Eagle Nest Lake

Eagle Nest Lake sits at about 8,200 feet in the Moreno Valley on the Enchanted Circle, below Wheeler Peak, behind a dam on the Cimarron River built in 1918. It covers about 2,400 acres when full and is one of New Mexico's best-known stillwaters, with big stocked rainbows, kokanee, yellow perch and northern pike, all inside Eagle Nest Lake State Park.

Rainbows cruise the shallows after ice-off in spring and again in fall, and chironomids, leeches and damsel nymphs are the standard flies. A float tube along the weed beds near the inlets on the north end, or a boat over the deeper water toward the dam, both work. Summer afternoons bring thunderstorms and wind off the peaks. Northern pike were put in illegally, and every pike caught must be kept. The lake freezes in winter and is a popular ice fishery, and it is day use only.