Trout Farming in the People's Republic of Boulder

Trout Farming in the People’s Republic of Boulder

Sapillo, New Mexico

One of the privileges of owning a trout farm was that of our journeys into amazingly beautiful places that most people were never allowed to see.

Back in the days before New Mexico closed its borders to Colorado fish for fear of whirling disease, gill disease, ick, fluky livers, reduced slime and maybe the heartbreak of psoriasis, Sapillo, New Mexico, was a memorable trout delivery.

As we entered the little village of Sapillo, the small grocery store beckoned for a cultural experience. The unfinished wood floor squeaked as we entered to blend in with the English spoken softly with Spanish accents. Dark wooden shelves were filled with a variety of sundries that could keep a person supplied for weeks as they journeyed farther into the interior. One could even buy a hat that proudly displayed, Sapillo Market where Who Farted? might have been.

The little houses leading up to the hacienda where we were to unload our fish were not humbled by the presence of the immense home, but were more of a tribute. The earth-toned and Mexican pink adobe and particle board-sided huts surrounded by brush were undaunted, even with the rusted automobiles that collected beside them. Pots of geraniums in some yards glowed proudly among the other collections of unused metal and colorful plastic. Simple and lacking the wealth of some of their neighbors, yet not poverty-stricken, the homes seemed to emit an aura of a lifestyle that had been selected, not forced upon them. They bespoke simpler times, where they were securely and happily settled into their own little time warp where the haste and bustle of our fish deliveries seemed almost grossly out of place.

The hacienda surrounded a plaza where we were graciously greeted by one of the owners- a thirty-year-old Texan woman, which caused us to wonder what she had done to deserve such a spread of land and home.

Hello, Mr. and Mrs. Clii-ine. Would you like something to drink? I liked that whenever we delivered to Texans in New Mexico, even though we were always younger than the owners, we were called Mr. and Mrs. Cline, drawn out to three syllables.

When we turned down the drink offer, she went inside to do the necessary preparations for our delivery, including lavishing her lips with ruby red lipstick. While she was thus engaged, we talked with her two servants, which seemed more of an appropriate word than maids, but without the servility of an unwanted, forced employment. They told us, The Senora has us polishing, polishing every day. Indeed, the antique furniture emitted the satin glow of fine old patinas.

When the matron returned, she introduced us to a husband and wife team who would guide us through the delivery. They were Spanish, not Mexican- it seemed important to make distinctions anywhere near the San Luis Valley and farther south- who at first seemed not to fit together; she seemed 25 to 40 years old, while he seemed anywhere from 40-60 years of age. Her teeth were gently bucked with the two front ones crossed slightly. Her short bobbed hair and her glasses that made her eyes bug just a little, gave her a perpetually surprised look.

Her husband was a wonder. My first impression was that he was a relative of Goofy with his elongated head and ear lobes which seemed too large for his body-too tall really, because it sat upon a stocky, sturdy, slightly hunched body. He had an ancient Spanish look-the textbook Castillian, with a slender, noble look of pride. His expression was continuously serious, even while pulling the practical joke (very practical) that made us laugh for years afterwards.

When we had first entered the driveway of the hacienda, we saw the landscape that is the type to be the envy of most homeowners- a very fishable pond off of the deck of the house. This, then was our delivery spot, but in order to drive there, we had to negotiate extremely cautiously through a narrow wooden corral gate. We pulled our extensive side mirrors in on our heavy-duty two-ton Dodge truck, and Steve had to take a few tries at it to back up exactly straight into the corral. There was little room for error, since the gate posts were too tight and confining, but removing them would likely take time and machinery, a jack and digging bar, or even a tractor, using its hydraulics.

Because we had spilled quite a quantity of our supply of water while backing into the mud and manure-filled corral, we couldn’t drive out. The hired man, our man Goofy, sent his wife to bring her Jeep Cherokee to tow us. She had been laughing and joking all during the delivery, and seemed like a happy kid. Her husband still maintained his serious look, but was very intelligent and knowledgeable.

