Arkansas at Pueblo

The Arkansas below Pueblo Reservoir is the outlier among the waters Cole guides. It sits at roughly 4,700 feet — thousands of feet lower than everything else on this list — and it is an urban tailwater running out of the dam, through the Nature and Raptor Center, past Pueblo City Park and into downtown. It does not look like Colorado trout water in a photograph. It fishes like it anyway.

The low elevation is the entire point. When Browns Canyon is iced along the banks and the high country is buried, Pueblo is open, comfortable and full of fish. Winter here means daytime temperatures in the forties and fifties, cold releases keeping the trout active, and nobody else on the water. It is the single best answer in this part of the state for a January or February trip, and it is the reason Cole can guide productive days year-round.

Below the dam you are fishing for rainbows and browns, with the upper tailwater holding the highest concentration. Midges dominate the winter, blue-winged olives come off in spring and fall, and caddis and hoppers matter in the warmer months. Further downstream through the city the character shifts and you start running into carp, smallmouth bass and wipers alongside the trout — which is either a distraction or a bonus depending on the angler.

Access is genuinely easy, and that is unusual for good trout water. The stretch immediately below the dam is reached through Lake Pueblo State Park at Rock Canyon, which requires a parks pass. Below that, the Nature and Raptor Center of Pueblo has parking and trail access to several miles of river, and the Arkansas River Trail runs along the bank through Pueblo City Park and on toward Runyon Lake and the Union Avenue district downtown. You can park, walk two minutes and be fishing.

This stretch carries its own special regulations, including a slot limit designed to protect the larger trout in the system — the rules here are not the statewide default and they are easy to get backwards, so read the current regulations on the Colorado Parks and Wildlife site before you keep anything.

Flows are managed and can swing quickly with reservoir operations. It is worth checking the gauge above before you commit to the drive.