2010 Colorado Outdoors Fishing Guide
Now available! |
The 2010 Colorado Outdoors Fishing Guide is filled with articles that are sure to entertain and help you enjoy fishing in Colorado. Articles include "On the Wade," what to wear when you wade into the stream, "Fishing Close to Home on Bear Creek," a creek that offers easy access and plenty of fishing action, and "The Faces Behind Your Fish," fish hatchery technicians play a critical role in Colorado's fishing recreation and preservation of aquatic species. You can purchase the Fishing Guide online or at most DOW offices. Available free when you order a Colorado Outdoors subscription.
"Colorado River Cutthroat Trout" Video
The newest in the "a.m. Colorado" video series.
Colorado River cutthroat trout are native to the western slopes of Colorado. They are descended from coastal cutthroat trout that journeyed up the Columbia River around one million years ago.
Their historic range once covered the vast expanses of the upper Colorado River basin and its many tributaries in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming. Today, they inhabit less than 15 percent of their original range.
Dramatic reductions in their numbers were caused by nonnative salmonids introduced into their ecosystem. Nonnative rainbow trout have crossbred with the native cutthroats and brook trout and brown trout have overrun and displaced cutthroat populations throughout their range.
All three of Colorado’s native cutthroat species are currently designated as species of special concern.
Watch the 9 minute video, filmed in the headwaters of the Eagle River, to find out more. Find out more about cutthroat trout conservation.
Agencies Work to Improve Animas River Fishery
|
In an effort to improve the fishery in the Animas River through Durango and the Southern Ute Indian Reservation, three agencies are working to stock 100,000 rainbow trout in the river annually.
In early July, the Colorado Division of Wildlife (DOW) and the Southern Ute Indian Tribe spread the fish in the river from Santa Rita Park in Durango to Bondad, about 16 miles south of Durango. The fish were 5-6 inches in size.
The fish stocking is paid for by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (BOR) as mitigation for the removal of water, which began in 2009, from the Animas River to Ridges Basin Reservoir, also known as Lake Nighthorse.
An additional 50,000 trout, 10 inches in size, will be raised at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service national fish hatchery in Hotchkiss and stocked annually in the reservoir. Stocking in the reservoir will start this fall. Agency officials expect that the reservoir will be filled to capacity by mid-summer 2011.
As stocking efforts continue, more and more of the fish stocked will be the whirling-disease resistant strain of rainbows that are being developed by DOW at its hatcheries. Aquatic biologists hope that those fish will begin to reproduce naturally in a couple of years. This is the second year that fish have been stocked in the river.
DOW and Southern Ute biologists will conduct surveys in the river to determine how many of the stocked fish are surviving.