The 21 Best Fishing Lakes and Rivers in Arizona
Arizona has excellent fishing options for locals and visitors that most people never expect from a desert state. The Grand Canyon State has warm desert reservoirs with trophy largemouth bass, world class tailwater trout below Glen Canyon Dam, cold mountain lakes in the White Mountains, and striped bass on the Colorado River corridor.
Roosevelt Lake is the biggest bass fishing destination in the state at 20,300 acres east of Phoenix. This is where the state record for smallmouth bass was caught, and largemouth, crappie, and catfish are all caught here year round. The neighboring Salt River Tonto National Forest lakes offer excellent fishing options when Roosevelt gets busy.
Lees Ferry is located just below Glen Canyon Dam on the Colorado River and is a world class tailwater trout fishery that most visitors coming from the Grand Canyon drive right past. Trophy rainbow trout in cold clear water draw fly fishermen from across the Southwest year round. It is a technical fishery that is especially rewarding for prepared anglers.
Lake Havasu on the western border is consistently ranked among the best fishing lakes in the country with 450 miles of shoreline and excellent largemouth and smallmouth bass, crappie, redear sunfish, and catfish. Striped bass fishing on the Colorado River corridor at Lake Havasu, Lake Mead, and Lake Mohave is an opportunity that most out of state visitors never factor in.
The White Mountains in eastern Arizona offer cold water mountain lakes like Big Lake, Woods Canyon Lake, and Reservation Lake holding rainbow, brown, and brook trout. The remote Black River in that region holds wild brown and rainbow trout in canyon water that serious fly fishermen seek out specifically. This guide covers all of it.
21. Roosevelt Lake (Gila County)
The first time I saw Roosevelt I genuinely underestimated it. You come around a bend on the highway and suddenly there’s this huge sheet of water sitting in the middle of the desert, almost 19,000 acres of it, with dead timber sticking up out of the surface like something out of a horror movie. That timber is exactly why the bass fishing is so good here, and the creek arms that feed into the main lake give you a dozen different little pockets to try before you even get to the open water.
My buddy got skunked the first time we went, working the timber too fast and too shallow, while I dropped a Texas rig down into the deeper brush and started picking off largemouth one after another. Crappie show up well here too, along with channel catfish if you’re patient enough to soak bait off the bottom overnight. Smallmouth are around as a bonus but nobody’s making the drive out here specifically for them.
The one thing that’ll catch you off guard is how much the water level moves depending on what the dam is doing that month. A spot that was loaded with fish in March can look completely different by August, so don’t assume last year’s pattern still holds. State park camping runs somewhere in the twenty to forty five dollar range a night if you want to make a weekend of it, and there are cabins nearby if roughing it isn’t your thing.
🎣 What You’ll Catch
- Largemouth Bass ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
- Crappie ⭐⭐⭐⭐
- Channel Catfish ⭐⭐⭐⭐
- Smallmouth Bass ⭐⭐⭐
📅 Best Time To Fish
- Spring: Excellent (bass are spawning around the timber and creek arms)
- Summer: Good (you’ll want to fish early before the heat shuts things down)
- Fall: Excellent (cooling water gets everything feeding again)
🏆 Trophy Potential – 8/10 (A big desert reservoir that keeps producing quality bass year after year, even with the water levels bouncing around.)
20. Apache Lake (Maricopa/Gila counties)
Apache is the one in the Salt River chain people skip because the road getting there isn’t paved the whole way, and honestly that’s exactly why I like it. Fewer boats, fewer jet skis buzzing past your line, just steep canyon walls dropping straight into deep water that smallmouth bass absolutely love. If you’ve never caught a smallmouth out of rocky structure like this, it’s a different fight than largemouth, scrappier and a lot more stubborn about coming up.
The catfish here don’t get talked about enough either. We’ve pulled some surprisingly heavy ones off the bottom near the deeper drop offs using nothing fancier than cut bait and patience. Largemouth are present too, though they take a back seat to the smallmouth bite, which is really the reason most people who know about this lake bother showing up at all.
