Despite these credentials, I'd guess the Colorado is the most underfished trout stream in the state. Many anglers are either intimidated or bewildered by its size. They don't know where to start exploring, or maybe, if they have fished the river, the tailwater tactics they used failed to produce. They may have heard myths like, "The river is too muddy" or "Whirling disease wiped out the trout."

Contacts

Alpine Angling, (970) 963-9245

Colorado River Anglers, (970) 468-1836

Cutthroat Anglers, (888) 876-8818

Elkstream Outfitters, (970) 928-8380

Fly Fishing Outfitters, (800) 595-8090

Frying Pan Anglers, (970) 927-3441

Gorsuch Outfitters, (970) 476-4700

Mountain Angler, (970) 453-4665

Roaring Fork Anglers, (970) 945-0180

Taylor Creek Fly Shop, (970) 927-4374

The truth is, the river is not as muddy as it once was and whirling disease has not wiped out the trout. The construction of Wolford Dam (1995) on Muddy Creek near Kremmling has improved downstream water clarity. Whirling disease has hindered the natural reproduction of rainbows in every stretch of the river, but the Colorado Division of Wildlife (CDOW) is maintaining the fish population by collecting eggs and milt from wild river trout, hatching and raising the fish in a hatchery until they are past the vulnerable stage, and then releasing them into the river. The brown trout in the river continue to thrive and occur naturally through the system.

There may not be as many trout per mile on the Colorado as in some fisheries, but the trout aren't as picky either. If you look for the trout in the right places and use the appropriate tactics, you'll find more than enough fish to keep your reel buzzing throughout the day, and you won't have to put up with crowds. Better still, you can leave your #24 midge patterns at home and spend the day watching a #10 attractor dry fly bounce through the riffles.

I suggest the following four areas on the Colorado: the headwaters in Rocky Mountain National Park; the Middle Park section; the Upper Colorado between Gore Canyon and Dotsero; and the Lower Colorado downstream of Glenwood Springs. There are many other places you can enter the river, but these are the places for good access, fishing, and scenery.

Headwaters (Estes Park to Granby)
The Colorado River is the most important watershed in the driest part of the nation, but it starts its journey as an unassuming high-mountain trout stream. At 8,800 feet, the Colorado meanders through the Kawuneeche Valley, then flows through beaver ponds, backwater sloughs, undercut banks, and side channels until it leaves the National Park and pours into Shadow Mountain Reservoir.

Sandwiched between the Never Summer Mountains on the west and the lofty peaks of Rocky Mountain National Park on the east, the Kawuneeche Valley is one of the most scenic venues along the Colorado River. The valley is about eight miles long, but I'd bet there are at least 20 miles of trout stream coiled up there. More than a half dozen trailheads with parking lots along Highway 34 provide access, but you won't see many anglers on the water.

The stream is high and cold through the spring and early summer; the best months for fishing are July, August, and September. Frost comes early at that altitude, and by the time the elk are rutting in October, the fishing is over for the season.

The Colorado River has rainbow and brown trout throughout its length, and brookies and limited numbers of reintroduced native Colorado Cutthroats in the headwaters.

Because the water is relatively infertile there, you won't find any "superhatches" that bring fish to the surface en masse or cause hyperselective feeding. It's a river where you can fish an Elk-hair Caddis all afternoon, and your buddy with a Parachute Adams will do just as well. If you want more fish, add a bead-head nymph as a dropper, but it may not be worth the tangles.

Most of the insects are small, except for the ants, which look to be three times the size of the ants in my yard. Even the grasshoppers are small. I find #10 and smaller flies work best. Because aquatic insects can be sparse, terrestrials are important. On other rivers, an ant or beetle may be an after-dinner mint, but on this part of the Colorado River they are often the main course, and imitations of them are rarely refused if presented properly.

The brown and rainbow trout in the Kawuneeche Valley normally run 10 to 12 inches long, but can be 16 inches or larger, particularly during spring and fall when spawners run up from Shadow Mountain Reservoir. The river's brook trout are best found in the beaver ponds scattered across the valley, or near a confluence with one of the many tributaries.

Native Colorado River cutthroat trout, one of the state's rarest trout, have been relocated to Timber Creek as part of a restoration project spearheaded by the National Park Service. These trout are sometimes caught in the Colorado River and should be released carefully.

