DROUGHT THREATENS WESTERN COLORADO FISHERIES by Ken Neubecker
O
n Tuesday, June 1, the Colorado Division of Parks and Wildlife closed down the Yampa River tailwater fishery below Stagecoach Reservoir south of Steamboat Springs. The reason? Lack of water and to prevent overfishing of the diminished stream. This has happened before due to drought, but never this early. It’s a harbinger of conditions yet to come this summer on the Western Slope. The Front Range and East Slope have pulled out of the current drought, thanks to abundant snow and rain during the Spring. But much of the Western Slope, including the Colorado and Yampa River headwaters, are still deep in the grips of Exceptional Drought, the worst drought rating that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has. The
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High Country Angler • Summer 2021
rest of the Western Slope is slightly better off, but not by much. The Yampa below Stagecoach as of this writing is running at 20.7 cubic feet per second (CFS). Not its lowest, which was 11 CFS in 1989, but very low. The upper Colorado at Kremmling, below all of the major East Slope diversions, and above one of the State’s best Gold Medal fisheries, is running a scant 426 CFS. The lowest tally here as of this date was 278 CFS in 2002. The median flow at Kremmling for this time of year is 1840 CFS. The Kremmling gage is also below the confluence, with the Blue River with Green Mountain Reservoir and Muddy Creek with Wolford Mountain Reservoir. Both are major suppliers of Western Slope water downstream to the Grand Valley. People floating from Pumphouse to State Bridge are seeing rocks
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