TJ Trout isn’t just a radio personality, he’s also got decades of fishing experience. Despite having fished world-class spots and penning his book Fishing With My Fly Down, Trout says Albuquerque’s Tingley Beach is one of the “prime spots” to fish in town, and the largest fish are lurking in the “catch and release” pond. He says he’s pulled a 26-inch rainbow trout out of Tingley that wouldn’t fit in his net, but he’d be surprised if the big ones are still in there with all the poaching that goes on.
These days though, Trout is heated because tall grass surrounding Tingley’s catch and release pond significantly obstructs access to the water. He said he’s seen trash pile up, and he doubts people are following the clearly posted rules. Most concerning, he said, he and other visitors have seen dead fish floating on the pond’s surface.
“When I saw the bad condition that this lake was in, it just broke my heart,” Trout says.
Trout said he’s not the only person who cares about the deterioration of the fishing ponds at Tingley Beach — he recently posted to Facebook about the conditions and received more than 8,500 views and likes.
“I’m just saying people give a shit,” Trout says. “I’m talking to Trout Unlimited about this as well. Also, we got the New Mexico Wildlife Federation involved. Both these guys have access to biologists and hydrologic engineers.”
Tingley Beach offers year-round fishing at three different fishing ponds — each with its own set of rules. The Bob Gerding Catch and Release Pond located at the southern end of Tingley Beach is what Trout is most fired up about. Anglers who want to try to land a monster trout in this area must use barbless flies and lures and release their catches. As with any heavily fished body of water, not every fish survives after being hooked, and trout are notoriously fragile, but the human Trout says he’s noticed an increase of floating dead fish.
“You get winter kill, but then you also get people who aren’t following the rules who come down here and fish with treble hooks or fish with bait, and then the fish swallow the hook, swallow the bait, and then you’ve got a dead fish,” Trout said. “What I’ve been told is the rules are not enforced as much as they should be down here.”
Trout said he thinks the fish might be dying from a lack of oxygen or water temperatures that are too high, and it might be because the lake doesn’t have enough fresh aerated water feeding the catch and release pond. He says a couple of years ago during the hotter months, hundreds of fish gathered around the pipe feeding fresh water into the south end of the Bob Gerding pond. He says they had to install a screen to keep fishermen from targeting the “poor fish trying to survive.”
“There is flow, but is it enough? Because if you look down here, especially at some of the corners, you get stagnant water, and that’s where I was seeing some floating fish the other day,” Trout says.
Trout also says the weeds at the Bob Gerding pond are so bad he thinks the city will need a bulldozer to get rid of them.
“If you want this lake to be usable by enough people, you gotta get rid of this stuff.” Trout says. “We want people to come down here and enjoy it and have room for more than [only] a dozen people to fish.”
Trout says that he and other concerned anglers have raised their concerns with the city, but haven’t seen or caught wind of a major vegetation removal project. The Bob Gerding pond has only a handful of spots where anglers can access the water without being obstructed by grass as high as eight feet.
“I talked to them a couple times, and what I understand is they had a plan that fell through, and they’re trying to get another plan together to take these out,” Trout says. “About a year or so ago it would ring the entire lake and there was nowhere to fish, but this is still completely out of control.”
A spokesperson for the city said in an email that, with the support of Trout and other volunteers, there was a volunteer day in 2023 to clean up overgrowth.
“The effort proved to be quite laborious. However, significant progress was made,” Brandon Gibson, director of the ABQ BioPark says. “Since then, ABQ BioPark Life Support team has been clearing cattails to create ‘casting lanes’ as staff capacity allows. The ABQ BioPark is working to obtain quotes for the removal of the cattails.”
Gibson says the Department of Municipal Development’s Metro Security Division is in charge of enforcing the posted rules at Tingley Beach and New Mexico Department of Game & Fish conservation officers are responsible for enforcing game and fish regulations. According to Gibson, NMDGF conservation officers were onsite at Tingley as recently as Feb. 9.
“Metro Security is working to schedule a meeting with NM Department of Game and Fish for later this month to discuss options, as it may be feasible for NMDGF to allow Metro Security to assist with enforcing game and fish regulations,” Gibson says.
According to Gibson, the state’s Game and Fish Department, which stocks the pond, “does occasionally lose a small percentage of fish during the transportation and stocking,” and that “fish mortalities do also occur from improper handling by fishermen.”
Gibson says the catch and release pond is stocked annually with “trophy” sized rainbow trout. In January, Crowther’s Freshwater Trout fish hatchery unloaded 650 pounds of trout ranging in size from 18 to over 20 inches into the Bob Gerding pond alone. He says city BioPark staff “routinely conducts water quality checks at Tingley,” and that the ponds are “held to the same standard” as the nearby BioPark aquarium.
Trout says something needs to be done by the city, but he wants to be clear that he is not criticizing the employees at the BioPark. He thinks they are understaffed and underpaid.
“None of those guys have anything to do with this not being maintained. They do what they’re told, and when they do come down here, they do a good job. I know for a fact that they’re checking the water in this lake regularly,” he says. “But this is like a wall of despair, you know what I’m saying? This is ridiculous.”