McGaffey Lake filling with water and trout

Rainbow trout swim out of the opening of a delivery tube and into the waters of Lake McGaffey on Wednesday in the Cibola National Forest, south of Fort Wingate. (Photo by Jeff Jones/Independent)

By Tom Purdom
Staff Writer

Billy Sands holds open a tube Wednesday to allow approximately nine thousand rainbow trout to swim into the waters of McGaffey Lake in the Cibola National Forest. The New Mexico Game and Fish department stocked the lake for the first time in more than two years when water levels rose after recent snow and rain. They also stocked fish in the Grants Riverwalk Park to turn the pond into a children's fishing area. (Photo by Jeff Jones/Independent)

FORT WINGATE — Starting right now, young fishers will be able to try their hand at trout fishing, right in the middle of Grants, and McGaffey Lake has got a fresh stock of the catchable-sized trout.

n Wednesday the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish released more than 1,500 rainbow trout in the lakes at Riverwalk Park. The lakes are open to fishing by kids only, not adults. Children up to the age of 11 are not required to buy a fishing license. State Game Warden Drew Spencer said the limit is five trout per child, per day. The hard-fighting rainbows average about 10 inches long each and weigh about five and one-half ounces each.

For Grants, what happened Wednesday is an absolute first, thanks to City Councilor Robert Ulibarri. He was given the honor of dumping the first net-full of squirming trout into the upper lake. A smile creased his face from ear-to-ear as he was handed the net. Ulibarri carried the net of fish to the lake from High Street where the special Game and Fish Department fish transport truck was parked with thousands of hatchery-raised rainbow trout from the Parkview Hatchery near Tierra Amarilla.

While waiting for the hatchery truck to get to Grants, Ulibarri said he first talked to game and fish department officials eight to nine months ago about stocking Riverwalk with catchable-sized trout for the kids. "You know, if there's two things I love it is the kids, and the elderly," Ulibarri said while Spencer stood a few feet away.

A first for Grants
There are a few trash-fish in the lakes now, but there has never been trout. Meanwhile, McGaffey simply dried up, and for the first time in a couple of years, now has enough snow-runoff water to fill the lake and support the population of trout put in there Wednesday.

Ulibarri first talked to Game and Fish Game Warden Craig Sanchez about the stocking project. Sanchez took the project from there, talking to his bosses in Albuquerque, who put in requests to their bosses.

"This will be great for the kids," Ulibarri said.

Spencer said the trout were originally destined for Bluewater Lake, but that lake has seen a stocking program going on all winter and there were the Grants Riverwalk Lakes and McGaffey Lake in McKinley County, with water in it, so the call was made to stock Grants and McGaffey instead. He said the department has stocking operations going on at other community lakes; so the Grants stocking is not unusual for the department, which picks up the cost of the stockings.

Lakes are not deep
Assistant City Engineer John Rhoderick said the lakes were completed in 1986 and together are about a half-acre in size. "They aren't that deep, only about eight feet at the deepest parts," Rhoderick said. A fisherman himself, Rhoderick said with a bit of mirth in his voice, "Say, you don't suppose they need someone out there to test the waters with a fly rod?"

Pausing briefly, he quickly added, "Nah, those lakes are kids only."

Stocking lakes is not just a matter of dumping the trout into a body of water.

On Tuesday, Spencer tested the water's pH and temperature. Trout can survive in water up to around 50 to 55 degrees. The Riverwalk water tested out at 44 degrees.

Kids' activities
"The city will be putting up signs designating the lakes for kids only," Ulibarri said.

Spencer, meanwhile, said young fishermen need to be aware of the state regulations, which apply at the lakes.

Those regulations include:

• A daily limit of five trout per child.
  
  
• Each child may use only one fishing pole at a time.

Fishermen can use no live bait. Only artificial baits such as flies or spinners, or some of the Berkeley Power Bait is allowable.

Spencer said when Lake McGaffey dried up, it was discovered that McGaffey's bottom was a virtual bog of about four feet of sediment.

"We had a joint venture between us and the United States Forest Service," Spencer said. The department gets money from each hunting and fishing license sold for a habitat stamp. Some $152,000 was taken from the habitat stamp fund to pay the forest service to remove the built up sludge. The dredging operation was started in the summer of 2003. The material from the lake bottom was put on the ground near the lake. With lush grasses springing up, it created a natural feedlot for deer and elk.

Trout in Riverwalk
Billy Sands from the hatchery tested the water Wednesday and then, after Ulibarri's first effort, net-full after net-full of trout were dumped in the first lake. In about 15 minutes, the process was over at the first lake, and the special tanker truck was moved to an area near the second lake.

The truck left for the ride to McGaffey Lake where a long tube was used to flush the trout out of the fiberglass container on the truck and into the waiting waters. Some 10,000 trout went into McGaffey Lake before it was over, which marked the first trout stocking in some two years there.

Spencer said all state fishing regulations apply at McGaffey Lake, which is open to anglers of all ages.

Ulibarri said the city will see how things go with the stocking. "If things go okay, we'll see about other stockings," he said.