Water rolls out from deep within Navajo Lake into the San Juan River at a steady 44 degrees or so, creating the state’s finest trout fishery. Rainbows, browns, and cutthroats feed well among the rocks and riffles and grow year-round.

Following the completion of the dam in 1960, the Department of Game and Fish in 1966 obtained a perpetual fishing easement. This includes access to the water and 50 feet of stream frontage along a six-mile stretch of river, above and below the Aztec bridge.

Immediately upstream, the department has an additional one mile of stream, leased from the State Land Commission. And for the first 3.75 miles below Navajo Dam, the river is managed as a trophy trout water, with special fishing rules and a 20-inch minimum fish size, as it rolls through state park land.

The San Juan is rimmed by sandstone cliffs on the north and rolling hills and flat mesas on the south. Cottonwoods and willows grow in patches along the river, with juniper and pinon nearby, and sage grows nearly to the water’s edge at the 5,600-foot elevation.