Trophy Trout

TROPHY R FURRED FINNY & ENDANGERED

Lurking trout, grinning wolves and spatters of rain yield a perfect day on Christmas Tree Lake where lunkers linger, I peer toward the east where the sun struggles vainly against the rain-stuffed clouds.

STANDING ALONGSIDE PHOTOGRAPHER KERRICK JAMES ON THE SHORE OF CHRISTMAS TREE LAKE

"Not good," I say glumly.

"You never know," sighs the ever-hopeful Kerrick.

We had risen at 5 A.M. in our snug rooms back at the White Mountain Apache Hon-Dah Resort Casino near Pinetop-Lakeside to get here at dawn, when the trout and the sun both rise to play upon the mirrored surface of a jeweled lake. On the opposite bank, the gold leaves of aspen trees quake, awaiting the immolation of dawn. Somewhere beneath the surface, the world's largest Apache trout awaits my uncoiling fly line.

If the sun will rise, if the trout will rise, if our hopes will rise, then we can savor a picture-perfect day matching wits with the comeback-kid, Apache trout, a fish that made it off the endangered species list. But now I await the trout as Kerrick awaits the light, hoping to triumph against the glower of the clouds as the Apache trout has triumphed over the longest of odds.

Once, the golden Apache trout gleaned and glimmered on allthe streams riling and riffling down off sacred Mount Baldy, one of the wettest places in Arizona. The soldiers who hunted and harried the Apache Indians during the 1880s pulled piles of the unique native trout from the streams and pools. But a century of dams, cows and hatchery fish nearly exterminated the Apache trout, which held out in a few, small, high headwater streams in remote areas of the White Mountain Apache Reservation.

Fortunately, the Apache Tribe, Arizona Game and Fish Department and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service have returned the native trout to a dozen small streams and a hand-ful of White Mountain Lakes-most notably 41-surface-acre Christmas Tree Lake, deep within the normally closed area of the reservation. Protected by its remote location and the $25-perperson-per-day permit, the lake now teems with Apache trout, grown here to record size. The trophy fishing lake lures devout anglers from all over the country-mostly reverent, catch-andrelease fly fishermen.

Plus me - an enthusiastically inept fly fisherman, all but unarmed in any battle of fish wits.

But this time I have ensured against my fickle fishing fate by

enlisting the guidance of fly-fishing guru Stan Cunningham, a state game-and-fish biologist who says this lake remains his favorite Arizona fishing hole.

Alas, Stan hasn't yet arrived. Nor has the sun. Nor have the trout. Suddenly, from within the deep, dark woods floats the sound of a creature yearning for his kind. Then again. Then again. It is the sound of rutting elk, their bugled passion mysteriously transmuted into this haunting sound. I forget immediately about my yen for fish and Kerrick's yearning for light and head off toward that siren call. This has always been my downfall as a fisherman: I have the attention span of a doodlebug. I reach the top of the hill overlooking the lake and stand in a grove of aspens. The breeze tugs loose heart-shaped, red, gold and yellow aspen leaves, which fall in a fluttery chromatic storm. In just that moment, the sun lances through a hole in the clouds, transforming droplets into jewels on every yellow leaf. I am transfixed, until I remember Kerrick and the trout and race back down the hill.

Kerrick shakes his head and rolls his eyes as I huff into view, pull on my insulated waders, my red shirt and my fly-fishing vest before wading out to the place he has selected for its reflec-tive powers.

So I flail in the water, casting my hairy, brown-and-white invocation of an insect upon the now-perfect sky-mirror of Christmas Tree Lake. My fly alights as gently as a fairy's kiss on the shimmering yellow reflection of the tall, white-trunked aspens.

No trout rises to trouble my fly. In fact, I see no signs of trout anywhere on the cloud-scudded surface of the lake. Periodically, my line mysteriously ties itself into an intricate knot somewhere on my backstroke. When I pull the line in, I discover a puzzle of topology that would break the heart of a mathematics graduate student. I could not create such a tangle with an hour of advance planning and the help of two elves, yet my line has done it while floating in midair.

So I stand in the cold water patiently unraveling my line, while Kerrick crouches on the bank, looking anxiously up at the closing hole in the sky.

Soon, the clouds return and the hail starts, attended by distant peals of thunder.

I wade back to shore and we get into the car to review the digital shots he has taken along with the large-format film. I actually look skilled; I love how still photos create the illusion of expertise in the moment before the line collapses in a snarl on the water.

