New Mexico has one river that anglers fly across the country for and a dozen others that most of them never hear about. The San Juan below Navajo Dam is the destination: a midge tailwater in the high desert where the fish are large and the flies are tiny. The rest of the state's trout water is in the mountains of the north, in the Sangre de Cristos and the Rio Grande Gorge, where the fishing is smaller, wilder and, in the case of the Rio Grande cutthroat, native to nowhere else. Cutthroat trout are the third most recorded gamefish in New Mexico's GBIF records, behind channel catfish and carp, which tells you both how much cutthroat water there is and how much of the state is warmwater.
The San Juan below Navajo Dam
The San Juan River comes out of Navajo Dam cold and clear and stays that way through the Quality Waters, the reach where the famous fishing happens, down past Texas Hole. Midges peak every month of the year. Blue-Winged Olives run from fall through spring, and a Trico window in July and August is the only significant summer mayfly. The box is midges: Zebra Midges, Disco Midges, WD-40s, Miracle Nymphs and Thread Midges in #22 to #26, with RS2s in #18 to #22 for the Baetis. Fish them under an indicator on 6X or 7X, and expect rainbows that are heavier than they are long. Best months are October through December and March and April; flows of 500 to 3,000 cfs on gauge 09355500 are all fishable. Below the Quality Waters the river gradually warms, and the fish thin out.
The Rio Grande Gorge and the Red River
The Rio Grande through the Taos Box and the gorge below is a dramatic, difficult river: hundreds of feet of basalt cliff between the rim road and the water, and big brown trout at the bottom. The Taos Junction Bridge and the Red River confluence near Questa are the access points, and the river fishes best from July through October once spring runoff and summer storms settle, on caddis, Golden Stones and hoppers, with Blue-Winged Olives in fall. The Red River, its tributary through the town of Red River and down past Questa, is a small freestone with rainbows and browns that fishes well from June through September with Royal Humpies, Elk Hair Caddis and Dave's Hoppers.
Cimarron Canyon
The Cimarron River below Eagle Nest Lake runs through Cimarron Canyon State Park as a small, cold stream with wild browns and rainbows and easy roadside access along US-64. Flows rarely exceed 300 cfs and the fish are not large, but the hatches are steady: midges through winter, Blue-Winged Olives in spring and fall, caddis from April into July, Pale Morning Duns and Golden Stones in June and July. It is a 3-weight river best in May, June, September and October. Eagle Nest Lake above it sits in the Moreno Valley at high elevation and holds rainbows, kokanee and pike.
The Pecos and the native Rio Grande cutthroat
The Pecos River above the town of Pecos climbs into the Pecos Wilderness, and the higher you go, the more the fish shift from stocked rainbows and browns to native Rio Grande cutthroat, the state fish. The wilderness trailhead at Cowles is the gateway; above it, the river and its tributaries are backpack water for cutthroat that rise to a Royal Wulff or Yellow Stimulator without much thought. Grasshoppers from July into September and Golden Stones in June and July are the summer patterns. Costilla Creek in the far north, gauged and managed heavily for native cutthroat, and the Rio Pueblo de Taos, also gauged, are two more cutthroat waters without pages here.
The Chama, the Jemez and the rest of the north
The Rio Chama, gauged with temperature, is New Mexico's other tailwater river, flowing below El Vado and Abiquiu dams through a red rock canyon and holding browns and rainbows; it deserves a page and does not yet have one. Heron Lake, on the Chama drainage, is a quiet no-wake reservoir with lake trout and kokanee. The Jemez River and its tributaries west of Los Alamos are small mountain streams with stocked and some wild trout, gauged with temperature. The Rio Brazos is a gauged, largely private cutthroat and brown trout stream near Chama. Southwest, the Gila River and its West Fork are home to the Gila trout, another native found nowhere else, in a recovery program that limits where and when it can be fished.
Before you go
The San Juan Quality Waters, the Pecos wilderness streams and every Gila trout water carry special regulations that change, and the Jicarilla Apache and Taos Pueblo lands have their own permits. Check the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish before you go. Spring runoff on the Rio Grande and Pecos and summer monsoon storms on everything are the two timing hazards; the San Juan is immune to both. See the New Mexico fishing hub for every gauged water in the state and the New Mexico trout page for trout detail.