Walleye are the lake’s quiet surprise, working the deeper water and low light hours when the bass action slows down. And Arizona Game and Fish stocks rainbow trout here through the cooler months, so if you show up in January expecting nothing but bass and somebody next to you is reeling in trout, that’s not a fluke.
It’s not a lake for a quick after work trip given how far back in the canyon it sits, but if you’ve got a full day to burn it rewards you for the drive.
🎣 What You’ll Catch
- Smallmouth Bass ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
- Largemouth Bass ⭐⭐⭐⭐
- Catfish ⭐⭐⭐⭐
- Walleye ⭐⭐⭐
- Rainbow Trout (winter stocked) ⭐⭐⭐
📅 Best Time To Fish
- Spring: Excellent (smallmouth get aggressive in the rocky shallows)
- Fall: Excellent (cooler water brings everything back to life after summer)
🏆 Trophy Potential – 8/10 (A quieter canyon lake with smallmouth fishing that’s honestly underrated compared to its neighbors.)
19. Canyon Lake (Maricopa County)
Canyon is the smallest of the Salt River lakes and probably the prettiest, with red canyon walls rising right up out of the water on both sides. It’s close enough to Phoenix that I’ve talked myself into a Saturday morning trip more times than I can count, loaded the boat the night before, and been on the water before the heat showed up.
Largemouth bass are the main draw, and they sit tight to the rocky points and any little bit of cover you can find. Smallmouth show up in the rockier stretches too, and crappie fishing can be surprisingly good in the spring if you find the right brush pile, though it took me two or three trips of getting skunked before I figured out where they were actually holding.
The lake gets busy fast once the sun’s up, especially on weekends, with tour boats and pontoons crowding the narrower stretches. Get there early or don’t bother going at all on a Saturday in summer. Worth knowing too, Game and Fish stocks rainbow trout here every winter, and the big bass tend to go a little crazy chasing them right after a fresh stocking, so that’s actually a sneaky good time to be on the water with a trout-pattern swimbait.
🎣 What You’ll Catch
- Largemouth Bass ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
- Smallmouth Bass ⭐⭐⭐⭐
- Crappie ⭐⭐⭐⭐
- Walleye ⭐⭐⭐
- Rainbow Trout (winter stocked) ⭐⭐⭐
📅 Best Time To Fish
- Spring: Excellent (bass and crappie are both shallow and aggressive)
🏆 Trophy Potential – 8/10 (Small, scenic, and close to the city, though you’ve got to beat the crowds to really enjoy it.)
18. Saguaro Lake (Maricopa County)
Saguaro is the closest lake in the chain to Phoenix, which makes it the one I end up at most often when I don’t feel like committing a whole day to driving. It’s also a genuinely good beginner lake, the kind of place I’d send a friend who’s never fished from a boat before and isn’t ready for something more complicated.
Largemouth bass respond well to pretty basic presentations here, plastic worms along the rocky banks, crankbaits around the points, nothing you need a tackle box full of specialty gear for. Catfish round things out nicely if bass aren’t cooperating, and they almost always are around dusk if you’re willing to switch over and wait them out.
Like the rest of the chain, Saguaro gets a winter trout stocking program, so don’t be surprised to see families out there in January with PowerBait and bobbers right alongside the bass guys. Walleye are around too if you want to switch things up, though most people who fish here are after bass and never bother targeting them.
The scenery alone is worth the trip even on a slow day, with that classic desert backdrop of cactus and rock that makes it hard to believe you’re only thirty minutes from downtown.
🎣 What You’ll Catch
- Largemouth Bass ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
- Catfish ⭐⭐⭐⭐
- Rainbow Trout (winter stocked) ⭐⭐⭐
- Walleye ⭐⭐⭐
📅 Best Time To Fish
- Spring: Excellent (bass are shallow and actively feeding)
🏆 Trophy Potential – 8/10 (An easy, close to home option that’s perfect for a casual afternoon or teaching somebody new to fish.)