The hail lets up and I look up. A dog sits just in front of the truck, head cocked.

No. Not a dog. A coyote.

No. Not a coyote. Too big. Yet he leers like a coyote before he turns and trots off into the woods.

Not a dog. Not with that fluid, loose-hipped trot. I gulp. A wolf. A Mexican gray wolf, reintroduced like the Apache trout a few years ago into the deep, high forests of the White Mountains.

At this point, Stan arrives. He's a tall, easygoing biologist who crawls into bear dens and radio-collars mountain lions for a living. He never mocks clumsy bumblers a quality essential in my friends.

Naturally, I have been fishing all wrong. I like dry flies, but today he says I need a nymph to imitate the assorted muck-dwellers. Thoughtfully, Stan rigs my line. We blow up his absurd floaty inner-tube seats, so we can paddle out across the lake, casting, trolling, freezing.

And so we do-as supplicants to the mystery of the Apache trout, that remarkable survivor. After thriving for a millennium in tiny, high-altitude streams, the Apache trout had nearly vanished by 1950. Grazing cattle delivered a body blow, trampling the streams and reducing trout cover. But mostly the native trout fell before the invaders-browns, rainbows and brooks. Biologists aren't sure why non-native trout displace the Apache trout whenever they live together. Most likely it's because the non-native trout spawn in the fall instead of the spring, so that their voracious hatchlings gobble up the hatching fry of the Apache trout in the spring. Meanwhile, the hoards of stocked rainbow trout compete for food and habitat.

The Apache trout hung on in a few streams where waterfalls protected them from non-native trout and cattle. When the federal government declared the Apache trout threatened in 1967, the range of the natives had shrunk from 600 miles of stream to just 30.

In the past 40 years, the tribal, state and federal governments have gradually returned the Apache trout to many streams, after first learning to grow them in hatcheries. After identifying 28 target streams, biologists started building barriers at the lower ends before poisoning out the introduced trout and reintroduc-ing the Apache trout. The $1 million-a-year effort has yielded a rare conservation success story and a nationally ranked fishing opportunity at Christmas Tree Lake.

WHO'S AFRAID? Listed as endangered by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in 1976, Mexican gray wolves now call the White Mountains home, thanks to a joint state and federal reintroduction program that began in 1998. TOM AND PAT LEESON I drift across the intermittently rain-spattered surface of the lake for seamless hours, chilled but happy to cast far from the entreaties of tree limbs. My nymph sinks out of sight, although it cannot reach the bottom on account of my nonsinking leader. I may not be deep enough to catch trout, but at least my hopeful nymph cannot entangle itself in the muck of the bottom. I have nothing to do but to drift and to dream.

Finally, the storm shreds on a ridge of wind. Sun floods the lake. Kerrick bursts into manic motion, for he has waited through the dark hours for the light with a coiled joy even a fisherman can only dimly comprehend. We paddle to shore, and Kerrick deploys us in the shallows, posed in the play of light. The sun is a glory; the aspens, a hymn; the clouds, a prayer.

When the hole closes and the light fades, we climb back into our tubes to once more cast and kick and murmur and drift. Just when I have decided that all the fish have burrowed into the bottom to hibernate like toads, a single, monstrous Apache trout swims past my tube. He's sturgeon-sized. I could read a chapter from Arizona Tall Tales in the time it takes his whole body to pass in review. A howler monkey could ride him, with a French-poodle passenger. Were I not buckled into my tube, I would jump up, topple over and drown.

Resurrected by the metaphorical possibility of such a fish, I ply the waters-humbled, chilled and fulfilled. On the bank, Kerrick waits like a held breath for one last flare of light. As the light dwindles, another fisherman supplicant floating nearby reels in a beautiful, foot-long Apache trout-gleaming, molten gold. "What were you using?" asks Stan, desperation tinting his voice."

"Royal Coachman. Deep," says the man. I paddle to shore in the last shards of daylight.

Off in the woods, the bull elk have resumed bugling-hopeful as a fisherman in a float, a photographer in a storm or a wolf in the woods.

In that moment, I understand everything, even the topology of fishing-line knots. So I release the trout, scan the darkening woods for the wolf and remember the swirl of yellow leaves in the sudden suffusion of light.

Out on the lake, Stan hollers. He has a big one. It takes 10 minutes to land the trout on his thread of a leader.

The trout is 20 inches long, a few inches short of an Apache trout record. The nugget that lured the forty-niners had less gold in it. That trout could have swallowed the howler monkey whole. He could have towed Stan and his tube and left a wake.

