Artful Angler

In 1963 the Army Corps of Engineers impounded the Rio Chama by building Abiquiu dam, and the river below it is a tailwater sharing many characteristics with El Vado upstream. Sixty-five years of siltation in the lake above the dam, together with the dam itself, leave the river silty and murky most of the time. Through the summer it is tough, because the acequias downstream and the farms near Albuquerque call for water and the flows come up dirty; in the fall and winter, and again in early spring, the flows drop and the river clears enough to make it a good option, and because it is the lowest-elevation water on this list it stays fishable in the colder months. It is Special Trout Water, recently renamed Xmas Chile Water, and proper handling and catch and release matter here: winter flows dropped to a minimum of seventy CFS expose spawning redds, and boot prints have been found heading straight through them. The Rio Grande is the other main river, described reach by reach from Ute Mountain down through the Wild Rivers upper Taos box, La Junta, the lower Taos box running about seventeen miles from the John Dunn Bridge to the Taos Junction Bridge, and Pilar. It holds plenty of big native browns along with rainbows and cutbows, and at Pilar there are smallmouth bass and northern pike to be taken on the fly, with float fishing possible when conditions allow.