The latest fishing report was released by the Colorado Parks and Wildlife office on Tuesday:
Aurora Reservoir
Reservoir open to boating and water temperature is 43 degrees. Fishing from shore is improving. Most trout are caught using worms, jigs. Perch are becoming more active and anglers report success using bright colored lures, like blue and orange. Don’t jig too aggressively; give the lure light twitches. Boaters report fair to good success on trout while trolling slowly with lures, crawlers. There are reports of walleye caught from shore using jerk baits, jigs. Boats restricted to electric motors.
Chatfield Reservoir
Walleye fishing is picking up with warm, stable weather. Trolling deep diving crank baits in deep water can be productive as well as fishing drop offs with a jig tipped with half a night crawler. Bass fishing has picked up along the rip-rap edges of the dam at the lake’s north end using soft plastics, small crank baits. Trout fishing from shore remains good with spinners, jerk baits, PowerBait.
Quincy Reservoir
Reservoir open to boating. Bass fishing is picking up again and is rated as fair to good using jigs, soft plastics, jerkbaits, lipless crankbaits. Trout fishing is fair to good using spoons, spinners, flies. Reports of perch caught using jigs. Water temperature is approximately 45 degrees. Fishing is restricted to artificial flies, lures only.
Barr Lake
Fishing is not allowed in wildlife refuge or off the dam. The lake is open to boating, but has been a slow start to the season. There was a report of a 27-inch wiper from a boat earlier in the month. Fishing from shore has been slow to fair for trout using PowerBait, night crawlers. The lake was recently stocked. Water temperatures are slowly warming and hopefully the fish will start to move off the bottom. Current water temperature is in upper 40s.
Boyd Lake
The current water temperature is estimated to be around 49 degrees with a depth of approximately 49 feet. No snowmobiles or off-highway vehicles are allowed on Boyd Lake State Park. Any live fish collected for use as bait may only be used in the same body of water from which they were collected. All live bait/fish from a commercial source and transported by anglers must at all times be accompanied by a receipt for the source.
North Sterling
The lake is about 55 degrees. Anglers on boat and shore have had success fishing the Balance Rock and the Marina Bay using minnows and spinners for walleye and crappie. Boat anglers have done well off Darby Point and near the West Trailhead casting shad raps, using minnows, and spinners for walleye. As the water heads toward 60 degrees, wiper will begin making their way toward shallower waters. Wiper are often found chasing shad, so use shad imitations and follow the seagulls. Green mussels work well as bait. Fishing has been good in the morning and evening when fish are near the surface in shallower waters.
Arkansas Headwaters
Considerable snow has fallen on the upper basin. With the warming forecast, expect the caddis hatch to resume in Cañon City and to move into the Texas Creek-Parkdale segment of lower Bighorn Sheep Canyon later this week. If flows remain low, the warming weekend weather could see the hatch spread out over some distance, perhaps up into the Cotopaxi area. Mornings are still best approached with golden stoneflies, midges and free-living caddis larvae, though many attractor nymph patterns will work well too. We also find that streamers can be quite effective during this period of the brown trout fry emergence.
Highline Lake/Mack Mesa
Highline Lakes and Mack Mesa each have been recently stocked. Fishing is great. What better way to spend a day than at Highline Lake State Park? Mornings are less windy than afternoons, so come out early.
Steamboat
Ice is starting to gray up, or melt. Fishermen on the ice April 13 say thickness is around 20 to 24 inches, but the ice is thinning quickly. The inlets have not opened yet, except Willow Creek where it is flowing out of the culvert.
Sylvan Lake
No activity due to ice conditions. The lake has 20 inches or more of layered ice in most areas with surface slush. No open water. Unsafe areas of ice can always exist.
Vega
All of the ice is off the lake. Fishermen are starting to catch some nice rainbows in the 16 to 18 inch range using PowerBait and worms. We are hoping to have the boat ramps open by May 1.
