Colorado Parks and Wildlife has opted to maintain a fishing closure at the tailwaters stretch of the Yampa River below Stagecoach Reservoir until April, as officials record declining trout numbers. The roughly half-mile stretch of.
Yampa River reopens to fishing in Steamboat, at tailwaters steamboatpilot.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from steamboatpilot.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Steve Wyant releases a brown trout he caught in the Yampa River in March just below Stagecoach Reservoir. (Photo by Dylan Anderson)
With multiple area agricultural reservoirs at extreme lows and some predicted to drop to only streams running through reservoir basins by fall, some fish populations could be threatened during this time of drought.
“If reservoir levels get very low, fish survival may come into question, and fish loss could occur,” said Colorado Parks and Wildlife aquatic biologist Bill Atkinson.
Fish in agricultural reservoirs may escape downstream through outlets as water levels drop, and fish may survive in lower-level waters remaining in reservoirs, Atkinson said.
Fish survival in question in some shrinking area agricultural reservoirs steamboatpilot.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from steamboatpilot.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Steve Wyant releases a brown trout he caught Sunday afternoon in the Yampa River just below Stagecoach Reservoir. (Photo by Dylan Anderson)
Keith Hale thinks fishing in the Yampa Valley has started off different this year. Normally, the river is higher as the snow rapidly melts, making it cloudy and difficult to fish.
“It is usually chocolate milk out here,” said Andy Best, a fishing guide at Steamboat Flyfisher.
Initially, as the snow in the valley melts, the water gets cloudy, but that was back in March. Hale, also a guide at Steamboat Flyfisher, said now the water is more ice tea colored because it is getting colder at night, and the snow high in the mountains is taking longer to melt.