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by Curt Kuester
For clear streams, head south
The flower buds on the Rocky Mountain iris in my garden are about to open, reminding me of the spring evening when Richard, Molly, and I moved to Salida.
As we drove across the South Arkansas River at Poncha Springs, I spotted hundreds of Rocky Mountain iris blossoms floating above the wet meadows like patches of pale blue ground mist. My spirits rose, and I cranked open the truck window, sniffing the evening air to catch their faint perfume.
Rocky Mountain iris is named for its range: the Rocky Mountains and Inland West from North Dakota to New Mexico, and west to California and British Columbia. It is the only iris species native to the Rockies.
Behind its scientific name, Iris missouriensis, is a wonderful story of adventure in botany: In 1808, a 22-year-old Englishman named Thomas Nuttall emigrated to the U. S. Entranced by explorers' tales of the wonders of the American West, he signed on as a collector of plants for a prominent Philadelphia botanist.
Promised the magnificent sum of eight dollars a month plus traveling expenses, Nuttall headed west, first to Michigan, and then up the Missouri River with fur-traders from John Jacob Astor's American Fur Company.
Nuttall was a born collector, writes Howard Ensign Evans in his book, Pioneer Naturalists, and was so heedless of all but his work that he often became hopelessly lost and had to be rescued.
Once, when the leaders of the fur-trading party checked all the firearms held by the group in anticipation of an Indian raid, Nuttall's gun was found to be packed with dirt - he had been using it to dig plants! No matter, for plant collecting protected him from danger many times, since most Indian groups regarded him as a powerful medicine man.
Among the hundreds of plants Nuttall collected on that trip was Iris missouriensis, named for the locale where Nuttall first spotted it, the wet bottomlands of the Missouri River.
Thomas Nuttall's experiences served him well. As a result of his collecting and knowledge, Harvard University offered him a position as a lecturer in natural history - despite his lack of a university education. Nuttall later wrote widely-read texts on botany and ornithology.
You can't miss Rocky Mountain iris when it is in bloom. Its 8- to 30-inch-tall flower stalks sprout fat, pointed buds that open into pale, lavender-blue blossoms, smaller than domestic irises, but with the same fleur-de-lis shape. The distinctive color and shape of the flowers gives rise to another common name, "blue flag."
Like domestic irises, the plants spring from rhizomes, fat underground stems, which branch freely, producing dense clumps of leaves. Iris leaves are equitant, a lovely word that means "riding" on the stem: The leaf bases are tightly folded over the stem as if astride.
Rocky Mountain iris blooms from mid-May in the lower valleys into July in mountain meadows as high as 10,000 feet elevation. This wild iris flourishes wherever groundwater tables are high, from seasonal springs on hillsides to rich floodplain grasslands.
Friends traveling in Mongolia wrote me about an iris growing in wet places on the windswept plains there that reminded them of Rocky Mountain iris. Mongolian people eat the blossoms of this iris as a cure for sore throats.
Don't try that with our Rocky Mountain iris, however; its tissues contain "irisin," an emetic and cathartic substance which will burn your mouth and throat. Indeed, Indians once ground up Rocky Mountain iris rhizomes to make a deadly mixture for coating arrow points.
Although black bears sometimes graze on Rocky Mountain iris, most animals avoid it because of the plant's disagreeable flavor. Its unpalatable nature makes Rocky Mountain iris an excellent barometer of livestock use: If the clumps of this plant increase over time and the grasses decrease, the area is being overgrazed.
When the Rocky Mountain iris blooms, I am reminded that home means different things to different people. For me, home is where aspens paint the mountainsides gold in autumn, where sagebrush scents the air after summer thunderstorms, and where the flowers of Rocky Mountain iris hug the wet meadows in spring-like pale blue ground mist.
Now that the rivers have swelled with the run-off, what is a guy to do? This is the time of the year that stream fishermen dread the most.
You are caught in the proverbial quandary. The weather is decent, your gear is ready, and you have shaken off the winter doldrums with several weeks of early season dry fly fishing. Unfortunately, your local stream looks like a large moving chocolate shake.
But the good news is, you do have three options available at this time in the season.
The first is to continue to fish the stream by throwing large dark-colored nymphs up against the bank, in hopes that the fish can see them.
The second is to take to the lakes. Numerous lakes in the lower elevations are now ice-free, just waiting to be fished.
This is an excellent option, as you can add warm-water lakes and ponds to this and have the chance to catch a few bass. Lakes such as Pueblo and John Martin reservoirs are producing good catches of both largemouth and smallmouth bass on small streamers fished in the shallower holding areas.
If you are one of those fishermen that can only envision him or herself taking trout on a flyrod from a flowing stream, then your options are somewhat limited. Fortunately, there is fine fishing for the stream angler, and it is just a short drive from most of southern Colorado.
In north-central New Mexico, there are several watersheds that lie at a low enough elevation that they have crawled out from under the run-off blanket. While these streams may not be as glamorous, as the Arkansas, Rio Grande or San Juan, they do have trout, bugs and clear water.
The Little Rio Grande watershed sits just south of Taos in a small, lowland valley, and consists of three streams. The Little Rio Grande, Rio Chiquito and the Rio de la Olla. This is a matched set of small streams, with the Little Rio Grande being the largest at 15 feet wide.
Wild brown trout make up the lion's share of the fish in this river system, with some rainbows thrown in. A nearly pure strain of the Rio Grande River cutthroat lives in the upper Rio Chiquito.
As one might guess, the fish tend to run on the small size here. A large fish will be a foot long, but all of them are willing to jump on any well-placed fly.
The streams that form this watershed are brutal. Overhanging brush can make casting a nightmare. Short fly rods, under 7-1/2 feet, are just the ticket for fishing in these tight quarters.
There are no real hatches that occur on these rivers, so your choice flies are the attractor, and terrestrial patterns in sizes no. 12 through no. 18. Royal Wulffs, adams, small humpys and ant patterns will all take fish along any of these streams.
The other choice a New Mexico-bound angler has is the Jamez River. Located just west of Los Alamos, this watershed is composed of numerous streams that are fishable by the end of May.
The Jamez system has an impressive collection of trout, from wild browns and rainbows of the Jamez River, to brook trout in the Rio Frijoles, and the Rio Grande cutthroats of Peralta Creek. This area has plenty to offer the discriminating angler.
This river system does have hatches, and some that are quite impressive. Several types of mayflies, as well as four different stoneflies can, at times, engulf these streams during the late spring and early summer.
The Jamez River system is rather large for a Southwestern watershed. Along with the streams mentioned, the Rio San Antonio, Rio Cebolla, Rio Guadalupe, and Rio de las Vacas are all in the river system, and offer fine angling early in the year.
So, if the run-off has you down, grab your gear and head south. You will find excellent fishing, and some wonderful scenery.
