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Aurora Reservoir Fishing Report

Updated Fri, Oct 23, 2026 from live gauge and weather data

Denver's clear suburban trophy pond: big trout, big walleye and a no-gas-motor calm.

1/5
Tough. Pick your battles.Post-front sun and slick water make them sulk.
Water temp
~55 F est.
Air / High
74 / 74 F
Wind
SW 24 mph

Sources: Open-Meteo, solunar calculated for these coordinates.

Satellite view
Friday
23
October 2026

Today's Fishing Report

Generated this morning from live readings: gauge, weather model, sun and moon. A fresh report is published here every morning.

1/5Tough. Pick your battles.Post-front sun and slick water make them sulk.

Aurora Reservoir feels the season turning: shorter days, grouping fish. Today brings clear skies, wind SW around 24 mph, rising pressure near 1004 hPa and a high of 74. Water sits around 55 F for the season (estimated). With the waxing gibbous, the solunar majors run 9:36 AM-11:36 AM and 10:05 PM-12:05 AM: the windows to build the day around.

The plan, species by species

WalleyeFair

Spring: post-spawn fish scatter and can be slow for a couple of weeks. Fall: one of the best windows, with minnows on jigs and three-way rigs as the water cools toward ice-up.

Northern pikeFair

The best band for pike: right after ice-out they move into flooded vegetated shallows to spawn, and they feed actively again as the water cools in fall.

White bassSlow

The spring run happens in this band: tributaries, shoals and the upper ends of reservoirs as the water reaches about 55Β°F.

CrappieSlow

Pre-spawn fish move toward shallow coves, and Iowa DNR points to wading as an effective way to reach them in spring; minnows or small jigs under a float.

Tomorrow: Cooler at 55 F with a rain chance. The solunar majors shift about 50 minutes later.Next report: Sat, Oct 24, 6:30 AMHow this report is made β†’

Before you go

Colorado requires a fishing licence from age 16, from $57.63 for residents. What a Colorado licence costs and where to buy it β†’

Chasing walleye here? Check the size and bag limits with CPW before you keep anything. The season dates for Colorado, read off the agency, are on the Colorado seasons page.

Water and weather

Live readings.

No live gauge on this water

Conditions here are modeled from weather, season and the nearest stations. Water readings appear when a USGS gauge is available.

304050607080JanMarMayJulSepNovOct, ~55 F now

Right now

Latest readings

Air temp74 F
High / Low74 / 55 F
WindSW 24-32 mph
Pressure1003.8 hPa, rising
Sky / Rain0% cloud, 29%
Sunrise / Sunset07:17 / 18:07
MoonWaxing Gibbous, 91%
Water temp (seasonal)~55 F est.

Bite planner

Hour-by-hour bite forecast for today. Tap a bar to see why.

5 AM8 AM11 AM2 PM5 PM8 PMsunrisesunset

Which day to fish Aurora Reservoir this week

The best day on Aurora Reservoir this week looks like Saturday Oct 24, at 3 out of 5, against 1 today.

Best day this week: Saturday, Oct 24 β€” fair at 3/5, rising pressure behind a front, typically the slowest.

Today, Oct 23 β€” Slow

Post-front sun and slick water make them sulk.

Solunar majors
9:36 AM-11:36 AM and 10:05 PM-12:05 AM
Minor period
3:59 AM-4:59 AM
Sun
07:17 to 18:07
Moon
Waxing Gibbous, 91% lit
Sky and wind
Overcast, 27 mph
Rain chance
29%

Forecast-based scores, less reliable further out: how the score is built.

Species guide

The species that matter on Aurora Reservoir: seasons, structure and how to fish each one. Today's ratings live in the report above.

Walleye illustration

Walleye

Best: spring and late fall, around dawn, dusk and night

A cool-water perch of large lakes, reservoirs and rivers whose reflective eyes are built for low light, so it feeds most at night and in murky water. The Missouri Department of Conservation ranks it among the continent's most important freshwater game fish. Spring: post-spawn fish scatter and can be slow for a couple of weeks. Fall: one of the best windows, with minnows on jigs and three-way rigs as the water cools toward ice-up.

White bass illustration

White bass

Best: the spring run up the tributaries, then summer surface schools

A silvery temperate bass of rivers and large reservoirs, also called sand bass, that schools in open water after shad and runs up tributaries to spawn in early spring. The spring run happens in this band: tributaries, shoals and the upper ends of reservoirs as the water reaches about 55Β°F.

Northern pike illustration

Northern pike

Best: cool water, from ice-out through spring, in fall and under the ice

A long, duck-billed predator of weedy lakes, slow rivers and backwaters that ambushes fish from vegetation. Wisconsin DNR points out that, unlike most of the state's common game fish, pike do their best feeding in cool water. The best band for pike: right after ice-out they move into flooded vegetated shallows to spawn, and they feed actively again as the water cools in fall.

