Ice prevents stream flow measures in some streams
Weekly fishing and stocking report
TUESDAY (FEB. 23)
This fishing report, provided by Dustin Berg and Go Unlimited (supporting disabled anglers) and the Department of Game and Fish, has been generated from the best information available from area officers and anglers. Conditions encountered after the report is compiled may differ, as stream, lake and weather conditions alter fish and angler activities.
Catch of the Week
CABALLO LAKE: Tim Wingfield of Las Cruces caught a 16-pound 5-ounce catfish using cut carp bait Feb. 13. ELEPHANT BUTTE LAKE: Marie Cadieux of Los Lunas caught a 3.5-pound white bass trolling a crankbait lure Feb. 20.
GRINDSTONE RESERVOIR: Eric Aguilar caught a 23-inch 9.5-pound rainbow trout using a Kastmaster lure Feb. 12. SAN JUAN RIVER: Andy Kim of Navajo Dam Community caught a 23-inch brown trout using a size 22 Yong Special midge fly Feb. 17
If you have a catch of the week story or just want to tell us about your latest New Mexico fishing experience, send it to us at funfishingnm@gmail.com. We may include your story in our next report. For catches of the week, include name, age, hometown, date, location, type of fish, length, and weight if possible, and bait, lure or fly used.
State Waters
NORTHEAST
CABRESTO LAKE: We had no reports from anglers this week.
CHARETTE LAKES: Closed for the season.
CIMARRÓN RIVER: Stream flow near Cimarrón on Monday morning was not measured due to ice. In accordance with the Public Health Order, effective Jan. 29, NM State Parks are open to New Mexico residents for day-use only. Please check the State Parks’ website for more information. Fishing for trout was good using worms and spinners. Maverick (gravel pits) was ice-covered and closed to ice fishing.
CLAYTON LAKE: Closed until March 2021.
CONCHAS LAKE: In accordance with the Public Health Order, effective Jan. 29, NM State Parks are open to New Mexico residents for day-use only. Please check the State Parks’ website for more information. Conchas Lake State Park has closed access to all boat ramps due to dropping water levels. The boat ramps on the south side of the lake managed by the US Army Corps of Engineers are open.
COSTILLA CREEK: The Department has implemented the final phase of a project to expand Río Grande cutthroat trout in 120 miles of the Costilla watershed in Northern New Mexico. The final phase involved removal of fish within a designated area (Río Costilla from Costilla Dam downstream to the Valle Vidal Boundary including all tributaries and Comanche Creek from the road culvert crossing on FR 1950 downstream to its confluence with Río Costilla and all tributaries) with a tentative restocking of Río Grande cutthroat in spring 2022. Places to fish nearby include Costilla Creek below the fish barrier, Upper Comanche Creek, Shuree Ponds, Middle Ponil Creek, Upper Powderhouse Creek, Little Costilla Creek, Vidal Creek and McCrystal Creek. The Department anticipates completion of this final phase in the fall of 2021. Please check the Department website for additional information on the project and to identify alternative angling opportunities in the interim.
COWLES PONDS: We had no reports from anglers this week.
COYOTE CREEK: In accordance with the Public Health Order, effective Jan. 29, NM State Parks are open to New Mexico residents for day-use only. Please check the State Parks’ website for more information.
EAGLE NEST LAKE: In accordance with the Public Health Order, effective Jan. 29, NM State Parks are open to New Mexico residents for day-use only. Please check the State Parks’ website for more information. The lake is closed to ice fishing due to deteriorating ice conditions.
EAGLE ROCK LAKE: We had no reports from anglers this week.
FAWN LAKES: We had no reports from anglers this week.
GALLINAS RIVER: We had no reports from anglers this week.
HOPEWELL LAKE: We had no reports from anglers this week.
LAKE ALICE: In accordance with the Public Health Order, effective Jan.
29, NM State Parks are open to New Mexico residents for day-use only. Please check the State Parks’ website for more information. The lake is closed to ice fishing due to deteriorating ice conditions.
The New Mexico House of Representatives engaged in hours of emotional testimony Friday (Feb. 19), over whether women should have the legal right to an abortion, before sending a bill to the governor to repeal an obsolete ban on the procedure.
Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham said earlier Friday she would sign Senate Bill 10, ending a decadesold and currently unenforceable law making it a crime for a doctor to perform an abortion in New Mexico.
The action comes amid concern that a more conservative panel of justices on the U.S. Supreme Court could overturn or weaken the landmark 1973 ruling in Roe v. Wade that prohibits stringent government limits on abortion access. Proponents of SB-10 fear the state’s 1969 law could become enforceable if that happened.
“Government has no place in these complex decisions,” said Rep. Micaela Lara Cadena, D-Mesilla, during the House floor debate Friday.
She was one of many sponsors of the legislation. Like other supporters, she said lawmakers should not infringe on an issue that should be a woman’s personal choice.
Opponents of SB-10 argued abortions end the lives of unborn children who do not have a voice to defend themselves.
“We’re talking about me,” said
Rep. Stefani Lord, a Republican from Sandia Park who made an impassioned plea against the bill. She said her birth mother had considered an abortion while pregnant with her.
“Thank God she didn’t,” Lord said.
“You keep talking about wanting to have strong women – they have to be born first,” she said, adding she was raised not by her birth mother, but by a woman who performed abortions.
In the end, members of the House voted 40-30 to approve the bill. Six Democrats joined 24 Republicans in opposing it.
The Senate passed the measure last week, mostly along party lines.
Democrats sponsoring the bill refused to engage in a debate on the Senate floor, leaving Republicans to argue against it among themselves.
The House debate, in contrast, included comments from several Democratic supporters.
Recalling a difficult pregnancy years ago, Rep. Patricia Roybal Caballero, D-Albuquerque, said the question of choosing to give birth or seek an abortion is a “very important and [private] decision that is only between myself, my family and my faith.”
House Republicans echoed comments made by their Senate colleagues last week, largely arguing the bill allows no room for doctors to opt out of performing an abortion if the procedure goes against their own values. Efforts to introduce amendments to address that issue failed.
Supporters of the legislation have said it would not force any health care provider to take part in an abortion.
Rep. Rebecca Dow, R-Truth or Consequences, sometimes choked up as she gave personal testimony against the bill. She said she discovered she was pregnant at the age of 19 while attending college in Oklahoma and wondered how giving birth would affect her education.
Ultimately, she said, she realized she “would be stopping a heartbeat” if she had an abortion.
The abortion debate has raged in the state and nation for years, but a wider majority of conservatives on the U.S. Supreme Court, which could hear arguments in some high-profile abortion cases this year, has brought the issue into sharper focus. That created a sense of urgency among New Mexico advocates hoping for passage of SB-10.
Efforts to pass a similar bill failed during the 2019 legislative session.
“It’s certainly a long time coming,” Cadena said at the end of the three-hour House debate as she called on colleagues to support the bill. “The personal decision about abortion must remain with New Mexicans and our families.”
Nora Meyers Sackett, a spokeswoman for Lujan Grisham, wrote in an email she expects the bill to get to the governor “quick” for a signature.
A wider majority of conservatives on the U.S. Supreme Court, which could hear arguments in some high-profile abortion cases this year, has brought the issue into sharper focus.