Catching Rainbow Trout at Bill Evans Lake in New Mexico

Bill Evans is a 70 Acre lake that is located outside Silver City NM. The lake is fed by water pumped out of the Gila River so the lake is mostly clear. This lake is stocked with Bass, Channel Catfish and Rainbow Trout in the colder season. The lake is now being managed as a Trophy Bass Lake. This is an electric only (no gas motors) small lake, but that doesn't stop us from loading the boat with fish.

How we found the fish:

We started off by identifying the deepest water in the lake, and located structure leading to the deepest water and we focused on those areas.
My Dad and I followed Buck Perry's Spoonplugging techniques to eliminate unproductive water by trolling to arrive at the schools of fish.
Rainbow trout, just like any other fish, live in deep water and use migrations routes on structure to move shallow. Once we found them, we used line sights to make trolling passes over deep breaklines that the fish were relating to. We found that the fish became active at 9 am and 2pm, each time for about 20 minutes, that's when the fish moved shallow enough for us to catch them with the lures we were using. We also varied out depth and speed through out the day to find the speed that made the fish strike.

It was a good productive day on the water, and I am glad I was able to spend quality time with my Dad.