When his wife arrived with the 4-wheel drive with which she delivered the mail in the area, her husband set a chain under our truck and attached it to the ball joint on the back of her Cherokee. As she turned her back to us to get into her Cherokee turned tow truck, her husband made another chain magically appear which he expertly wrapped around the troublesome post in the corral gateway. When he gave her the signal, she gunned her vehicle, slipping us out fast, spraying mud and manure everywhere. The chain jerked tautly on the post, ripping it out, sending it spinning and twirling in the air like a wooden bat released from home plate.

When the driver stopped and came back to look at the post with the chain still attached, she said with a slight Spanish accent and the surprised, child-like look that seemed always with her, Deed I do that?

Her husband gave the faintest hint of a smile.

Trout Delivery from Nebraska

Swear words whirled a country swing as the trucker from Valentine, NE, announced his arrival. Cussin’ was part of the farm vernacular called Trout Talk, the happy communication that guided and enhanced the delivery. The trucker was damn delighted to have arrived, and Steve was happy as hell to see him.

Valentine was one place where we raised fish to be trucked to Colorado for delivery. The truck was equipped with a two-part stainless steel tank, complete with oxygen set-ups hissing their arrival. Steve tossed the back-up blocks into perfect position and gave the trucker the middle finger signal which meant that he could back up onto the blocks for the perfect slanted angle.

How many ways can a PVC pipe be used? Most descriptions would neglect to mention their usefulness as a fish drain, but it’s the gentlest way. Run ‘em through with water to protect the fish with their slime coating and watch them glide into the water. When Steve waggled his other fingers, it meant to release the fish. When a valve was opened, fish and water shot out, rainbow colors twisting and glistening in the June sun. A few fighter trout could be heard battling their way up-pipe until a bucket of water washed the last of them down.

The first thing healthy trout do when gill meets water is to adjust their air sacs by surfacing and gulping air. People who don’t know this attribute it to the fish being hungry and jumping for a new Mayfly hatch. When Ricky T, one of the farm employees, delivered fish to a horse tank at a sports and travel show in Denver, the fish were doing what they were expected to do: show off with movements of surfacing and gulping air. A small boy there cried, Look Mommy, they’re talking!

Ricky’s four-year-old son shot back, No they’re not; they’re breathing!

A Cline Trout Farm Headquarters sign from the ‘60’s lies in the red barn taking a few hits of cat spray from time to time. Steve’s father, a Colorado State University graduate in Forestry, as well as a Lt. Colonel in the Air Force, had chosen the wording of the sign that had been stationed in the driveway at the first trout farm on the corner of Folsom and Valmont, which is now the Unitarian Church and Trout Farm Apartments.

Delivering fish to places to which few people have access was one of the best privileges the farm life afforded. Many places were properties of extremely wealthy people: a movie star, financial moguls with conjoined properties, a former Miss America, a hotel and time share developer in Mexico, a golf course and ski resort designer, and a CEO of a large gas and oil company in Texas. There were dude ranches owned by individuals or large corporations. Second and third homes in Aspen, Vail, Cordillera, and Edwards, Colorado; and DuBois, Saratoga, and Jackson Hole, Wyoming, bespoke money and power, and the ability to impress friends and clients by spending it on a good time with the frivolity of trophy fish. Private, vastly expensive golf courses teased the common man even more by containing fishing ponds within their exclusive boundaries. We were told that when the stock market was doing well, a broker who had a ranch near Gunnison, would sometimes make a million dollars a day.

Steve would usually deal with caretakers rather than the owners. If they were single, we marveled at their freedom to enjoy a beautiful property which they hadn’t bought. With dude ranches where husband and wife couples catered to the whims and wishes of the owners and their friends and clients, we later saw surprising divorces between the most amicable couples. Maybe they were too exhausted to continue catering to each other.

When trout deliveries took us into Las Vegas, New Mexico, we wound our way up the mountain, passing by a convent where a movie had been filmed on its beautiful acreage. As a young 25-yearold treated as a respected Mizzus Cliii-ne by well-mannered Texans, I glowed with the privilege.

