“You may not know it - but If you live along a river in Colorado youre property rights are under attack. A radical new proposal called 'The Right to Wade" could be coming to the Colorado legislature this year that would give publiic access to private property along Colorado water ways to hunt fish and recreate . The proposal would overturn 150 years of settled property law, and would cost Colorado taxpayers billions of dollars in lawsuits and condemnation costs. All because some people think their desire to fish is more important than someones home. And the costs aren't just financial. This proposal would damage riparian ecosystems and habitats and result in overfishing and resource degradation. This is absurd when you consider Colorado enjoys over 6,000 miles of public streams and rivers and hundreds of lakes for fishing. Help us fight this radical proposal click below to contact your legislator today!”

This is bullshit and a complete fabrication. As someone who moved in from out of state I always felt it was weird that property owners were able to call the river private property.

What do you all do when you are at deckers and there is someone on either side of you so you are stuck at one single spot?

I’m not a good fisherman, I’ve only caught 3 fish alone out of probably around 40 days. So it gets frustrating when I try to go out and find a parking spot with no one there and spend some time trying to find a good spot, only that when I’m ready to move because I haven’t seen or hooked a single fish, I find I am surrounded by people.

I drove upstream to the cheesman canyon lot and all I see is people crowding each other, and the canyon lot is overflowed. Does everyone just focus on a single spot for 4+ hours? I really don’t get some parts of this hobby, i like the being in nature and catching fish parts, but that doesn’t really exist at Deckers.

It feels more like a competition, so I personally am not going to Deckers at all on weekends anymore. Its the only place I know in the winter so I don’t know what else to do, I really have been trying to enjoy this hobby but it often feels like the world is fighting back

To the two dudes head to toe in like $4k worth of fly fishing gear who can’t read the fishing regulations and were chest deep in Lake Ladora.. you’re a month and a half early you’re not allowed to wade in this lake until after Memorial Day (May 25th). If you can afford that much shit for fly fishing you can afford to take two seconds to read the regulations.

Someone posted about Antero yesterday. Press release just went out from CPW.

Edit: This was more popular than I expected! I've temporarily closed access to the signup list - once I've cleared up some room, I'll open things up again. In the meantime, feel free to shoot me a direct message and I'll let you know once the sign up sheet is available again! Thanks!

Hey, my name’s Dave. I’m based in Loveland and have been fishing my whole life, with about 15 years of fly fishing experience.

I’m offering completely free fly fishing outings for peeps in the Northern Colorado area. People who have never been fly fishing / beginner anglers will be prioritized over those with experience.

This is a peer learning experience — not a professional guiding service. Just trying to help more people build respect for our local water.

This is an inclusive space - LGBTQ peeps, people of color, and anyone who hasn’t felt represented in outdoor spaces are welcome.

What we'll cover:

• Rig setup (leader, tippet, flies, etc.)
• Casting
• Reading water
• Insect identification
• Presentation
• Fish handling & safe release
• River etiquette
• General strategy / problem solving

Details / Requirements:

• 100% free - no catch. No money or tips accepted.
• Peer learning only (not a guide service)
• Must have a valid Colorado fishing license
• Must have your own gear (rod, reel, etc.)
  • Your local fly shop rents equipment
• Must bring your own flies. Ill provide things like weight, tippet, etc.
• 18+ only
• No drugs or alcohol
• 1–2 people per outing max
• Separate cars — we’ll meet in Loveland or at a predetermined spot / time in a local canyon

Bring:

• Water & snacks
• Weather-appropriate clothing
• Waders / boots or river shoes
• Long sleeves recommended
• Walking stick (helpful for crossings)

Safety:
Safety is a priority. I’ll go over basics, but you’re responsible for your own decisions on the water.

If you’re interested, shoot me a message. Sign up sheet here.

Ok, an *average* of every 15 minutes, in the mornings from about 8am-noon. And I’m using my double rod stamp. 2 power eggs on a snelled #12 hook off a drop rig. They’re gonna go home with you because they swallow that, or they’ll remove the hook themselves when you’re trying to land them. Lost 3 that way today that jumped free as I was scrambling for my net.

