great REI sale, the classic older Houdini, an EE Convert 20F quilt, a Flat Cat Epicurean titanium esbit stove that we baked pizza & muffins with, an MLD SuperMid (LOTS of room for not much weight since we didn’t have an inner), a set of GG LT3 fixed length poles, and a Zpacks ArcBlast.
I’ll post a couple pics of the area from my phone in a moment…
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