Being respected and welcomed wasn’t always the reception, however. On a beautiful, well-fished area of the Frying Pan River by Basalt, Colorado, we delivered to an enviable private property, where two fishermen in oozing wet hip-waders leaped into our truck almost the instant of our arrival, to join in on the delivery, and thought it was my place to stay behind to look after their dog. I didn’t have a moment to protest or to find their truck for them, nor did Steve. When the truck drove away, they didn’t grant me a backward glance, as if I should know my station as a trucker’s wife. They even left me wet patches to sit on in the truck when they returned, and my duty with the dog was fulfilled. I did, however, like their dog; it was far better behaved than his owners. Steve was deeply apologetic to me.

Directly after fish are delivered, some new owners feel it is correct to help the fish breathe and swim. After fish have been in a tank for a few hours, they are tired. Some may even be seasick from a rough road. It should be obvious to some that once they enter water, they deserve a rest, but Frank Fisherman knows more than the fish and the people who raised them. While the trout were hanging out in shallow water, they might be shown lifesaving methods of water and air through the gills by the new owner, misguided and overly conscientious, to the detriment of the fish at rest. Some would hold the slimy fish with their non-slimy hands, thus removing the health protecting cover, and move the fish back and forth like a wind-up Match Box car, as he reminds the fish that it must breathe in, breathe out, because how else would it remember without the owner’s physical reminder? I await the time that the fish’s new owner shakes his own tail or rear end as a visual reminder to the fish how to swim again.

Some owners will poke and prod at a fish at rest. It is usually a gentle movement; after all, they have paid for the critters, but there is no telling a dedicated poker and prodder that it is better to allow the fish to rest until he’s able to move into the main current to face whoever knows what dangers exist in the mainstream.

Some owners didn’t want us to drive on their newly planted lawn. Why a stream needs Kentucky Bluegrass by its side is a secret known only to the owner and the consultant who has guided him. So Steve retained his physique and strength, running fish in a large dip net over and for the green. It was Steve’s goal and pride to deliver live trout the kindest way he could.

Cleaning a Trout Pond (Raceway)

It’s not easy to be on the farm on the days we clean the raceways.

A trout farm raceway can be ten feet wide and forty feet long. Its warped, ragged-edged sides look like a waterlogged dock’s edge, with water lapping against them.

Frightened, fixed-eyed, staring trout race away from the six feet monster striding in rubber hip boots that pulls a multi-bristled broom toward himself.

As the hungry broom takes bites out of the water, the water swirls, forming miniature, clear whirlpools in front of the murky, particle-laden wall of water that the broom’s action has dredged from the gravel bottom. A harsh, acrid smell arises from the mixture of wet fish feed and fish waste-an odor that seems to crawl under the skin-an odor one tries not to taste.

Fish tails whip and gills pump as the silvery rainbows first seek a safe hiding place in the darkness of the moving waste, and then dart toward crystal water. The swooshing suction sound becomes a rhythm as the rubber-legged giant continues the lifting, pulling action.

Fish blindly bump their noses against shins encased in hip waders. The sharp impact of slight pain is not unpleasant.

A hand trickling in the water can feel the slippery, stout bodies before one tail lash speeds them away. Darting around obstacles creates rolling ripples and plashes leading to one large exodus in a unified plunge of sound.

The pond is clean again with lines of water polishing each piece of gravel. The fish’s mouths repeatedly open and close to a beat of, Thank you for the exercise and clean-up.

Unloading Fish Feed

Before the days of our using fork lifts, unloading a semi-load of Moore-Clark or Silver Cup trout feed was a manual labor of love. The fifty pound bags required individual handling as we hugged them like smelly brothers. Two of us would climb into the back of the truck and hand/throw them out to the unsuspecting victim waiting below. Tossing a bag required strength, agility, and deceit to outwit some of the savvy, beefy or wiry hired hands. To accept a bag thrown at high velocity without a loss of wind or a back-step was an honorable thing. To carry two bags at once into the barn was a minor achievement. To tackle three was a study in dance while the carrier fought for balance as he turned and side-stepped over the upraised steps and door guide to deposit his