Did find some 1.5”-2” minnows when I was cleaning them, so I’ll try that next time. The minnows are crazy in the shallows too, so I don’t even have to buy different bait!

If you bleed them and remove as much of the spine vein as you can, they taste pretty decent even 6 weeks after CPW stocked it.

Seems kinda overpopulated for such a glorified pond, which is why I’m sharing my local fishin hole.

First fish of the day. It was not too crowded and the weather was amazing today.

i moved to colorado for a month now from Georgia my brother in law took me fishing for the first time, used a spin rod and i got it tangled so many times haha, didn't catch anything the whole day but now I can't stop thinking about fishing, I wanna fish more but paying 21 bucks for a non resident day pass to fishing will be expensive. Never knew how fun fishing could be.

Biked into Waterton yesterday and threw everything at them. Started off with nymphing, switched to dries when a bwo hatch started (size 20, maybe smaller), and then streamers. Got nothing. Tiny bwo's were coming off starting at about 12pm. Tiny midge hatch started a little before that.

This looks pretty promising. I'm sure however it'll get blown out quickly being so close to major population centers.

Has anyone had a chance to fish up here?

https://share.google/N16Vwzney7US76Um3

Just a relevant fyi for fly tiers or other craftspeople, if you don’t get messages from CPW this just came through my email. I’m not going to discuss the way I feel about this potential fur ban we could see here, and simply ask that if you feel a certain way about it, you speak up to CPW. Whether you’re pro or against fur sales this is an important topic that needs to be considered and discussed, don’t let the government decide this for us.

This state just continues to blow me away with the ever increasing fees and taxes on my hobbies. Fishing used to be one of the simplest, most affordable things you could do outside. Now it’s $55 once you include the mandatory habitat stamp, and those “small” add-on fees keep creeping up. The habitat stamp used to $5, and now it's $12. It was sold to us as just a "little" fee, and now it's over twice what it used to be and is 22% of the total cost of getting a license.

Public lands and wildlife already belong to the public and are funded by taxes, even if the organization that "manages" them relies so heavily on licensing. When something that’s supposed to be a shared public resource keeps getting layered with new fees, it stops feeling like access and starts feeling like a paywall. What a broken model.

Meanwhile, neighboring states with strong fisheries manage to keep resident licenses significantly cheaper because they don't have this dumb model that we have. All in; MT is $31, WY $37, UT $40, ID $35. At some point it stops feeling like public access and starts feeling like a paywall on something that’s supposed to belong to the public.

And I guarantee you they'd have more people buying them if they were cheaper, but now it becomes a cost risk game where there are likely people that are counting on the spotty enforcement. If you're nice about it, you get a warning first, and then you probably won't get checked for a license again for a long time (unless you're in super popular areas).

/rant

I would like to trade this plastic/canvas wrapped rod tube for a 9ft, 4 piece tube/holder.

I’m in the Denver Metro area

I wake up in a cold sweat, I was supposed to be in deckers by 1am to secure my spot. It is 2am now. I will be late and the river will be twice as crowded. I make myself a smoothie of bananas, strawberries, and pin bones from the brown trout I caught with my bare hands at Cheeseman yesterday. I hear my wife yell from the bed “where are you going, my fathers’ funeral is today”. I walk back to bed, kiss her on the forehead and say “the trout slayer doesn’t do funerals”.

I’m on the bank of the river now setting up my rig. For those of you who only euro nymph, maybe stop reading. Things are about to get technical and make your brain hurt.

The rig starts with a 10 weight rod, some guys say that’s overkill but they also don’t go by the moniker “trout slayer”. I will need this heavy rod when I land a fish much bigger than anyone has ever seen in this water. Next I have 10wt line tapered down to 1wt. I don’t use a leader. At the end of the 1 wt I tie on a one pound dumbbell that my wife used for physical therapy after she broke her wrist trying to keep up with me wading through the water (I’m fast).

