The Eagle is Colorado's comeback river: a mine-scarred freestone restored into a wild brown trout fishery running right down the Vail Valley, with spring caddis blizzards and August hopper banks: and none of the tailwater elbow-to-elbow.
Reports current for Friday, September 4
Live verdicts from this morning's reports.
The Vail Valley's freestone comeback story: browns and rainbows against I-70, best caddis water in reach of a chairlift.
Colorado's biggest lake: kokanee salmon central and lake trout that eat them.
The Front Range's home tailwater: Cheesman Canyon's technical rainbows minutes from Denver.
The Silverthorne tailwater: mysis-fattened rainbows under the outlet-mall parking lots.
South Park's trophy factory: shallow, fertile and famous for fast-growing giants.
The Arkansas River's desert lake: walleye, wipers and smallmouth under sandstone bluffs.
Denver's clear suburban trophy pond: big trout, big walleye and a no-gas-motor calm.
Colorado's wild artery: Gold Medal water through the Black Canyon's shadow.
The mysis tailwater where Colorado's heaviest trout sip tiny flies below the dam.
Estes Park's canyon workhorse: pocket water rainbows below Olympus Dam.
The Gold Medal freestone that keeps pace with its famous neighbors, Aspen to Glenwood.
Golden's canyon creek: wild browns within sight of Denver's skyline.
Colorado's lake trout depths at the headwaters: 40-pound macks, kokanee fleets and Rocky Mountain National Park's doorstep.
Denver's backyard big water: walleye eggs for the whole state, smallmouth on the dam rocks and paddleboard armadas dodged at dawn.
South Park's trophy engine: gold-medal stillwater at 8,700 feet, where pike ambush and rainbows outgrow every neighbor.
The Uncompahgre: Ridgway's tailwater gift, where the San Juans' silt turned to trophy water below the dam at Pa-Co-Chu-Puk.
Telluride's river: a free-flowing ribbon dropping from the box canyon through cottonwood gold, wild trout the whole way.
Denver's alpine postcard: Evergreen's little lake stocks rainbows under the ice-rink pavilion and fly-only mornings in the flats.
South Park's third wheel: Tarryall's sage-flat water fishes the famous valley's program without the famous valley's parking.
The Roaring Fork’s wild little sister: freestone gold-medal-quality trout water without the crowds, from Marble to Carbondale.
Denver’s backyard trout stream: forty minutes from downtown, Bear Creek’s canyon pockets hold browns that ignore the traffic above.
Gold Medal water through a world-famous ski town: Gore Creek fishes better than any river running past this many hotel rooms deserves to.
A high-country trout factory under Hahns Peak: Steamboat Lake grows fat rainbows and cutthroats at 8,000 feet.
Fort Collins’ front porch: a foothills reservoir where smallmouth own the rocks and walleye prowl the depths below the sandstone tooth.
Loveland’s big-sky pond: Boyd trades mountain scenery for warm-water substance: walleye, whites and wipers on the prairie edge.
Colorado’s deep-water throne room: Twin Lakes guards state-record mackinaw under 14,000-foot skylines.
Colorado’s high-country blue: Dillon holds kokanee, browns and arctic char at 9,000 feet with Tenmile Range for a backdrop.
South Park’s trophy stillwater: Elevenmile grows big cutbows, browns and pike in wind-swept water at 8,600 feet.
Above the Frying Pan: Ruedi holds lake trout and kokanee, and feeds the tailwater that grows Colorado’s famous mysis rainbows.
San Juan high country: Vallecito holds northern pike, kokanee and trout in ponderosa forest above Durango.
Under the Sneffels Range: Ridgway holds trout and kokanee in a state park with the best backdrop in Colorado.
The plains of southeastern Colorado: John Martin holds walleye, wipers and crappie where the prairie meets the Arkansas.
Southern Colorado’s prairie-meets-mountains lake: Trinidad holds walleye, bass and trout below the Spanish Peaks.
Colorado’s Gold Medal river: the Arkansas runs brown trout through 100 miles of mountain canyon.
