You'll find scores of fishing opportunities in New Mexico. Warm-water lakes and streams are home to large- and small-mouth bass, walleye, stripers, catfish, crappie, and bluegill. In cold-water lakes and streams, look for the state fish, the Rio Grande cutthroat, as well as kokanee salmon and rainbow, brown, lake, and brook trout.
Two of the best places for fishing are the San Juan River near Farmington and Elephant Butte Lake, not far from Truth or Consequences. The San Juan River offers excellent trout fishing and is extremely popular with fly fishers. Elephant Butte Lake is great for bass fishing; in fact, it's considered one of the top 10 bass-fishing locations in the United States.
All sorts of other possibilities are available, such as the Rio Grande, the Chama, Jemez, and Gila watershed areas, and the Pecos River. I recommend Ti Piper's Fishing in New Mexico (University of New Mexico Press). This excellent and wonderfully comprehensive book describes every waterway in New Mexico in great detail. It includes information about regulations and descriptions of the types and varieties of fish you're likely to catch in New Mexico.
For information on obtaining fishing licensing, call the New Mexico Game and Fish Department, 1 Wildlife St., Santa Fe (tel. 505/476-8000; www.wildlife.state.nm.us).
Although it is not necessary to have a fishing license in order to fish on Native American-reservation land, you must still receive written permission and an official tribal document before setting out on any fishing trips there.
