Fly Fishing

October is one of the last comfortable months to fish the Cimarron River before winter settles into the high country, and this year the trip comes with a welcome bonus. The Cimarron flows east out of Eagle Nest Lake through Cimarron Canyon State Park, a narrow, thickly wooded canyon off U.S. 64 between Eagle Nest and the town of Cimarron. It is a small tailwater that fishes like a classic freestone mountain stream, with riffles, pocket water, bend pools, undercut banks and beaver ponds packed into a tight corridor.

October is turning the Rio Grande into one of the best bets in northern New Mexico, and the clearest sign came this week from below Taos Junction Bridge. In the state fishing report published October 14, an angler fishing a fly rod caught and released six brown trout there, including a fish that measured 18 inches. That is the kind of report Carson country anglers wait for all fall.

The clock is ticking on one of the easiest fishing stops in Carson National Forest country. The Red River City Ponds, right in the town of Red River, are open to fishing from March 1 through November 15, according to the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish. That leaves about a month from mid-October to make a last visit before the ponds close for the season.

October brings a quieter, golden window to the Valle Vidal, the large unit of the Carson National Forest in northern New Mexico near the Colorado border. Broad meadows, spruce and fir forest, and cold, clear streams give this high country a different feel from the busier trailheads around Taos and Red River, and fall is when that space is easiest to appreciate.

October is the sweet spot for trout in northern New Mexico. Summer's heat has loosened its grip, water temperatures are dropping into the trout's comfort zone, and fish that spent the summer holding deep are feeding with purpose. This week's state fishing report, compiled from the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish, shows favorable conditions across Carson country — from the Pecos River to the Rio Grande near Questa.

New Mexico's state fish swims in only a handful of cold, clear streams in the southern Rockies — and some of the very best water is in the Carson National Forest's Valle Vidal. The Rio Grande cutthroat trout, the southernmost subspecies of cutthroat trout in North America, is found naturally only in northern New Mexico and southern Colorado, which makes every one you catch feel like a small miracle.