The lower Colorado River is Arizona's fishing spine, and Havasu is its showpiece: world-record redear sunfish fattened on quagga mussels, resurgent smallmouth over hundreds of planted habitat reefs, and a winter season the rest of the country envies.
Reports current for Friday, September 4
Live verdicts from this morning's reports.
The Colorado River's sun-bleached bass arena: smallmouth, redear the size of dinner plates, and 300 days of fishable weather.
The Salt River's desert bass factory: saguaro shorelines and spring topwater to remember.
Phoenix's deep blue playground: stripers, white bass schools and desert-clear water.
The Superstition jewel: sheer walls, big largemouth and Apache Trail solitude.
The White Mountains' trout basin: Arizona's high-country answer to the desert heat.
The desert flood lake: boom-cycle bass and crappie in wild burro country.
The urban trout oddity: a cold tailwater full of rainbows through Phoenix's desert edge.
The Verde's desert basin: saguaro-framed bass water an hour from Phoenix, with spring wildflower banks and a flathead night culture.
The Salt River's postcard pool: desert canyon walls, yellow bass swarms and largemouth living under the tour boat's wake.
The Rim's summer refuge: a spruce-lined trout pond at 7,500 feet where Phoenix escapes July and rainbows rise at dusk.
The White Mountains' walleye pocket: a small, deep lake where Arizona's unlikely gold swims beneath the ponderosas.
Arizona's wild secret: the White Mountains' canyon river of wild browns, native Apache trout above and smallmouth where it warms.
Show Low's twin refuge: Fools Hollow's cool pines hold trout mornings, bass afternoons and the White Mountains' easiest family water.
A desert river with a double life: winter rainbow stockers and year-round bass in the cottonwood canyons below Saguaro Lake.
The wild middle child of the Salt chain: Apache’s canyon miles hide crowds-free bass, walleye and a drive you will not forget.
Arizona’s border oasis: Patagonia’s cattail coves stack bass and crappie an hour from Tucson, with trout riding shotgun all winter.
Red rock trout: Oak Creek runs cold through Sedona’s canyon, giving Arizona a genuinely scenic wild-and-stocked trout stream.
Arizona’s boom-and-bust lake: San Carlos grows enormous bass when the water comes, and vanishes when it does not.
Lees Ferry: the Colorado runs enormous rainbows through Marble Canyon below Glen Canyon Dam.
Arizona’s desert river: the Verde runs smallmouth and catfish through cottonwood galleries.
Species activity across the state's covered waters. Peak of the year: March.
1 = slow, 5 = peak. Current month highlighted.
Seasonal surface curve for this state's dominant water type (estimated).
| Water | Type | County | Live gauge | Peak month |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lake Havasu | Reservoir | Mohave | USGS | Mar |
| Roosevelt Lake | Reservoir | Gila | USGS | Mar |
| Lake Pleasant | Reservoir | Yavapai | USGS | Mar |
| Canyon Lake (AZ) | Reservoir | Maricopa | USGS | Mar |
| Big Lake (White Mountains) | Reservoir | Apache | USGS | Apr |
| Alamo Lake | Reservoir | La Paz | USGS | Mar |
| Lower Salt River | River | Maricopa | USGS | Apr |
| Bartlett Lake | Reservoir | Maricopa | modeled | Mar |
| Saguaro Lake | Reservoir | Maricopa | modeled | Mar |
| Woods Canyon Lake | Lake | Coconino | modeled | Apr |
| Show Low Lake | Reservoir | Navajo | modeled | Apr |
| Black River | River | Apache | modeled | Apr |
| Fools Hollow Lake | Reservoir | Navajo | modeled | Apr |
| Salt River | River | Maricopa | USGS | Mar |
| Apache Lake | Reservoir | Maricopa | modeled | Mar |
| Patagonia Lake | Lake | Santa Cruz | modeled | Mar |
| Oak Creek | River | Coconino | USGS | Apr |
| San Carlos Lake | Reservoir | Gila | USGS | Mar |
| Colorado River | River | Coconino | USGS | Apr |
| Verde River | River | Yavapai | USGS | May |
Arizona concentrates its fishing into oases: the Colorado River chain (Havasu, Mohave, Powell's south end) with its stripers and record sunfish; the central reservoirs (Roosevelt, Bartlett) where desert bass fishing peaks each spring; Lees Ferry's glass-clear rainbow tailwater below Glen Canyon Dam; and the White Mountains' surprise: wild Apache trout, the state fish, recovering in high pine country. Every fishery is a contrast against the desert.
October-May is the golden stretch: mild weather, active fish, and desert lakes at their best (spring topwater on Roosevelt can rival anywhere). Summer flips life to dawn, night and altitude: full-moon striper nights on the Colorado chain, White Mountain mornings, and Lees Ferry's midge sippers before the canyon heat rises.
October through May: mild desert weather and active fish. Summer flips the day: first light and night fishing under lights.