San Juan River · access
Navajo Dam to Farmington, New Mexico, United States · United States
- Texas HoleThe most famous and most crowded pool on the river; best at first light.
- Simon CanyonWalk-and-wade access to three kilometres of good water with a fraction of the traffic.
- The BraidsSplit channels that hold browns; go when the release is low so you can cross safely.
Licence and rules
Licence and rules. New Mexico requires a fishing licence for anyone 12 and older, and a separate habitat stamp for most waters. The San Juan below Navajo Dam is catch-and-release, artificial-flies-only from the dam down to the US 64 bridge, with barbless hooks encouraged. The Navajo Nation boundary starts downstream of the quality water — a tribal permit is a separate purchase and the rules there are not the same.
Season
Fishable twelve months; spring and autumn are the busiest and the best
Flow
250–1,000 cfs on the quality water; the river is wadeable across most of that range
Navajo Dam releases vary more than the fishing reports admit: the same stretch can be 300 cfs in the morning and 900 cfs after lunch. The quality water is wadeable up to about 1,000 cfs, and the crossing points at Texas Hole become waist-deep above 700 cfs. Water temperature holds near 8°C downstream of the dam, which is why midges hatch in January.