In the Park, fishing is restricted to flies and lures only, with catch-and-release regulations enforced for browns, rainbows, and native cutthroat trout. You must have an entrance pass ($10) to fish in Rocky Mountain National Park.

Middle Park (Hot Sulphur Springs to Kremmling)
After the Colorado leaves Lake Granby, it flows through private ranchland to the town of Hot Sulphur Springs, through Byers Canyon, and into the public water of Middle Park. It's there you'll find the "Promised Land" for fly fishers--miles of public water with broad riffles, deep glides, deep glassy pools, sweeping bends, and bubbling side-channels. Middle Park has the densest insect populations of any section of the Colorado River, making it "must-do" water for serious dry-fly fanatics.

From Byers Canyon downstream to Troublesome Creek (near Kremmling), the CDOW manages the river as Wild Trout Gold Medal Water. This means the biomass in the river is high, and they aim to keep it that way with a flies-and-lures-only regulation and a zero limit on trout.

West of the Highway 40 bridge, you'll find the Hot Sulphur State Wildlife Area, which has a 2-mile section of river with primitive public campsites, and a long horseshoe bend that goes away from the highway.

Down Highway 40 about nine miles is the Kemp-Breeze State Wildlife Area (SWA). It provides access to about three miles of the Colorado River and almost a mile of the Williams Fork River. On the west side of the Kemp-Breeze SWA is the Sunset Bureau of Land Management (BLM) Unit, which has a fishy one-mile section of river with a rocky, easily waded bottom.

Although the fish population is high in Middle Park, many anglers have trouble there. Guide Chris Schrantz has spent many years watching anglers in Middle Park; he says many of them mistakenly show up with a box of tiny midge pupa imitations, then don't catch many fish and go home thinking there are few trout in Middle Park. "They try to fish it like a typical Colorado tailwater, where you can walk right up behind a trout and high-stick a nymph into its mouth," he says. "In Middle Park, the Colorado should be fished like a freestone river. You have to be 30 feet away and sneaky."

Don't fret over your fly patterns or carelessly wade through feeding fish to cast at the middle of the river, he says. In Middle Park, big trout hold in shallow water close to the bank, or in the soft riffles on the insides of bends. Most of the big trout come from innocuous water, so cast before you wade.

Schrantz also recommends starting with a dry fly rather than a nymph. In summer, the fish are surface-oriented and eagerly move to take attractor drys. With nymphs, it's difficult to prospect shallow lies without ringing alarm bells.

Carry a thermometer in Middle Park. In the dog days of summer (mid-July through August), afternoon water temperatures can top 70 degrees (F.) on some sections of river. The fishing slows in the afternoons, and if you hook a fish in the warm water, its chances of surviving a release are greatly reduced. When the water is warm, consider fishing early in the morning and late in the evening, and take an afternoon siesta or drive upstream (45 minutes) to Rocky Mountain National Park to fish the Kawuneeche Valley.

The area called the Upper Colorado (pictured above) is located downstream of Middle Park, below Kremmling and Gore Canyon. This area has great float-fishing and relatively sparse fishing traffic. The scenery is outstanding.

Upper Colorado (Pumphouse to Dotsero)
Downstream from Middle Park, the Colorado's character changes dramatically after the Blue River pours into it near Kremmling and the big river plunges into an 11-mile whitewater chute called Gore Canyon.

When the river leaves the igneous confines of Gore Canyon, it cuts through sedimentary sandstone, shale, and red clay. From this point downstream, the river is never really clear. Suspended particles give the river an opaque green color, and while you can see your boots on the bottom most days, you certainly can't do much sight-fishing.

This is my favorite part of the Colorado River. The red rock canyons are dotted with scrub cedars and sagebrush, and the riverbanks are lined with willows and cottonwoods. If you look for them, you can find Ute arrowheads, shark teeth, and dinosaur bones along the eroded banks. The BLM owns 95 percent of the riverside property.

This is one of the most remote, undeveloped areas of Colorado. It has one commercial enterprise (Rancho Del Rio), where you can get gas and shuttles, and a few ranch houses strung along 40 miles of tattered road. Outfitter Bill Perry calls this section of river "Never Never Land"--a title I find appropriate because once you get there, you may feel like one of the "Lost Boys" and not want to go home. You'll rarely see a hook-scarred trout, and the only competition you'll have is from the osprey.

