WALLEYE !!

I finally caught a walleye-- in the Rio Grande river --not the lake. The walleye start to come up the river after the dam has been opened because it creates a nice current as well as makes the river a lot deeper. The walleye come out of Caballo lake and travel north up the river but can't go any farther than the dam on Elephant Butte lake. The first walleyes to go up the river are the big females -- ready to spawn. I caught one of the first females going up the river. We kept it and ate it but I have never kept a prespawn walleye before and don't really want to again. When I cleaned her -- she was full of roe -- but she fed four of us. Wonderful -- we enjoyed every mouthful.

Now we are going to wait until the smaller male walleye go up the river and then try to catch one of those -- maybe -- we hear the locals are all waiting for this action -- then it gets to be shoulder to shoulder fishing along the river. Not sure we want to deal with that but we will see. The roads down to the river are terrible --narrow, sandy, deep holes -- not really maintained --so we can't take our truck. Our neighbor went down with his truck and got stuck. We went down in another neighbor's truck and he ripped off the wheel well covering and mudflap on his truck. I'm afraid by the time the walleye are really running well the roads will be impassable except by 4wheeler.

There have also been reports of a few walleye being caught out of Elephant Butte. We will probably try the lake again for walleye -- who knows -- maybe with the snow melt run off coming down river into the north end of the lake and the dam letting water out of the south end there may be some current to get the walleyes active.