Stan returns the great fish to the lake, the happiest man on the planet. Of course, it is too dark to take a picture.

So you must take my word that the trout is out there still. All

► when you go

Location: White Mountain Apache Reservation.

Getting There: Take State Route 260 east from Payson to State Route 473 south past Pinetop-Lakeside. Drive south on State 473 past Hawley Lake to Indian Route 26. Continue on Indian 26 for approximately 10 miles to Indian Route 39 and bear left and follow to Christmas Tree Lake. Travel Advisory: The White Mountain Apache Tribe Game and Fish Office requires a $25 daily permit to fish at Christmas Tree Lake. Permits can be purchased through the tribe's Wildlife & Outdoor Recreation Division, P.O. Box 220, Whiteriver, AZ 85941; (928) 338-4385. Camping is not permitted, and the lake remains closed during the winter and certain periods in the fall elk-hunting season.

Warning: Remember that when traveling on the White Mountain Apache Reservation you're on tribal, not public lands. Many reservation roads aren't well-marked, so purchase a White Mountain Apache Reservation Map in Hon-Dah. Observe restrictions on closed areas. Offhighway travel requires a reservation permit. Don't take photographs of tribal members without their permission.

Additional Information: White Mountain Apache Office of Tourism, toll-free (877) 338-9628; www.wmat.nsn.us.

FISHING TIPS APACHE TROUT

Roughly 125,000 Apache trout are stocked in reservation streams and lakes with another million eggs reared for stocking on Forest Service and nontribal lands. "Primary streams that receive Apache trout stockings are the East and North forks of the White River and Diamond-Cibecue-Paradise Creek," says Bob David, manager of the Fish and Wildlife Service's Alchesay-Williams Creek Hatchery Complex. "This golden native is only a few generations away from wild, and it still thinks like a wild fish. It eats bugs, so flies, both wet and dry, do well." -Р.А. Apache trout can be caught with a variety of methods, including wet or dry flies, small lures or natural baits. Artificial flies produce the best results. With wet flies, try small hooks-14 through 18-and dark patterns (peacock ladies, pheasant-tail nymphs, hare's ear nymphs, zug bugs, scuds, or stone fly, mayfly or caddis fly nymph imitations). With dry flies, use small hook sizes, mostly at dawn and dusk. (Royal Coachman, Adams, Royal Wulff, Parachute Adams, or any gnat, mosquito, mayfly, caddis fly or stone fly adult imitations). Grasshopper, ant or beetle imitations also work, especially in smaller sizes. For lures, stick with small spinners (Panther Martins, Super Dupers or Rooster Tails). For baits, go natural using worms or grasshoppers. Here are some great spots for fishing on nontribal lands.

Lee Valley Reservoir: Two-trout limit, artificial fly only, 12-inch minimum. Open Fridays through Sundays only due to area construction. Take State Route 260 to State Route 273 and continue for 11 miles on unpaved road; the reservoir is a quarter-mile south of State 273.

East Fork of the Black River: Six-trout limit. Take State Route 273 or paved State Route 261 to Big Lake from State Route 260. Turn right onto unpaved Forest Service Road 249E, south of Big Lake, and go a halfmile to Forest Service Road 24. Turn left onto FR 24 and proceed to Buffalo Crossing where Forest Service Road 276 intersects. Turn left onto FR 276, and fish between Diamond Rock and Buffalo Crossing.

East and West Fork of the Little Colorado River: Six-trout limit. The area upstream of Colter Dam in Apache County is closed until January 2009. Take State Route 260 to State Route 373 toward Greer. The Little Colorado runs through Greer and is accessible only on the upper end off of the county road on the east side of town, and at the end of Forest Service Road 575 through Greer.

West Fork of the Black River: Six-trout limit. Fishing is not permitted in the posted trout barrier areas. From Forest Service Road 249E just south of Big Lake, take Forest Service Road 68 south to Forest Service Road 68A.

Upper West Fork of the Black River: No bait permitted and catch-and-release only. Take State Route 260 to State Route 273. Continue about 16 miles on State 273 to Forest Service Road 116. Turn right onto FR 116 and continue 6 miles to the river crossing.