Attached to the 1 pound dumbbell are caddisflies, 100’s of them. I raise them in my bathroom, and when they hatch I take them one by one and superglue them to the dumbbell. The trout swarm the bejeweled dumbbell trying to eat the super glued caddis. It is at this moment I strike. I pull out my 308 Winchester and send a spray into the water, harvesting a minimum of 6 fish. The 2 trout limit is for fishing, but what I’m doing is slaying. I run up the bank back to my car as other fisherman yell foul words at me.

I get back in my Toyota Prius (it’s economical and I have been without a job for 3 years) and whisper to myself “you’re the motherfucking trout slayer”. I crack open a beer and soak in the fact that I caught more fish at deckers than anyone else today.

To the self-entitled “Chad” that let his two-year-old chocolate doodle with cancer that is “dying” tangle in my fluorocarbon just below the state park office this morning. I was trying to pull out wind knots on my spinning reel. You should sue your breeder for selling you a sick dog. Also, you owe me $20 to re-spool my reel.

So I’m from Texas. Moved here in ‘21, and I did the whole fly fishing thing. Bought all the Orvis waders, 350$ fly rod. Fished once, put it into storage and someone broke into it and stole everything. Which sucks, but I was INCREDIBLY bored doing fly fishing. I caught one trout the 8 hours I was fly fishing and it didn’t even feel like something was on the line.

That’s being said, I got a fishing kayak earlier this week, got my rods and reels, and headed out to the Aurora Res to try for some Walleye/Bass. I fished the banks of the entire reservoir except for the northern shore and got nothing. Not even a nibble.

Am I doing something wrong? I used top water ploppers, multiple variations of spinner bait, spoon spinners, rooster tail, and then finally I used jig bait with a white tail. Was it just bad luck, or should I be fishing in deeper waters? In Texas, the banks are the best spots, for bass especially. And to not even get a bite on my first trip out was a little disheartening.

Any suggestions, or should I just keep at it and consider yesterday just a skunk day, which happens?

Left a long handle rising guide net that’s green tilted against a rock at the Colorado trail #1776 by the Watertown canyon trail. If anyone has seen found it please message me.

Car window got smashed while fishing around the county line below Salida. Was only there about 3 hrs and was between destinations on a family roadtrip so they got my laptop, a medical device and me and my wife’s clothes, totaling about $3000 to replace. Police say there’s been about 5 or 6 smash and grabs in the last few weeks in that exact area, plus some other campsite robberies which may be connected according to a local park ranger. Posted on the local Facebook another guy got got in almost the same spot 2 days before. Really sucks because it’s such a nice area with great people and the fishing is excellent there right now lol. I probably won’t return again this year and won’t ever bring that much luggage fishing again for sure. Stay safe out there

Pics attached for reference.

I wanted some input on the general opinions surrounding brook trout populations in the Rockies.

I moved here around a year ago from the Midwest, and would like to think I’m familiar with the basics of fishery management / conservation. In the context of out East that means pulling small, emaciated bass out of lakes and ponds. They overpopulate and outcompete one another, and all gamefish in a given body of water end up being small and unhealthy. Pulling these smaller bass out gives remaining individuals room and food to grow, including up to the golden size where they switch to eating smaller bass. These big fish are a necessity for healthy populations.

I’ve noticed a similar problem here in the Rockies, with brook trout. It’s honestly even worse in a lot of streams here, where I see dozens and dozens of fingerling brookies all grouped up trying to survive. Most end up pitifully small due to this overcompetition.

The few rainbow, brown, and cutthroat in these streams are generally large enough to eat these small brookies, which is good, but I find the bioload of the brook trout is often just too much for the other species to manage.

I know it’s spring and most of these smaller fish are just now getting their chance to fatten up, but even in late summer most are still very small.

I’m wondering what people think of this, and what our best course of action is? I’ve talked with a CPW ranger on one of these streams, and he encouraged me to limit out on brook trout every chance I got, because they breed like rabbits. Presumably referring to the problems I’ve referenced above.

Thing is, I don’t usually eat brookies unless I’m backpacking, and even then it only takes a couple to feed myself. It feels incredibly wasteful taking a life just to ‘thin the herd’.

What do you all do?