Philmont-an experience of a lifetime

I came home exhausted last night but with a feeling of great pride and accomplishment. While the 11 days and 10 nights in the high and cold Rocky Mountains along with the most challenging hiking I have ever done were very hard on and had very little opportunities to fishing, I had some of the greatest experiances of my life. The views were absolutaly amazing with some of the most beautiful sights I have ever seen.

Hike to the Tooth

This ended up being one of the most challenging things we did throught out our trek. We had to hike 11 miles to a dry camp and this included a side hike to the Tooth of Time, one of the most famous landmarks in Philmont. Of course water was our biggest concern throughout this hike. We decided 2lts of water per person would be enought to make it to the top. On the way up we passes a venture crew who had just came down from the top warning us to save our water and that they were out. We wished them luck and continued our hike. We thought we there several times until we started going downhill and switchback after switchback. When they finally stopped we were several hundred feet below the tooth and looking up at the many boulders we had to climb to reach the top. Even by that time I was exhausted and we decided to eat lunch below the summit so we would have the energy to make it up there. When we made it to the top it became worth it

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                      Last water source before the tooth, I neary went insane seeing all these trout and not being able to fish for them.

Hike to the Top

The top

Wildfire we could see across the Colorado New Mexico Border

Mini-bear and huge squirrel on top of the tooth

Going back down

When we got to the bottom there was a major problem. We were pretty much out of water and were going back to our packs that we left some of our water with. We got to our packs to find the pack tarp thrown off, bear bags tied to different trees and half of our water stolen!!!! That damn venture crew was telling to to save water because they were going to steal ours! To make matters worse there was another crew there that had several kids who were severely dehydrated and we didn't even have enought water to help them. Luckily we had cell coverage were we were and notified some rangers what had happened and the gave us enough water to make it to their camp. When we got there they gave us ice water which was amazing, but the dehydrated crew pretty much colapsed as we came into the camp. Several of them were so badly dehydrated they had to have an I.V. put into them. What stunned me the most about this is that BOY SCOUTS stole one of the most important thing that you need to survive and completely screwed us!

BEAR!!!!!!

Of course we were hiking in Bear Canyon when we went over a ridge and this guy was standing on the trail 15ft in front of us. One of my friends started yelling saying "You have no friends!!!!!" and "Your mom left you as a cub because your fat and ugly". I was laughing so hard this was the only picture I could of it. Not very many crews get to see bears anymore theses days and I feel ver lucky to see one

Baldy-the highlight of the trip

One of the reasons we chose the trek we were one was because one of the scouts in our group who's dad who went here 29 years ago was not able to climb Mt. Baldy because everyone else in his crew was too tired. We had all been anticipating this climb for months (for me a week) and knew it would be the best part of the trip and it did not dissapoint us.

Climb to the top

Snow!!!!!

 Just above the treeline.

The Summit

As soon as we got to the top we were blasted by an 80+ mph wind. It was so strong that you could jump up and get blown back 2 feet. The view from on top was stunning to say the least; we could see pretty much the entire property from Baldy . 

Mini-bear on top of Baldy

Hiding behing the wind barricades

Eagle Nest Lake

We came off the mountain with an awesome experience under our belts and this is one thing we will surely remember for the rest of our lives.

Black Powder Shooting

There were so many deer everywhere we went. I think I saw at least a few every day.

Only Whitetails we saw the entire trip.

Fishing in Philmont

Like I said earlier I hardly got to fish at all the entire trip. Only for about 20 mins on the 1st day and maybe 45 on the 5th day so I only managed two fish, one on each of those days. The fishing I have to say was pretty good and I missed several more fish and crossed several creek that I could see some very nice trout in, but didn't get a chance to fish for them.

Brown/rainbow hybrid

I thought I was going to be able to fish here but it ended up being a disgusting 2ft deep pond with only diseases and bugs living in it.

Cimarroncito Reservior was one of the most beautiful lakes I have ever fished. There are a ton of fish in it too, but I kept missing them

For the scenery

If you have anymore question or want to see more pictures that I have feel free to comment

He went for that?

Went back to the dogpark for some more crappie. That never happened but I did get into some pretty good fish. Water is still a couple inches higher and murky than I like but was much better compared to Saturday. Highlight of the day was a nice bass that went for a tiny little fly.

See that little thing?

Nice topwater gill.

Crappy little Crappie

It has been awhile since I have hit the Kellar Springs dogpark right by White Rock Creek. As expected the creek was a little high and murky from the all the rain that was dumped on Tuesday. I knew I would still catch fish and of course I did. Caught about 20 little sunfish nothing that big.

Biggest sunny of the day

Like usual when the water is high, sunfish and small bass tend to school up behind this dam above. I was making cast around a deeper hole and had been catching several sunfish when I noticed a school of shinners getting chased by something. I made a cast there with a little nymph. Almost immediatly my indicator went under. I set the hook and saw a ittle silvery fish hit the surface. I said no it can't be, but when I got it in it was one. Yes a little 6in crappie and a nice suprise to see them in this part of the creek again and a new species for me in the 2011 multispecies contest. Ended up catching two of them and left deciding they were too small to take interest in. When the water gets lower and more clear I should be able to really get into them. No bass suprisingly today.

New Pond

Tried out a new pond today with my friend William for grassers. Didn't catch any but I caught about a dozen small bass and a nice bluegill on poppers and saw a really nice bluecat caught. Left because of lightning from a bad storm moving in.Not to bad of a day...

 Most of the bass were this big...err....small

Tailwaters, then carpin, then flyfishin, then carpin again

Saturday 5/14, I went to the Tailwaters 4th aniversary party with Austin.  Got to try out a rod or two and took advantage of the free hot dogs, crawfish, and 25cent flys. After that I went home with his grandpa to Scott's Landing marina for some carp. I blanked hard but Austin caught about 4 carp including a 16 with a huge gash down its side. Some damn bowfisherman had shot it just grazed the fish. The next morning we woke up early and road our bikes to a few canals by his house. Austin hooked what I though was a dark green sunfish but when we got it to shore it was a warmouth! A new species for Austin in the multispecies contest!  Before we could say anything it flopped back iinto the water and Austin was pissed. We fished a little more there without catching any more warmouth. Austin had been talking to Ryan and Eric who spent the night at Katie's woods and had been catching like crazy all night. When we got there we had one of the most amazing sessions in our life. I could only stay for a few our but caught 3 buffalo and 4 carp. I got new PBs for both of those species (12.5 carp and 12 buffalo) as well as two new species for the multispecies contest. I think between the 4 of us there were over 75 carp, buffalo, and catfish caught.
PB Buff

 PB common

swirly buff

Tropical Sunfish

Got back home today to find my mom in a rush to get my little brother to his baseball game. I'm not really allowed to fish on weekdays so I saw a good opportunity to get out and do a little fishing. Walked up my creek to a damed off part of it with a small pond. THis pond hold the most colorful sunfish I have ever seen in my life, so colorful that they look like tropical fish. I ended up catching 10 sunfish and loss a nice bass at the shore. A couple of the longears pushed 7in and a greenie pushed 9. Also saw several 4+lb bass but they were very spooky.