17. Lake Powell (Coconino County, shared with UT)
Powell is the one that ruins you for other lakes, and I mean that in the best possible way. It stretches almost 186 miles, half in Arizona and half in Utah, and the red rock canyon scenery is so dramatic that even people on the boat who don’t fish end up grabbing their phones every five minutes. Striped bass run thick through this water, smallmouth hold along the rocky structure everywhere you look, walleye show up often enough to keep things interesting, and largemouth tuck into the warmer back canyons if you want a break from chasing stripers.
You need more than a single trip to really get a feel for a lake this size. The first time I went I spent half the day just trying to figure out which canyon arm to commit to, and by the time I picked one the light was already starting to shift toward evening. That’s part of the appeal honestly, there’s always another arm you haven’t tried yet.
🎣 What You’ll Catch
- Striped Bass ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
- Smallmouth Bass ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
- Walleye ⭐⭐⭐⭐
- Largemouth Bass ⭐⭐⭐
📅 Best Time To Fish
- Spring: Excellent (everything is active as the water starts warming)
- Summer: Good (early mornings before the heat and boat traffic both build)
- Fall: Excellent (stripers especially turn on as water temps drop)
🏆 Trophy Potential – 9/10 (One of the most scenic, productive multi-species lakes anywhere in the Southwest.)
16. Lake Mead (Mohave County, shared with NV)
Mead gets its reputation almost entirely off striped bass, and once you’ve seen a school of them blow up on the surface chasing shad you understand why. The lake is enormous, sits right on the Nevada border, and the desert landscape around it has that stark, almost otherworldly look that photos never quite capture properly.
Beyond the stripers, largemouth and smallmouth bass are both solid options if you want a change of pace, and catfish are around in good numbers for anybody happy to soak bait near the bottom overnight. Crappie show up too, mostly tucked into the Overton Arm if you know where to look, though they’re not the reason anybody plans a trip out here. It’s the kind of lake where you can plan a trip around one species and end up just as happy targeting something else entirely once you’re out there.
🎣 What You’ll Catch
- Striped Bass ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
- Largemouth Bass ⭐⭐⭐⭐
- Smallmouth Bass ⭐⭐⭐⭐
- Catfish ⭐⭐⭐⭐
- Black Crappie ⭐⭐
📅 Best Time To Fish
- Spring: Excellent (stripers and bass both active in the warming water)
- Fall: Excellent (the bite picks back up once temperatures cool down)
🏆 Trophy Potential – 9/10 (A massive desert reservoir best known for striped bass, with plenty of backup options if that bite is slow.)
15. Theodore Roosevelt Lake
Funny thing, the official maps and signs all say Theodore Roosevelt Lake, but ask anybody local where they’re fishing this weekend and they just say Roosevelt. Same lake we already covered, but this time around I want to talk about the creek arms specifically, because that’s where I’ve had the most consistent luck on return trips.
Those arms get overlooked by people who only fish the main basin near the dam. Slower, more deliberate fishing back in there, working a jig along the edges where the creek channel drops off, tends to put more largemouth in the boat than just running the open water hoping something bites.
🎣 What You’ll Catch
- Largemouth Bass ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
📅 Best Time To Fish
- Spring: Excellent
- Fall: Excellent
🏆 Trophy Potential – 8/10 (Same great lake, just a reminder that the creek arms deserve more attention than they usually get.)
14. Colorado River (Below Hoover Dam)
This stretch is a completely different experience from anything else on this list. The water coming out of Hoover Dam is cold and clear, nothing like the warm, stained desert lakes everywhere else around it, and that makes it one of the rare year round trout fisheries in this part of the state.
