Now Meet Mexico Joe!

Joe Tomelleri is a gifted illustrator and one of the nicest and smartest guys we know. He illustrates fishes in the most breathtakingly accurate way and since the late 90s, we’ve been working with him on books, calendars, posters, and cards.

Joe is active with a group of biologists and conservationists who work in Mexico called the Truchas Mexicanas. This collection of intrepid scientists, artists, and naturalists travel to the Sierra Madre Occidental in Mexico each year to study native fishes. Their work is revealing an amazing diversity and they are documenting the shrinking habitats of many populations. Joe meticulously records measurements of the fish and photographs them to create his portraits. They are incredibly useful to scientists to study (and for us to enjoy).

Río San Lorenzo Trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss subspecies)
© Joesph R. Tomelleri

It’s hard for many people to even believe that native trout exist south of the border, but we know it for a fact. Scott & Nix accompanied the Truchas Mexicanas group in October 2000 and it was an amazing adventure. After flying to Mazatlán and renting a Jeep, we drove four hours up into the mountains looking for our compadres. After a cold, dark night of camping in an old garbage dump, we found them at the local truckstop/cafe/hotel. Over the next week, we drove many miles on dirt roads, we rappelled down flimsy ropes into canyons, we walked through fields of mota (marijuana), and we caught small beautiful native fish—all in the name of science and in the company of other trout-crazed people just like us.

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