Conservation Report Record Snowpack and your Summer

Head North and Advocate for Sound Water Management!

by Keith Mars

Winter 2022/23 brought record snowpack to the mountain west. It was a long, persistent, and cold winter across the Rockies that have the usual Texan summer getaways sitting pretty as those states prepare for the spring runoff.

Austin area fly fishers heading west for the summer will hopefully find cool, clean water in your favorite Western creeks and rivers. Snowpack in Colorado as of late April has the state well positioned for summer and fall fishing. However, let’s take a closer look at what seems like water a plenty.

Water demand across Colorado is extensive and is only growing. Potable and irrigation water is increasingly rapidly and is only growing as the Colorado front range population expands.

So, what can you do as a traveling Texan fly fisher that cares about fish, their habitat, and the water that is the lifeblood of fish and watersheds? First, support Trout Unlimited (TU) and their painstaking work on innovative, collaborative water management in Colorado. Specifically, TU is working on: https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/wps/portal/wcc/home

1. Funding modernization of irrigation.

2. Compensate for un-diverted water and water rights.

3. Increase funding for stream management plans.

Homing in on southwest Colorado, also known as greater Texas in the summer, TU is doing fantastic work in the San Luis valley working hand-in-hand to support healthy streams and communities through water release schedules and irrigation supply transfers to keep more water in headwater creeks, particularly those that support the native Rio Grande Cutthroat.

If you head west this summer take in the landscape and know that flyfishers like you are making a difference in keeping the west wet and trout happy.

KeithMars@conservationonthefly