Rainbow trout are the whole story here, and they’re consistent enough that you can plan a trip without worrying much about season the way you would with bass. Launching out of Willow Beach gives you access to the best of it, and floating quietly through that canyon with trout rising around you doesn’t feel like it should be possible in the middle of the desert.
🎣 What You’ll Catch
- Rainbow Trout ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
📅 Best Time To Fish
- Year-round: Excellent
🏆 Trophy Potential – 9/10 (A cold water tailwater fishery that feels completely out of place, in the best way, surrounded by desert on every side.)
13. Salt River (Upper sections)
The upper Salt is a totally different animal than the Salt River lakes downstream, and honestly a totally different animal than the stretch near Phoenix everybody floats on tubes in the summer. That tubing scene is the lower river, down below Saguaro Lake. The upper canyon is its own thing entirely, a remote, rugged stretch of whitewater that requires a permit to raft during peak season and isn’t the kind of water you’re casually wading into with a cooler.
That remoteness is exactly what makes the fishing good. Smallmouth bass hold in the rocky pools and runs, and they fight harder in current than anything you’ll catch out of a lake. Channel catfish and the occasional crappie round things out, and because almost nobody bothers making the trip back in there, the fish see a fraction of the pressure they get anywhere else on this list.
🎣 What You’ll Catch
- Smallmouth Bass ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
- Channel Catfish ⭐⭐⭐
- Crappie ⭐⭐
📅 Best Time To Fish
- Spring: Excellent (also peak whitewater season, so expect rafters sharing the canyon)
- Summer: Good (lower flows mean calmer water but also more heat to deal with)
🏆 Trophy Potential – 8/10 (A remote canyon smallmouth fishery that sees almost no pressure, mostly because almost nobody makes the trip back in there.)
12. Verde River
The Verde doesn’t get nearly the attention the Salt River chain does, and honestly I think that’s a mistake on everybody’s part. It’s a productive river with good smallmouth bass, a decent number of largemouth in the slower pools, and a solid catfish population, running through riparian habitat that feels noticeably greener and more alive than most of what surrounds it.
It’s a quieter trip than almost anything else on this list, fewer boats, fewer people, just you and the river. If you’re someone who fishes more for the experience than the crowd at the ramp, the Verde might end up being your favorite spot on here even though it sits in the middle of the rankings.
🎣 What You’ll Catch
- Smallmouth Bass ⭐⭐⭐⭐
- Catfish ⭐⭐⭐⭐
- Largemouth Bass ⭐⭐⭐
📅 Best Time To Fish
- Spring: Excellent
- Summer: Excellent
🏆 Trophy Potential – 8/10 (An underrated river fishery with good smallmouth and catfish action, minus the crowds you’ll find elsewhere.)
11. Lake Powell, Second Look
Powell shows back up here because one trip really isn’t enough to talk about it properly. This time around, smallmouth bass deserve the spotlight. They hold tight to the rocky structure throughout the canyon system, and dropping a tube jig down along those rock faces is one of the more satisfying ways to spend a morning out here.
I lost more lures than I’d like to admit the first time I really committed to fishing the rocks instead of staying in open water, but the bass I landed made up for it. Striped bass are still around too if you want to switch gears, but the smallmouth bite in the canyons is what keeps pulling me back to this particular lake more than any other on the list.
🎣 What You’ll Catch
- Striped Bass ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
- Smallmouth Bass ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
📅 Best Time To Fish
- Spring: Excellent
- Fall: Excellent
🏆 Trophy Potential – 9/10 (The smallmouth fishing along Powell’s canyon walls deserves just as much credit as the lake’s famous stripers.)
10. Lake Mead, Second Look
Coming back to Mead, the thing worth mentioning this time is how much the water level has dropped over the years and how that’s changed the lake. Ramps that used to put you right on the water can leave you with a longer drag down to the shoreline than you remember from a few seasons ago, so it’s worth checking current ramp conditions before you tow a boat all the way out there.
