Tell you what, there ain't many deals left in this world better than this one. New Mexico is holding its Free Fishing Weekend, which means anybody can fish public waters in the state without buying a license. No permit, no paperwork, just you and a rod and whatever's biting. Yahoo News has the details if you want to read it straight from the source.

State game departments have been running these free fishing weekends for years, and the logic behind them is simple and sound. A lot of folks never take up fishing because they don't want to shell out for a license before they know whether they'll even like it. So the state picks a weekend, waives the license requirement, and lets everybody try it risk-free. Some of those people get hooked, pun intended, and they buy licenses the rest of their lives. That license money goes straight back into habitat work and fish stocking, so it's a machine that feeds itself.

New Mexico is better fishing country than people give it credit for, too. Everybody thinks desert when they think of that state, but the northern half is full of cold mountain streams and high lakes. The San Juan River below Navajo Dam is one of the finest trout fisheries in the whole country, and I'd put the Rio Grande gorge water up against anything in the Rockies. Smallmouth bass, pike, walleye down in the lower elevation water. It ain't all sagebrush, not by a long shot.

Now, a couple of things to remember even when the license requirement is waived. You still have to follow the bag limits and the methods rules, so check the current proclamation before you go. If you're fishing on private land you still need permission from the landowner, same as always. And if you're headed to tribal waters or reservation land, those have their own rules entirely and the state's free weekend doesn't automatically apply. A phone call ahead of time saves a lot of headache.

If you've got kids, this is the weekend to take them. Free fishing weekends were practically made for kids. Get 'em a cheap rod, a can of worms, and find a stocked pond somewhere. Doesn't matter if they catch anything, though they usually do, because stocked ponds get planted heavy for these events. What matters is they spend a morning outside with a line in the water instead of a screen in their face. My dad started me that way on a farm pond outside Willow Springs before I was even in school, and I never did shake it.

And if you try it this weekend and it takes hold of you, do the right thing and buy a license for next time. That money is what keeps the stocking trucks rolling and the habitat projects going. Same deal as hunting license money through Pittman-Robertson, and I've written before about how sportsmen carry the load on conservation in this country. A license is the cheapest good deed you'll ever buy.

My own calendar's getting crowded this fall with the Ozarks trip and maybe a second run out to Colorado, but a free fishing weekend makes me want to point the truck south and see what the Rio Grande's doing this time of year. Might have to run it by Sierra and see if she wants to chase some smallmouth. That woman can out-fish half the fellas I know and never lets me forget it.