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The Yampa River is in pretty good shape right now. Things were getting a bit skinny last week with water down in the 70 cfs range. With decently low nighttime temperatures, the bite was not suffering from low dissolved oxygen content, but skinny water tends to yield spooky trout. The release we received from Stagecoach a couple of days ago has helped pump levels up a bit. The 20 to 25 cfs has really improved conditions coming into the fall bite. The real benefit of this little bit of extra water is related to the brown trout spawn. Big wild...

Fall fishing is officially here. The cranes and the geese are grouping up and starting their migration south. The bull elk are bugling at their ladies. Puffy vest are coming out, and wet wading socks are getting put away. And yes, big browns are preparing for battle.… hopefully with your five weight! The Yampa River watershed made it through the tough season just fine this year. Although the river is flowing at a fairly low 80 CFS, our nighttime lows have been consistently in the 40s and even dipping regularly into the 30s. This is kept the dissolved oxygen content...

The Yampa River is at 135 CFS this morning. Due to a bunch of precipitation over the last week the river has spiked a bit in flow. It got as high as 150 CFS a few days ago from the previous early fall storm we had. These precipitous conditions have really provided a fantastic boost to the watershed coming into the fall bite. Rising water has put a slight damper in the hopper fishing, as trout are a little more reluctant to rise, as well as having been pushed out of their consistent feeding lanes from the last month or...

The Yampa River has been consistently holding around 100 CFS. This is good news, as the past few years have not reflected such appropriate flow at this point in the season. We had a bit of a scare last week with flows dropping below the minimum level for public town fishing to stay open. However, due to an abundance of water this year, Stagecoach Reservoir has had plenty for late releasing. Seems as quickly as town fishing was closed, it was reopened. I doubt we have another closure with cooler evening temperatures starting this coming week. Despite daytime highs and...

The Yampa this morning is flowing at 83 CFS, which means it is officially down. This is the latest point in the season the river has come down in many years. While high water made it somewhat difficult to capitalize on many of our early hatches, the higher flows this year through late summer and fall should prove to benefit our dry fly fishing on the tail end of our season. With the river finally down, we are able to play the games we know at conducive flows. Anything below 100 CFS in town is considered low and potentially stressful,...