Outfitter Billy Lee caught this feisty channel catfish while fishing on the Gila River below the Gila Cliff Dwellings. Photo by Patrick Meiten.

Catfish angling comes in many versions. It can be as serious, or as leisurely as you want it to be. Some anglers search for the biggest fish that swims in local waters. Some guys look for a large haul to fill a freezer with succulent filets. I think most of us simply want to get away from it all for a couple of hours with some hope of a tight line in the end.

Catfish fishing in New Mexico provides you with all of these possibilities, and the fishing here is better than you might expect. For those in search of trophies, waters such as Elephant Butte and the Rio Grande or the lower Gila River are where you'll find behemoth flatheads.

Looking for numbers? In any number of large lakes and reservoirs, the laid-back whiskerfish angler can string a trotline and find a thrashing channel cat come morning. From the largest reservoir to the smallest drainage ditch -- if wet and permanent -- chances are that a finned cat of some variety is waiting below for a proffered worm, cluster of canned corn or a dab of special-recipe stinkbait.

In public waters, the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish stocks more catfish than any other species. That makes them widely available and normally abundant enough to assure at least a few exciting bites.

Certain spots get more hatchery fish than others, and less pressure. That assures success and often, heavy stringers.

Here are the top picks for 2007 from Rocky Mountain Game & Fish:

ELEPHANT BUTTE
As New Mexico's largest reservoir, it's no surprise that Elephant Butte is also the state's most dependable catfish water for trophies and sheer numbers. The state dumps more cats in this lake than in any other in the state.

Normally fingerlings are stocked to mature in the Butte's fertile waters. This is easily seen while fishing near any of the lake's boat landings -- the only spots where the cumbersome hatchery trucks can safely reach the sandy lakeshores. Around here, big numbers of thumb-sized whiskerfish can drive you to distraction with their persistent, bait-stealing bites.

My girlfriend loves to fish evenings. No zipping lures or swishing fly line for her. She prefers sitting in a lawn chair while enjoying a frosty beverage, with a line tossed out and rod propped on the cooler.

When we started these frequent evening trips, we employed the typical garden-variety tackle. We caught plenty of catfish -- say 30 in a three-hour foray. But 27 of these would have served well as bait. They were too small to even consider cleaning.

One evening, one of the guys at Pat's Convenience Store in Elephant Butte suggested that we try using frozen raw shrimp. We caught far fewer nibblers and many more keepers. Some of these channel cats weighed 5 pounds.

Shortly after, I tried live crayfish. The size of our catfish increased once more. Fresh whole shad likewise proved productive. Perhaps it's the predominance of natural foods in Elephant Butte, but these cats don't seem to care a bit for stinkbaits of any kind or canned corn or hotdogs, as do catfish in other New Mexico waters.

Another thing that quickly became evident was that evenings following thundershowers proved most productive. The more mud washed into the water, the better fishing seemed to be. Those evenings often resulted in limits of nice catfish. We actually got our best results while huddled under a tarp against the pelting rain!

Bright, hot, sunny evenings proved least productive. But on those evenings, you can always catch a few by finding areas where the water drops off quickly from shore.