Craig, Co?

[NoLuck]

OK I'm here for a few weeks for work and I need to know if anyone on here has fished around here. The Yampa runs right through here but I heard you need to get closer to Steamboat.

[Gavin]

The Yampa is Smallmouth & Pike water around Craig....Head up towards Steamboat if you want trout.

[flyfishmaster]

Rich,

Look at this forum: http://rockymtnfly.com/forums/index.php?&&CODE=00.

I'm sure these guys can help you out.

I have fished in CO for many years but never made it over to Craig.

What are you doing in Craig any way. Working at the Coal mines?

Later,

FFM

[Stragler]

No Luck: 45 miles so. of Graig is Meeker just east of town is Hwy. 8 which take you to good access along the White

River. I have fish it many times with good luck on Drys as well as midges...

[NoLuck]

Rich,

Look at this forum: http://rockymtnfly.com/forums/index.php?&&CODE=00.

I'm sure these guys can help you out.

I have fished in CO for many years but never made it over to Craig.

What are you doing in Craig any way. Working at the Coal mines?

Later,

FFM

Hey Kim,

Like usual I'm out here for work. I'll check out the link you posted and maybe I can find some local help. I hope to be off on Sunday and get out and about. We are doing some water blasting on some emission scrubbers. It will probably take a few weeks and I should be headed back home. Steamboat has a couple flyshops I want to get to and ask around a little. Maybe they can give me some advice.

Cya,

Rich

[ozark trout fisher]

I lived in Craig for five years so I know that area pretty well. The Yampa River running through the town of Craig is primarily smallie and pike water-but the trout are in there, mostly rainbows. It used to be very solid trout water right in town, but now you have to look a little harder for them. But they are in there and you can catch some if you are willing to work hard enough.

Way up in the Steamboat area on the Yampa is where you go if you like the "Orvis experience" as I call it. Crowds, out of staters, and tailwater fishing for lots of nice trout. Not my thing but it might be yours. For a good balance, the stretch below Steamboat to Hayden still has a very solid trout fishery without the crowds, and that is not far from Craig at all, just a few miles up river. You really do not have to get very far above Craig before you start running into some stretches that have good concentrations of trout-you just have to look for the faster moving "trouty" water, as there is quite a bit of slow stuff that isn't going to be productive most of the time. Between Steamboat Springs and Craig there are some excellent floating opportunities for both trout and pike, but there are plenty of accesses to get in and wade at too. That water is lonely and beautiful as it gets as it winds through the desert-like foot-hills on the West-slope of the Rockies. It is in mind the ideal trout stream, you can find places with more fish, but in my opinion you can't find a river where the experience is better all around. But maybe I'm biased.

In Routt National Forest very near town there are countless opportunities for mountain trout fishing. There are lots of good mountain lakes and creeks in the National Forest for both cutthroat and rainbows that you will have to find out about yourself. I will give you one solid tip for a lake very near town called Freedman Reservoir. It is fairly well-known and stocked pretty regularly during the summer, so I don't feel the harm of posting about it here. You'll find excellent cutthroat fishing there number-wise, honestly some of the easiest fishing in the area. And it's in some of the most beautiful mountain country you'll find in Colorado.

The Flat-top Wilderness isn't far either, and there you have even better mountain fishing for native cutties-especially at Trappers Lake which has the best heritage Colorado River cutthroat fishery in the nation and is maybe the best still-water dry fly fishery in America. That lake you can drive to and as such is the most famous, but the Flat-top Wilderness is mainly a destination for hike-in fishing, and there are all kinds of awesome hike-in cutthroat lakes if you're willing to put in a hard day's work, naturally none of which I am going to tell you about. The White River flows out of the Flat-tops near the Meeker area and it is awesome for for rainbows, cutties, and browns as well-there are some big fish in that river if you know where to look.

Have a good time out there and treat those places well. I love that country up there, especially the Yampa River.

[brittsnbirds]

Rich,

IM JEALOUS!!

Pat & Dixie

[NoLuck]

No reason to be jealous Pat. It's just work brother.

[B-Ray]

Go down and fish the White River East of Meeker. Go up river towards Buford and fish the access across from the Lake Avery Spillway. The crowds should be non existant now. Lots of Whitefish,which are a blast on the flyrod, Rainbows and Cutts. Lower down close to Meeker there is an access just up from the Green Cabins(you'll know em when you see'em), thats good for some Browns and Whities too.

D.