Land of Enchantment Guides

The Pecos is a beautiful small-to-medium stream running through many different kinds of terrain, and because a road follows most of its course it takes real pressure through the summer months. It holds a good population of wild brown trout and is heavily stocked with rainbows. Where the Rio Mora comes in, each stream carries about the same flow and is about the same size; the Mora holds browns and is stocked with rainbows in the last half mile above the confluence, while the small tributaries that form it offer solitude and a chance at Rio Grande cutthroats. Cow Creek has very limited public access, with a private stretch on the Bar X Bar Ranch. All of these streams fish well before spring runoff and stay good through the summer and into the fall. The Chama is a different proposition: below El Vado reservoir it runs for over thirty miles through rugged, multi-coloured sandstone canyons and rough country with limited access, six miles of that inside the fifty-thousand-acre Chama River Canyon Wilderness, and a less remote stretch flows from below Abiquiu dam down to the Rio Grande. Every part of it holds large wild browns and rainbows, and the state record brown trout came from the river below El Vado. Both are wade waters here, since floats are run only on the Rio Grande, the San Juan and some area lakes. Wade full days are 475, 550 and 660 dollars for one, two and three anglers, half days 400, 490 and 585, with a maximum of three anglers per guide.