Fishing for the Threatened Gila Trout in Arizona and New Mexico
Updated on July 2, 2025 Arizona has its own beauty. With local cacti and a mix of desert, high desert, pine forest and mountains, it's truly splendid. "Wherever the trout are, it's beautiful." ~ Tomas Garrigue Masaryk Gila Trout of Arizona and New Mexico Another Threatened Fish Species The Gila trout is a subspecies of native trout that originated in the southwestern United States of America. The Gila trout are related to the rainbow and cutthroat trout of the salmonids group. For many years now, the Gila trout were considered an endangered species at risk of extinction. But in 2006, that designation was downgraded to "threatened" after much work was done by the Game and Fish Departments of Arizona and New Mexico. These agencies made rules that allowed limited sports fishing, for the first time in over half a century. Before the year 1950, when the fishing of Gila trout was uncontrolled, their numbers had been so depleted and reduced that they were made o...