About sixty years ago, a fellow employee, a guy named Otis Miller, introduced me to his favorite fishing hole. It was on the Rio Grande River. Otis was the oldest member of our radio station's staff, and we naturally called him "Pop".
About a mile below the big power generating dam that formed the Elephant Butte Reservoir, the river took a sharp right turn. Just before the turn, a hiway crossed the river. In building the bridge, the engineers had dumped huge rocks on both banks, to reinforce the abutments to the small bridge.
When the Bureau of Reclamation was generating power at the dam, and the river was at full flow, the clear, cold water was well up into these rocks, causing a rapid swirling of the water. This action of the water upended small shad and other forage fish. Largemouth bass hung on the downstream side of these rocks and easily nabbed the disoriented fish.
Just around the curve, the opposite bank was solid rock. Water crashing against this rock embankment had scoured out the bottom and the water ran still and deep. Lots of people liked to sit on top of this embankment and fish the still water below, using live minnows as bait. But Pop knew more about game fish, and knew that was not the spot.
You couldn't use minnows as bait on the turbulent side of the river under the bridge, as the swirling water would tear them from your hook. So, Pop Miller found an artificial bait called a Crippled Shad. when cast into the rocks, this bait perfectly duplicated the action of real shad, thrown about in the water.
The first time Pop took me to his sweet spot, I quickly caught a bass. Pop was an avid photographer, and insisted on taking a picture of me with my fish. He instructed me to hold it at arms length toward the camera, to make the fish look bigger! (Maybe the camera doesn't lie... but fishermen do!)
(Those are not UFOs in the upper left corner. Pop made this print for me and one of my two-year-old twins did what babies always do.. she chewed on it!)
In the months after this picture, I caught many more fish at the sweet spot, but I never saw another fisherman fishing the turbulent water in the big rocks.
Recently I had occasion to drive to the old sweet spot. Alas. A new bridge had been built alongside and downstream of the old bridge, completely changing the character of the river banks. At the time, the flow from the dam was closed, but you can see a recent high water mark on the other bank of the river.
Wooden pilings of the old bridge are visible under the new bridge. You can even see a few of the remaining big rocks that created the sweet spot.
Yes, the new bridge is nice. But this picture makes me sad.
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