DELTA — Dropping 600 vertical feet over the course of a mile, the Chukar Trail is a dividing line.
Upstream of its sandy endpoint on the banks of the Gunnison River lies the fearsome Black Canyon, a steep-walled chasm renowned for multi- pitch rock climbs and one of the West’s most arduous whitewater kayak runs.
Downstream lies the Gunnison Gorge, considerably less formidable yet equally fabled for its fishing.
The Chukar Trail plays no small role in that reputation. It separates desert rim from river canyon and society from wilderness, offering just enough distance and effort to insulate the gorge. Without the required hike, the BLM Wilderness Conservation Area would not be what it is today.
The trail serves as little more than a speed bump to those in the know, though, a minor obstacle en route to the Gold Medal fishery celebrated as much for its abundance of giant stoneflies as for the mass of hungry brown trout that gorge upon them.
When the bugs are in season — as they are now — anglers willingly work up the necessary sweat to get to the river’s edge for the 14-mile float to the confluence of the Gunnison’s North Fork.
“It’s a seriously famous trout fishery now. The word is out, and a lot of it is based around that stonefly hatch,” said Jeff Blacker, a 22-year guide with Hotchkiss-based Gunnison River Expeditions (970-874-8184). “It deserves the reputation. As a multiday wilderness run with stellar fishing, there are only a handful of places around where you can do that.”
The big bugs were late to arrive in Gunny Gorge this summer, waiting for river flows to recede to a reasonable level around the last week in June. Typically, Blacker says, the hatch hits around June 15, but with the river peaking at some 7,000 cfs earlier that week, everything was pushed back.
Those with the patience to wait it out were rewarded with a flurry of adult insects as large as their index fingers and an abundance of top-water action that included PMD, caddis and yellow sally hatches.
“My last three trips I didn’t throw a nymph, only dry flies,” Blacker said. “If you don’t mind nymphing, you can just kill it. But the bottom line is people pay a lot of money to throw those big flies.”
As a rule, they’re throwing big flies at big fish.
According to Colorado Division of Parks and Wildlife fish biologist Dan Kowalski, the Gunnison Gorge remains one of the top Gold Medal trout fisheries anywhere in the West.
Gold Medal designation requires a standing trout stock of at least 60 pounds per acre and at least 12 trout that are 14 inches or longer per acre on a sustained basis. The most recent fish survey conducted in the heart of the gorge in 2009 estimated the biomass at 315 pounds per acre for brown trout (11 pounds per acre for rainbows) with a density of 7,315 trout per mile. More than 600 brown trout per mile measured larger than 14 inches.
Those numbers reflect a fairly significant decline from the high point in 2007, when low river flows created ample habitat for brown trout resulting in biomass of 415 pounds per acre and more than 1,000 big fish per mile. Kowalski attributed the decline to high spring river flows in 2007 and 2008.
That news isn’t entirely glum, given the current attempt to return the river to its pre-whirling disease glory as a rainbow fishery. Whirling disease-resistant rainbow trout have been stocked since 2004, competing for food with the ravenous wild browns.
With ample food sources and relatively light pressure within the gorge, the successful return of rainbows would seem only a matter of time.
“The stoneflies are winding down, but with good high water like this year, it’s a seamless transition to grasshopper fishing,” Blacker said. “The fish will keep looking up for those big bugs.”
Scott Willoughby: 303-954-1993 or swilloughby@denverpost.com
This article has been corrected in this online archive. Originally, due to an editor’s error, the size of many of the healthy
brown trout at Gunnison Gorge was incorrect in the photo caption.
Many of the trout are over 14 inches.