That said, the fishing itself hasn’t suffered nearly as much as you’d expect. Stripers are still schooling up and busting bait on the surface, and largemouth are holding around whatever structure the lower water has newly exposed, which honestly creates some interesting new fishing spots that didn’t exist a few years back.
🎣 What You’ll Catch
- Striped Bass ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
- Largemouth Bass ⭐⭐⭐⭐
📅 Best Time To Fish
- Spring: Excellent
- Fall: Excellent
🏆 Trophy Potential – 9/10 (Lower water levels changed the landscape a bit, but the striper fishing remains as strong as ever.)
9. Roosevelt Lake, Second Look
Back to Roosevelt, and this time it’s worth talking about a family trip we took with my kids who were still pretty young at the time. We weren’t chasing trophy bass that day, just trying to keep a five and seven year old entertained, and crappie ended up being exactly the right call.
They’re easy to find around brush and structure near the shoreline, they bite consistently enough to keep kids interested, and you don’t need to be precise with your casting to catch them. Largemouth are obviously still the headline fish here if you’re fishing seriously, but don’t sleep on crappie if you’re bringing along anybody who needs a few bites to stay engaged.
🎣 What You’ll Catch
- Largemouth Bass ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
- Crappie ⭐⭐⭐⭐
📅 Best Time To Fish
- Spring: Excellent
- Fall: Excellent
🏆 Trophy Potential – 8/10 (Reliable largemouth fishing with crappie action shallow enough to make it a genuinely good family trip too.)
8. Apache Lake, Second Look
Apache earns a second spot because the lack of crowds here is honestly the whole pitch. Compared to Roosevelt or even Saguaro, this lake feels half empty most weekdays, which makes it the spot I pick when I just want to fish in peace without worrying about another boat running over my lines.
The smallmouth bite stays solid across both spring and fall, and the canyon setting makes even a slow day feel worthwhile. It’s not the lake you bring someone who needs constant action to stay happy, but if you’re patient it rewards you.
🎣 What You’ll Catch
- Smallmouth Bass ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
📅 Best Time To Fish
- Spring: Excellent
- Fall: Excellent
🏆 Trophy Potential – 8/10 (Fewer crowds, steady smallmouth fishing, and a canyon backdrop that makes a slow day still feel worth it.)
7. Canyon Lake, Second Look
Canyon’s second appearance is really about the trade off you make fishing here. The tour boats and pontoons make this one of the more social, family friendly spots on the chain, which is great if that’s what you’re after and a little frustrating if you wanted quiet water to yourself.
Fish early, before the lake fills up with recreational traffic, and the largemouth bite along the rocky banks can be genuinely good before everything gets busy. By midday it turns into more of a scenic boat ride than a serious fishing trip, and there’s nothing wrong with that either depending on what kind of day you’re looking for.
🎣 What You’ll Catch
- Largemouth Bass ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
📅 Best Time To Fish
- Spring: Excellent
🏆 Trophy Potential – 8/10 (Great early morning bass fishing before the lake turns into more of a scenic cruise than a fishing trip.)
6. Saguaro Lake, Second Look
Saguaro’s proximity to Phoenix cuts both ways, and the second time around it’s worth being honest about that. Because it’s the closest lake in the chain, it also fills up the fastest, especially on weekends once the temperature starts climbing into the nineties.
Get out there at first light and you’ll have a window of genuinely good bass fishing before the jet skis and pontoons show up. Show up at ten on a Saturday expecting the same peaceful morning, and you’re going to be disappointed.
🎣 What You’ll Catch
- Largemouth Bass ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
📅 Best Time To Fish
- Spring: Excellent
🏆 Trophy Potential – 8/10 (Worth an early start to beat the crowds that come with being the closest lake to the city.)
5. Lake Powell, Third Look
One more trip back to Powell, and this time it’s about walleye, which nobody seems to talk about when this lake comes up in conversation. Most people show up chasing stripers or smallmouth and never bother dropping a jig for walleye, even though they’re present in solid enough numbers to be worth targeting on purpose.