Crappie illustration

Crappie

Best: the spring spawn; summer around docks, brush and the thermocline

Two slab-sided panfish, the white crappie and the black crappie, that gather around submerged timber, brush piles, docks and bridge pilings in lakes, reservoirs and slow river backwaters. Texas Parks and Wildlife counts crappie as the state's most popular panfish. Pre-spawn fish move toward shallow coves, and Iowa DNR points to wading as an effective way to reach them in spring; minnows or small jigs under a float.

When to come: the Aurora Reservoir calendar

Activity by species and month, and how the water warms through the year. Tap any cell.

Species activity by month

1 = slow, 5 = peak. Current month highlighted.

J
F
M
A
M
J
J
A
S
O
N
D
Walleye
White bass
Northern pike
Crappie
SlowPeak

Water temperature through the year

Typical surface temperature for this water type; today is around 55 F (estimated, not a reading).

304050607080JanMarMayJulSepNovOct, ~55 F now

Angler reports

Real reports from real anglers, reviewed before publishing. The water log below tracks each day automatically.

No angler reports yet this weekBe the first: your report helps every angler who checks Aurora Reservoir today, and we feature the best catch of the week.

Water log, last days

Auto-logged from live data
Thu, Oct 22

3/5 Fair. Fish the windows. A steady pattern: dawn and dusk carry the day. Walleye led the card at good. High of 75 F, wind to 21 mph.

Wed, Oct 21

3/5 Fair. Fish the windows. A steady pattern: dawn and dusk carry the day. Walleye led the card at good. High of 75 F, wind to 16 mph.

Tue, Oct 20

3/5 Fair. Fish the windows. A steady pattern: dawn and dusk carry the day. Walleye led the card at good. High of 68 F, wind to 12 mph.

Where roughly, what depth, what bait. Skip anything you want to keep secret.
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Before you go

License

Colorado requires a valid fishing license for adults. Buy online from the state agency; one-day options exist for visitors.

Regulations

Trout: 4/day. Walleye: 18-inch minimum, 3/day. Electric motors only. Confirm with CPW/Aurora Water.

Access

Single ramp and rental center; 8-mile shoreline path makes bank access continuous (fee area).

About this water

820 acres in Arapahoe County, CO. Aurora Water recreation reservoir; electric-only, famously clear.

Fishing Aurora Reservoir: the full guide

The quiet giant of the metro

Aurora fishes bigger than its 800 acres: rainbow stockers grow to trophy class in the clear, electric-motor-only water, walleye reproduce enough to matter, and the shoreline path makes bank fishing genuinely productive. Ice season brings some of the metro's biggest hard-water trout.

Trophy trout, suburban address

CPW stocks Aurora heavily and the no-gas rule lets fish grow: rainbows past 10 pounds surface every season, trolled leeches and bait rigs from the shoreline path accounting for many. Winter ice (when safe) produces the metro's biggest hard-water trout with shocking regularity.

The walleye experiment that worked

Aurora's walleye reproduce enough to sustain quality: jig the dam face in April, drag bottom bouncers on the flats in June. Add smallmouth on the riprap and the occasional wiper surprise: a complete fishery inside a bike-path loop.

The urban trophy program

Aurora runs Denver's quality-managed fishery: no gas motors, walk-and-bike shoreline, and a stocking program (trout by the truckload, walleye, wiper) tuned for the metro crowd. The archery-range side's deep water holds summer trout for leadcore trollers in kick-boats; bank anglers score all winter on inflated crawlers. A trophy-regulation smallmouth herd patrols the riprap: urban fishing without the urban compromise.

Common questions

Can you really catch 10-lb trout at Aurora?

Every season produces a few: stocked rainbows that survive two winters reach trophy class on the mysis-free but rich forage. Early ice and late fall are the giant windows.

Is fishing good at Aurora Reservoir right now?

Check the daily report at the top of this page: it is regenerated every morning from live data. Today's read: Tough. Pick your battles. Post-front sun and slick water make them sulk.

Nearby waters

Chatfield Reservoir22 miBear Creek32 miEvergreen Lake36 miClear Creek (Golden)37 miSouth Platte River (Deckers)39 miBig Thompson River52 mi

Where this page's numbers come from

Weather and pressure
Open-Meteo forecast model
Queried at 39.6107, -104.6631 in this water's own timezone. A model, not an observation.
Moon and solunar windows
Calculated on this site
Astronomical calculation from these coordinates and the date, not a third-party feed. How much weight it deserves.
The written guide on this page
Pablo Ruiz Quintero
How this page was made. The daily report is computed by our scoring engine from live readings; nobody types it. The written guide was drafted with AI assistance. Unlike our newer pages, it does not yet list the official pages its facts were checked against: that audit is under way, and anything it cannot verify will be taken out. Pablo Ruiz Quintero sets every guideline, the data-verification system and the minimum standards a page must meet to be published, reviews page structure and approves what goes live; the responsibility is his, and the AI carries out the work. We work this way because it is how one person can keep every page current with named sources. Errors are published in the verification log; the full policy is in the editorial policy.

Readings refresh on a 30-minute window. The full method, with every figure and its source, is on how our reports are made. Something wrong here? Tell us and it goes in the log with the date.