Each river is unique. Depending on your criteria, any of the rivers you listed may be better or worse than another river somewhere else. Apples and oranges. They are just different.
Currently, Montana is in a drought, and many of the rivers are closed to fishing much of the day (so says brother in law who just returned from there).
I haven’t hit the Animas yet this season, been too busy elsewhere and it just recently dropped to summer flows. The Gunnison, at least the small parts I fish, has been fair to excellent, depending on the whims of the fish. Who knows how it will fish in September. OTher streams in the area have been fair to good, depending on the reports and the weather.
If you do decide to fish the Gunnison, drop me a line, would be happy to wet a line with you.
On the other hand, you could change your vacation to the end of September and come to the Idaho fish-in.
He undoubtedly has good stuff if he can fly to Colorado to fish. If he comes here, I can sneak flies out of his box so I don’t have to tie every night like I am doing these days. :twisted:
Gunny used to be a major rainbow water in the days before WD, and if he still had that impression, I wanted him to have current info. Even though they are restocking bows, the lower part of the river remains a strong brown fishery, much to the chagrin of the DOW fish squeezers.
I was in Vail to fish the Eagle but it had lots of pressure and fishing wasn’t as good as I’ve done in the past. I heard the Roaring Fork and the Colorado were fishing very well (float trips) but we had to cancel for other family reasons. We did better on smaller spring creeks just outside of Empire on the way to Berthoud Pass. Good luck though I think you’ll do better in Southern Colorado.
Racine
Not knowing about those other places I cant comment about them. Heard about 'em. Heard they were great.Just dont know about 'em.
I have been to the Eleven Mile area.
If you get to Lake George you are smack in the middle of a bunch of fishing places.
Get there during the week.
Get there after the kids are back in school.
You have the Eleven mile canyon(gorgeous!!!)
The Platt is right there across the road (okay so to get to it you have a bit of a hike).
Deckers is just down the road and thats a good place too( think that is the platt too).
Get a map and you will see what Im saying here.
The little rental cabins at Lake George are priced pretty reasonably and the manager there is a good guy too.
Thought Id chip in my 2cents .
Have fun.
Just an addendum here. The South Platte had a problem with raw sewage recently(2 weeks ago) and Deckers is still crowded with people with the river there still suffering from the after effects of a major forest fire and rain storms. We excluded that recently when I was there.
Racine is right about Deckers, I’d forgotten that .
Darn shame about the fire .
Didnt know about the sewage .
I was in the eleven mile canyon and that was fine (July 10) and was across the road July 10. Both dandy spots.
Still go during the week.
