My Secret Place - January 2011

By M.H. "Dutch" Salmon, as told to Devon Jackson

My secret place is the Gila River, several miles upstream from its confluence with Mogollón Creek. I first visited it on a Sunday in 1982. The Mogollón Box Campground was full of people, ATVs, and pickup trucks. Fortunately, after about two miles of hiking, I passed the last of the vehicles. Suddenly everything quieted down, and I had a good day of fishing, saw some bighorn sheep, and felt I had reached a kind of Shangri-La. At that time the proposed Hooker Dam was being considered for construction at this exact site, and I remember thinking that this wasn’t a river you wanted to turn over to water developers, but rather to let it serve its best purpose in a natural state, flowing free. And I believe that’s still true.

I get up there roughly a dozen times each year. I usually go there to fish. I like it because the many pools can be quite good for smallmouth bass, channel catfish, and flathead catfish. Sometimes I’ll also catch a native fish such as a Sonora sucker or roundtail chub. I’ll keep a catfish or two for a family meal, but otherwise it’s my pleasure to catch ’em and let ’em go.

It’s a beautiful spot for the birdwatcher or fisherman. While fishing here I’ve seen brilliant vermillion flycatchers and colorful Bullock’s orioles, which are my favorite birds. I’ve observed black bear, deer, coatimundi, raccoon, bighorn sheep, quail, and javelina. This is also where it is expected that otters will someday be released, replacing a population wiped out long ago. Only occasionally will I see another person.

I’ve been up there in every season. In winter, I’m impressed by the clarity of the water, the blueness of the sky, and the brightness of the light. In spring the catfish start biting, and I like to be there when that happens. Summer is hot, but there’s always shade, and I go “Huck Finn fishing,” parked lazily under a tree in my bib overalls and straw hat with a line in the water. Fall brings the autumn colors, with big yellow cottonwoods and russet-red sycamores.

We need to get the boomers and boosters of our time to realize that keeping water in a stream is a beneficial use, that recreation and wildlife provide not only aesthetic value, but also commercial value. Now there are small-scale farm diversions along New Mexico’s portion of the Gila, and I think it’s appropriate for people to retain their water rights and pastoral lifestyles. But I think we need to save what is there rather than putting in any kind of dam and changing New Mexico’s last free-flowing river forever.

Writer, publisher, cofounder of the Gila Conservation Commission, and member of the
New Mexico Game Commission, M. H. “Dutch” Salmon’s most recent book is ¡Gila Libre! New Mexico’s Last Wild River. For info: www.high-lonesomebooks.com