Jemez Adventures Short Fishing Notes – May 15, 2025

These notes on Jemez Mountains fishing are excerpted from the Friends of Fenton Lake articles that appear in the After the Thunder newspaper published in Jemez Springs. They provide a window into Jemez fishing as a function of time and are reported twice a month. 

Fenton Lake fishing is OK to good – there is no shortage of fish - the lake was stocked May 7 with 1330 rainbow trout, and 870 trout the week ending April 30. Saturday morning May 10 the lake was crowded with fishers, and fishing was a bit slow. The most successful fly for me was a black wooly bugger, and there seemed to be no interest at all in suspended nymph presentations. Spin fishers did well with small spoons and spinners – it seemed as if movement was an important a factor in getting a bite.

That morning a pair of Canadian geese were showing off a family of 4 goslings. There were at least 3 wild duck species flying around, and the Ospreys were out and about but there was no sighting of them feeding on the newly stocked fish – evidently their fishing was also slow! These avian sightings are a real  treat – visit the lake this month to view them, mornings seem to have the most bird activity. 

The other Jemez Mountain stream stockings in early May included the San Antonio with 578 fish, and the Kid’s Pond with 300. The week ending 30 April the Cebolla was stocked with 400 fish and the Jemez River received 1000.

Wild brown trout fishing continues to improve. Both the Guadalupe and the San Antonio above NM 126 fished well for browns the week before the rains hit. The high flows should wane this week and the East Fork Jemez, Guadalupe, San Antonio (in the forest and on the Valles Caldera), and Las Vacas should get back to normal flows and biting brown trout! May through July these fish are looking up and dry flies rule. Please respect our wild fish and release them gently – and while you are there destroy or make a flow path through any tourist dams you find to save the food chain these fish depend on.