Elephant Butte is New Mexico's big water: a Rio Grande desert reservoir whose stripers, white bass and walleye concentrate harder the lower the lake gets. Watching the level trend is half the strategy; the dawn boils are the reward.
Reports current for Friday, September 4
Live verdicts from this morning's reports.
New Mexico's big water: a desert reservoir with the state's best stripers, white bass and walleye.
The Quality Waters: four miles below Navajo Dam hold more big rainbows per mile than almost anywhere in America.
The two-state canyon behind the San Juan: houseboat water of pike, smallmouth and kokanee stretching from New Mexico into Colorado.
New Mexico's canyon classic: brown trout pocket water through red-rock and pine, an hour from Santa Fe and centuries from hurry.
New Mexico’s no-wake lake: Heron holds kokanee and lake trout in quiet water below the Brazos cliffs.
High plains bass water: Conchas holds walleye, white bass and largemouth in canyon country east of Santa Fe.
New Mexico’s walleye plains lake: Ute Reservoir spreads across the Canadian River near the Texas line.
Red rock reservoir: Abiquiu holds walleye, bass and trout under the mesas O’Keeffe painted.
A no-wake lake on the Rio Grande: Cochiti holds walleye, pike and bass in quiet water below the Jemez.
A high desert trout lake: Bluewater grows tiger muskie alongside rainbows at 7,400 feet in western New Mexico.
The Taos gorge: the Rio Grande runs big browns and northern pike through 800-foot basalt walls.
A canyon tailwater below Eagle Nest: the Cimarron runs wild browns through Philmont country.
A high New Mexico lake at 8,200 feet: Eagle Nest holds trout, kokanee and pike in the Moreno Valley.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Elephant Butte Lake | Reservoir | Sierra | USGS | Mar |
| San Juan River (Navajo Dam) | River | Rio Arriba | USGS | Apr |
| Navajo Lake | Reservoir | San Juan | modeled | Apr |
| Pecos River | River | San Miguel | USGS | Apr |
| Heron Lake | Reservoir | Rio Arriba | USGS | Apr |
| Conchas Lake | Reservoir | San Miguel | USGS | Mar |
| Ute Reservoir | Reservoir | Quay | USGS | Mar |
| Abiquiu Lake | Reservoir | Rio Arriba | modeled | Mar |
| Cochiti Lake | Reservoir | Sandoval | USGS | Apr |
| Bluewater Lake | Reservoir | Cibola | modeled | Apr |
| Rio Grande | River | Taos | USGS | Apr |
| Cimarron River | River | Colfax | USGS | Apr |
| Eagle Nest Lake | Lake | Colfax | modeled | Apr |
New Mexico pairs one world-class tailwater with a desert-reservoir tradition: the San Juan below Navajo Dam holds thousands of large, dry-fly-sipping rainbows in four miles of quality water (a pilgrimage river by any measure), while Elephant Butte's stripers and white bass define warm-water fishing in the state. Between them: the Gila's wild trout in wilderness canyons, Rio Grande cutthroat restoration in the high country, and stocked winter trout ponds across the desert cities.
Winter: the San Juan at its technical best: midges, 6X and heavy fish in low, clear flows. Spring: Butte's stripers wake with the shad, wild-turkey weather in the trout canyons. Summer: monsoon-season caution on the small streams, dawn boils on the reservoirs. Fall: the San Juan's baetis, gold cottonwoods on the Rio Grande, and the year's most comfortable desert fishing.
Late spring through fall at first light, whenever shad school shallow: coves and channel edges erupt, and anything silver thrown into the splash gets eaten.