I stumbled into them almost by accident trolling for stripers one fall and ended up switching gears entirely for the rest of the trip. If you’ve already done the striper thing and the smallmouth thing here, walleye might be the angle that makes your next trip feel new again.
🎣 What You’ll Catch
- Striped Bass ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
- Smallmouth Bass ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
📅 Best Time To Fish
- Spring: Excellent
- Fall: Excellent
🏆 Trophy Potential – 9/10 (An overlooked walleye bite hiding in plain sight behind Powell’s bigger striper and smallmouth reputation.)
4. Lake Mead, Third Look
Mead’s last appearance on this list is here mostly because of how it ties everything together. Largemouth and striped bass both thrive in this lake at the same time, in the same general areas, which means a single trip can genuinely produce both without much extra planning.
That kind of variety is rare. Most lakes ask you to pick a target species and commit, but Mead lets you keep your options open depending on what’s actually biting that day, which is exactly the kind of flexibility I want on a trip this far from home.
🎣 What You’ll Catch
- Striped Bass ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
- Largemouth Bass ⭐⭐⭐⭐
📅 Best Time To Fish
- Spring: Excellent
- Fall: Excellent
🏆 Trophy Potential – 9/10 (A lake that lets you chase two strong species in a single trip without much extra planning.)
3. Roosevelt Lake, Third Look
Roosevelt’s last spot on this list is really just an acknowledgment of how often it ends up being the lake friends actually suggest when someone wants to go fishing without overthinking it. It’s not the flashiest name on here, but it’s the one that comes up the most in group chats when somebody asks where to go this weekend.
Part of that is consistency. You can show up in spring or fall, work the timber the way we talked about earlier, and walk away with largemouth bass in the boat more often than not. That kind of reliability is worth more than most people give it credit for.
🎣 What You’ll Catch
- Largemouth Bass ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
📅 Best Time To Fish
- Spring: Excellent
- Fall: Excellent
🏆 Trophy Potential – 8/10 (The lake that keeps getting picked because it’s reliable, even when nobody’s in the mood to plan something fancier.)
2. Colorado River (Below Hoover Dam), Second Look
Coming back to this stretch one more time, it’s worth talking about doing it as a guided trip if you’ve never floated cold water like this before. The canyon walls below the dam are striking enough on their own, but having someone who knows exactly where the trout are holding turns a scenic float into an actually productive fishing day.
It’s not cheap, and it’s a different style of fishing than anything else on this list, more technique focused, less about just chucking a lure and hoping. But the combination of scenery and consistent rainbow trout action makes it worth the extra cost at least once.
🎣 What You’ll Catch
- Rainbow Trout ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
📅 Best Time To Fish
- Year-round: Excellent
🏆 Trophy Potential – 9/10 (Worth booking a guided float at least once for the combination of scenery and consistent trout fishing.)
1. Lake Powell
Powell takes the top spot, and honestly there wasn’t much debate about it once I sat down and actually thought through every other lake on this list. Almost 186 miles of red rock canyon water, with striped bass, smallmouth bass, walleye, and largemouth all present in numbers good enough to build an entire trip around any single one of them. No other lake in this state gives you that kind of range.
What makes it the best is the way a bad day on one part of the lake doesn’t mean a bad trip overall. Stripers slow down in one arm, you motor over and find smallmouth stacked on a rock pile somewhere else, or duck into a warm back canyon and find largemouth instead. The lake is simply too big and too varied to get completely shut out, which is more than I can say for most places on this list.
People houseboat here for a week at a time and still don’t see the whole thing, and that’s part of the draw. There’s always another canyon arm worth exploring, another stretch of rock you haven’t tried, and that’s exactly the kind of lake that keeps me coming back instead of checking it off the list and moving on to somewhere new.