The last wild river of the Colorado basin: the Yampa runs trout, pike and canyon country.
The San Luis Valley’s river: the Rio Grande runs Gold Medal browns below the San Juans.
Colorado’s only Wild and Scenic river: the Poudre runs trout out of Rocky Mountain National Park.
Species activity across the state's covered waters. Peak of the year: May.
1 = slow, 5 = peak. Current month highlighted.
Seasonal surface curve for this state's dominant water type (estimated).
| Water | Type | County | Live gauge | Peak month |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Eagle River | River | Eagle | USGS | Apr |
| Blue Mesa Reservoir | Reservoir | Gunnison | USGS | Apr |
| South Platte River (Deckers) | River | USGS | Apr | |
| Blue River (Silverthorne) | River | Grand | USGS | Apr |
| Antero Reservoir | Reservoir | Park | modeled | Apr |
| Pueblo Reservoir | Reservoir | Pueblo | USGS | Apr |
| Aurora Reservoir | Reservoir | Arapahoe | USGS | Apr |
| Gunnison River | River | Mesa | USGS | Apr |
| Taylor River | River | Gunnison | USGS | Apr |
| Big Thompson River | River | Weld | USGS | Apr |
| Roaring Fork River | River | Garfield | USGS | Apr |
| Clear Creek (Golden) | River | Jackson | USGS | Apr |
| Lake Granby | Reservoir | Grand | modeled | Apr |
| Chatfield Reservoir | Reservoir | Douglas | modeled | Apr |
| Spinney Mountain Reservoir | Reservoir | Park | modeled | Apr |
| Uncompahgre River | River | Ouray | USGS | Apr |
| San Miguel River | River | San Miguel | USGS | Apr |
| Evergreen Lake | Reservoir | Jefferson | modeled | Apr |
| Tarryall Reservoir | Reservoir | Park | modeled | Apr |
| Crystal River | River | Garfield | USGS | Apr |
| Bear Creek | River | Jefferson | USGS | Apr |
| Gore Creek | River | Eagle | USGS | Apr |
| Steamboat Lake | Reservoir | Routt | modeled | Apr |
| Horsetooth Reservoir | Reservoir | Larimer | modeled | May |
| Boyd Lake | Reservoir | Larimer | modeled | Apr |
| Twin Lakes | Lake | Lake | modeled | Apr |
| Dillon Reservoir | Reservoir | Summit | USGS | Apr |
| Elevenmile Canyon Reservoir | Reservoir | Park | modeled | Apr |
| Ruedi Reservoir | Reservoir | Eagle | USGS | Apr |
| Vallecito Reservoir | Reservoir | La Plata | USGS | Apr |
| Ridgway Reservoir | Reservoir | Ouray | USGS | Apr |
| John Martin Reservoir | Reservoir | Bent | USGS | Apr |
| Trinidad Lake | Reservoir | Las Animas | USGS | Apr |
| Arkansas River | River | Chaffee | USGS | Apr |
| Yampa River | River | Routt | USGS | Apr |
| Rio Grande | River | Rio Grande | USGS | Apr |
| Cache la Poudre River | River | Larimer | modeled | Apr |
Colorado's fishing is bigger than its famous tailwaters: yes, the Frying Pan and Deckers deliver technical trophy trout, but the state's soul is its freestone valleys (the Eagle, Roaring Fork, Arkansas) where wild browns eat dries all summer, and its high-country lakes where cutthroats rise at 11,000 feet. The gold-medal designation marks the best public water, and Colorado's access network of leases and easements keeps growing.
April-early May: pre-runoff caddis (the Arkansas' Mother's Day hatch is a phenomenon). Late May-June: runoff: fish tailwaters and lakes. July-August: the glory season: hoppers on the banks, PMDs in the riffles, alpine lakes open. September-October: streamer weather, golden cottonwoods, big browns moving. Winter: midge fishing on the tailwaters in surprising solitude.
Two windows: pre-runoff April-early May (the caddis window) and post-runoff July through October. Mornings beat afternoons once summer storms start staining the tributaries.