Downstream of Gore Canyon, the Colorado is best fished from a raft or drift boat. There are two areas, however, where you can wade, and luckily they are also the best dry-fly sections. The Pumphouse Recreation Area (13 miles west of Highway 9 on Grand County Road 1) has developed campsites with picnic tables, fire pits, drinking water, and a boat launch. The Radium Recreation Area (15 miles west of Highway 9 on Grand County Road 1; turn right on County Road 11) has similar facilities and fishing.

This section of river fishes well when flows are below about 4,000 cubic feet per second (cfs), but unless you are an experienced oarsman, hire a guide for your first few trips down the river. While the hazards are easier than those in the treacherous Gore Canyon, there are a few shallow boulder gardens and bridge pilings that are tricky to navigate. Wading anglers should target the river in later summer or fall, or before spring runoff. The river can be dangerous at full flow.

Hatches are most prolific from Pumphouse to State Bridge, and they fade as you move downstream, most likely because of increased silt load. Mayfly hatches in particular can be dense in some areas, but they don't blanket the whole river. Don't spend too much time in one area if nothing is happening. Move around to find the hatches and working fish.

The trout population also falls off as you move downstream. Search for fish in the riffles and seams, the troughs behind islands, and along rocky outside bends. While the trout count per mile may not be high, you can find high numbers of fish concentrated in the best habitat.

Nymphing from a boat is rarely productive on this section, because you move through the best spots (fast, rocky riffles and rapids) so quickly. Don't anchor in this fast water; it's too dangerous. The best approach for boaters is to cast gaudy attractor dry flies or streamers toward the banks, and draw the fish out. Lime Trudes, Royal Wulffs, Double Humpies, and Turk's Tarantulas are all effective surface patterns. No streamer should be considered too outlandish.

I floated the river with outfitter Bill Perry one October and caught fish on colorful brown and yellow conehead streamers. He believes you have to grab the trout's attention more than imitate a specific food because the water is often off-color. He showed me how to retrieve the fly with short, jerky pulls and irregular, definite pauses--the fish usually hit the fly on the stop.

Summer thunderstorms can turn the river brown in minutes. This isn't common (the area averages less than 7 inches of rain per year), but when the river blows out, be prepared to go elsewhere. There's always somewhere on the Colorado you can fish. Often you can move to another section of river to find clear water. It's common to get to the upper river, find it muddy, and then drive to Glenwood Springs (50 miles away) to fish. Generally, if you can see at least 21/2 feet into the water, you can have great fishing.

Lower Colorado (Glenwood Springs to Rifle)
Trout become sparser on the Upper Colorado as you approach Dotsero, but several things happen that breathe new life into the lower river. First, two major tributaries--the Eagle and Roaring Fork rivers--and several clear-running creeks enter the river, greatly improving water quality. Also, the impoundment behind Shoshone Dam in Glen Canyon slows the water enough to allow sediment to settle out of the water. After tumbling through the last rocky half of Glenwood Canyon and joining the Roaring Fork, the Colorado is reborn once again as a trout stream. The trout on the lower river are large--the largest on average on the entire river system.

Outfitter Tony Fotopulos landed two 8-pound brown trout ine one season, and his guides have had similar successes. All the browns are wild, and while there are a few bruiser wild rainbows around, most of the rainbows are stocked. Fishing regulations that ban fishing on clear-running spawning tributaries from March 15 to May 15 should protect the adult trout and may improve the spawning success of the river's rainbows.

As on the upper river, Wolford Dam on Muddy Creek has improved the lower river's water clarity. Except for most of June and brief periods after exceptional summer thundershowers, the river is fishable year-round. Since the river is so huge there, it is best fished from a drift boat, but there is also plenty of BLM public access for wading anglers who can take fish on nymphs fished around gravel bars.

Big attractor dry flies are effective on the lower river in summer. Multiple hatches of big insects keep the trout looking up, and since the trout don't see many hooks, they take a variety of patterns. It always pays to have a dropper nymph below your dry fly. A bead-head Prince can imitate all the river's major hatches. The Copper John also works well, especially early and late in the season when midges are popping.

Work the edges closely. Most of the fish you catch on this stretch will be in shallow water near shore, in and around structure like bank riprap, or close to rocks. Except where shallow gravel bars extend into the river, creating midstream holding areas, ignore the middle of the river.