Upper Silver Creek: Silver Creek runs through Arizona Game and Fish Department-owned property (excluding the portion designated as a state fish hatchery). This stretch is catch-and-release only using artificial lures and flies with barbless hooks from October 1 to April 1. From April 1 to 30, there is a six-trout limit and barbed hooks are permitted. Take State Route 60 east from Show Low, 5.5 miles east of the intersection with State 60 and State Route 260, and turn left onto Bourdon Ranch Road. Continue approximately 5 miles to Hatchery Way Road; turn right onto Hatchery Way and go to the parking area.

CASTING TROUT CALL

A new generation of trout is calling, “Catch me if you can,” from White Mountains waters. About 350,000 aquatic residents arrived via hatchery trucks this spring, finding homes among rocks, riffles and riprap in area lakes and streams.

Most high-country waters, from the Little Colorado River to the Salt River, now contain hungry trout-rainbows, brookies and browns, as well as our state fish, one of Arizona's two native trout, the colorful Apache trout.

Consensus about the best place to fish is hard to obtain, but some hot spots are consistent in all conversations.

White Mountain Apache Reservation fishing permits, (928) 338-4385, are required for ages 10 and older. Adult daily fee, $6; youth, $3. Daily bag limits: five trout for adults, three for youth.

BEST WHITE MOUNTAINS FISHING HOLES

BEST WHITE MOUNTAINS FISHING HOLES

WILLOW SPRINGS PACHETA LAKE PACHETA LAKE

This is one favorite of the frequent-fishing crowd who go where the action is. “This has been catch-and-release water for several years,” says Tim Gatewood, fisheries biologist with the White Mountain Apache Wildlife & Outdoor Recreation Division. “It doesn't get a lot of angling pressure, and there are always healthy, chunky big brown trout here.” Only single-hook artificial lures and flies are allowed. An additional incentive to include this spot on the itinerary: A 15-pound, 9-ounce brown was taken from the lake in 1993. If there was one this size, there may be more.

Getting There: Take Indian Route 55 east from Whiteriver; turn east at Indian Route 80.

Information: (928) 338-4385.

BIG LAKE

Road construction this summer is expected to minimize the usual turnout of anglers headed for the ever-popular Big Lake that's been a part of the Black River since 1930. Shore fishermen may have to travel some to find shoreline devoid of weeds, but boat anglers can use the weeds to their advantage by casting to the edge of the cover. Many large trout and some state records have been taken here, so the hard work is worth it.

Getting There: Take State Route 260 east from Pinetop-Lakeside. Turn right onto State Route 261 near Eagar.

Information: (928) 367-4281.

HAWLEY LAKE

“This [lake] is a favorite of area anglers. It's easy to get to and has lots of shore access,” says Gatewood. “It's always a good place to look for bigger-than-average-sized brown trout. We regularly net 4and 5-pound browns during our fish surveys.” One of the nicest features about Hawley is its shoreline-nearly 10 miles-much of it surrounded by thick stands of pines. “Hawley's almost always good for lunkers,” writes Fishing Arizona author Guy Sagi, who likes to toss red-and-yellow Z-Ray lures as well as brown Wooly Worm flies. Salmon eggs, Power Bait, kernel corn or minimarshmallows also produce bites.

Getting There: State Route 260 east out of McNary, turn south on State Route 473.

Information: (928) 338-4385.

A new state record came from these high-altitude waters last year. “Willow Springs and other [Mogollon] Rim lakes [Woods and Black Canyon] are always heavily stocked, including some incentive fish up to 10 pounds,” says Kelly Meyer, Arizona Game and Fish Department fisheries specialist in Pinetop. The lake offers 150 surface-acres with an average depth of 60 feet-plenty of water to hide the rainbow, brown, brook and cutthroat trout that live here along with some largemouth bass. Dark-colored Wooly Worm flies take fish as do Rooster Tail lures and salmon eggs fished along the 5 miles of shoreline.

Getting There: State Route 260 east from Payson via the paved VernonMcNary Road.

Information: (928) 333-4301.

RESERVATION LAKE

“I have no reservation in recommending Reservation as one of the top spots to wet a worm,” says Gatewood. “This is another lake that continually produces big brown trout. We netted a number of them in the 5-pound-and-above range in our last survey.” A state-record lunker brown trout (36 inches, 22 pounds, 9 ounces) was caught in August 1999. Ongoing road construction is expected to cut down on the number of visitors this year, so there should be fewer fishermen chasing large, hungry fish.

Getting There: Take State Route 273 off State Route 260, which becomes Forest Service Road 113, toward Big Lake. Turn right at Forest Service Road 116 and head south. Information: (928) 338-4385.