Fishing New Mexico

(Where to go for Trout)

By Dave O'Hara, Fall1999

If you're planning a trip to fish New Mexico, or if you live in NM but are new to fishing in your home state, it's always a good idea to hire a guide if you can afford it (like Dave O'Hara, for instance).

I also recommend a stop at the Reel Life's website (www.thereellife.com) or one of their stores in Santa Fe and Albuquerque, as they are a very reliable source of accurate information about where the fishing's hot and what the fish are rising on.

If you can't afford a real live guide, or if you're simply adventurous, your second-best bet is to bring along a book written by a guide, to help you get started. Even though it's a desert, there's a lot of fishable water in NM. Finding exactly where and when to fish any given water can be a real challenge though, and without expert help you might never see a fish. Several good books have been written to help you find your way to good fishing.

  1. Of these, the best one for someone who's new to fishing NM is Taylor Streit's No-Nonsense Guide to Fly-Fishing in New Mexico. Mr. Streit is a long-time guide in NM and he knows the waters well. In the book he gives easy-to-follow maps to twenty good places to fish around the state; tells you when to fish those places (time of day as well as time of year); what flies to bring in any given month; what equipment to bring; what the local seasons and limits are; and where to find local food, lodging and fly shops. Each water also gets his personal 1-10 rating. I bought a copy when I first moved to NM, and haven't yet visited all the locations he mentions, mostly because the ones I've visited so far have been good enough to warrant repeated visits. His treatment of the world-famous San Juan River is especially helpful. (Handy spiral-bound paperback, 44 pages. List price: 16.95. Published by David Communications, 6171 Tollgate, Sisters, OR, 97759. ISBN# 0-9637256-6-1)
  2. Another book worth buying is Fly-Fishing in Northern New Mexico, by Craig Martin (Editor), and Ron Lujan (Illustrator). It is a comprehensive guide to northern New Mexico, where most (but definitely not all) of the good trout water in New Mexico is to be found. (Paperback - 250 pages (August 1991) List Price: $14.95 University of New Mexico Press; ISBN: 082631290X)