Where Did The Fish Go? Many of the freestone rivers on Colorado’s western slope are susceptible to drastic temperature changes throughout the year. The very lower section of the Eagle River, for example, can get as warm as 75 degrees Fahrenheit in August and can dip as low as 33 […]
Colorado Rivers
143 posts
As October weather cools down, and it cools quickly in Vail, Colorado at 8,000 feet above sea level, local water temperatures correspondingly decline. Descending water temperatures can help make fly fishing and fly selection a less complicated task during autumn. When fishing our local rivers like the Arkansas River, Blue […]
Beer and Fly Fishing: What Is on Tap for After the Hatch? Beer and fly fishing go hand in hand. While top shelf scotch may go well with a soggy day of waking dry flies for steelhead and a fine wine pairs well with fine tippets and spring creek risers […]
Yesterday, when deciding where to fly fish with only a couple hours of sunlight left in the brilliant fall day, my attention was all of a sudden dedicated to the idea of fishing as many local bridges as possible in my short fishing window that day. The Vail Valley is […]
Blue-Winged Olive Mayfly, Fly Fisherman’s Nemesis or Nirvana? While fly fishing my beloved Colorado River Blue-Winged Olive mayfly hatch, I have witnessed numerous clients struggle with catching fish consistently during the annual spring and fall mayfly hatches. Did we have the right size, shape and color of the natural? Was […]
The Trout’s Ugly Cousin: An Ode to the Whitefish Fly fishermen are well known for our dedication to wild or native, beautiully spotted fish called trout. Rainbows, browns, cutthroats or brookies, it doesn’t matter, we love them all. There is another Colorado native that some anglers mistakenly look down upon. […]
Fall has arrived here in the mountains of Colorado, and with all of the leaves changing color comes another less noticeable transformation. Many of the trout that live in our rivers and streams have begun to spawn. While rainbow trout and cutthroat trout reproduce in the spring, brook trout and […]
Many fly fisherman feel the Colorado River fishes best when fall arrives. My experience as a float fishing guide on the river since the mid- eighties is that the Colorado River conditions are the most consistent during the fall season, namely late September, October and early November. A side benefit […]
Fly fishermen are a funny group of people. Author Jim Harrison has a story about a coyote watching the weird human “standing in a river waving a stick.” We try to fool creatures with brains smaller than a pea with bits of fur, feather and synthetic materials lashed to a […]
Here at Vail Valley Anglers we are blessed to have more miles of world class trout fishing than any die hard angler could cover in a lifetime of fly fishing. Our trout fishing takes place on tiny mountain creeks, medium sized freestone streams, cold clear tailwaters and also big brawling […]
There are thousands of individual fly patterns designed just for catching trout and thousands more imitations created to catch different species of fish on a fly rod. All of these different types, sizes, colors and styles of flies can be an intimidating array of choices for any angler, whether novice […]
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