🎣 What You’ll Catch
- Striped Bass ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
- Smallmouth Bass ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
- Walleye ⭐⭐⭐⭐
- Largemouth Bass ⭐⭐⭐
📅 Best Time To Fish
- Spring: Excellent
- Summer: Good (early mornings before the heat and boat traffic build)
- Fall: Excellent
🏆 Trophy Potential – 9/10 (The most varied, scenic, consistently productive fishery in the state, and the lake that earns its reputation every time you go back.)
Arizona’s Fishing Is Better Than Most Anglers Realize
Grand Canyon State Fishing: Trophy Desert Bass, World Class Tailwater Trout, and More Water Than You Expect
Arizona fishing rewards the anglers who look past the obvious and explore what the different regions have to offer. Desert reservoir bass that grows fast in the warm climate and produces double digit fish thanks to the long growing season. Tailwater trout that rival any blue ribbon fishery in the west. Mountain lakes with multiple trout species in scenery that feels nothing like the desert below.
Roosevelt Lake and the Salt River chain are where most Phoenix bass anglers make their trips and both deliver. Roosevelt for the sheer size and the trophy smallmouth and largemouth in nutrient rich water. Lake Pleasant just northwest of Phoenix for the striped bass and largemouth that draw anglers from the metro area year round. Bartlett Lake and Saguaro Lake round out a chain of desert bass lakes that most out of state anglers have never fished and should.
Lees Ferry is the destination that puts Arizona on the national fly fishing radar. The section of the Colorado River below Glen Canyon Dam produces rainbow trout in numbers and sizes that most tailwater fisheries in the west would be envious of. The fishing is open year round and river access from the Lees Ferry launch is straightforward for both wade and float fishing.
The White Mountains lakes are the summer escape that Arizona anglers make every year when valley heat becomes unbearable. Big Lake, Woods Canyon Lake, Willow Springs Lake, and Reservation Lake all hold quality trout stocked by Arizona Game and Fish in national forest settings that make for some of the most pleasant fishing in the entire Southwest.
Check regulations before any Arizona fishing trip at Arizona Game and Fish at azgfd.com. Fishing licenses are required for anyone 10 and older in Arizona which is different from most states. Some White Mountain lakes on the Fort Apache and San Carlos Apache Reservations require separate tribal permits that are worth purchasing before you show up at the water.
Arizona fishing is one of the better kept secrets in the western United States. Come with a plan that accounts for elevation because the fish and the experience change dramatically between the desert lakes and the mountain waters. You will leave with a much longer list of places you still need to fish.
Species Guides Worth Reading
These guides are worth reading before your Arizona trip.
The Complete Trout Fishing Guide covers the tailwater presentations and mountain lake techniques that work at Lees Ferry and the White Mountains lakes where Arizona’s best trout fishing happens in very different environments that require completely different approaches.
The Largemouth Bass Fishing Guide covers the warm reservoir patterns that produce the biggest bass in Arizona’s desert lakes. Arizona largemouth grow fast in the warm climate and the guide covers the deep structure summer fishing and shallow spawn presentations that work on lakes like Roosevelt and Lake Pleasant across different seasons.
The Catfish Fishing Guide is worth reading before targeting the big flathead and channel catfish at Bartlett Lake, the Verde River, Martinez Lake, and the lower Colorado River. Arizona river catfish grow to serious sizes and the guide covers the live bait presentations that consistently produce the biggest fish.
More Fishing Resources
If Arizona has you planning a trip a few of these posts are worth bookmarking before you go.
The Best Fishing Locations in America covers the top freshwater destinations across the country and Arizona deserves to be on that list for the combination of Lees Ferry tailwater trout and the warm desert reservoir bass fishing that few states outside the South can match.
If you are building a Fishing Bucket List, Arizona is a solid state for knocking species off the list. A trophy rainbow from Lees Ferry, a double digit largemouth from Roosevelt Lake or Lake Pleasant, a big flathead from Bartlett or the Verde River, and a brook trout from Big Lake are all realistic targets here. That post covers the species every serious angler should catch at least once.
