Fishing Info

What to know

Fishing Details

The mighty Colorado River and its tributaries carved an extraordinary landscape, with intricate mazes of canyons, delicate arches and massive rock monoliths. And nowhere is the landscape more extraordinary than around Lees Ferry. As you wade the incredibly clear waters casting to football-thick rainbow trout, tilt your head back, look up at the 1,000-plus-foot tall sandstone cliffs, and view it as Col. John Wesley Powell, Lee and the other American pioneers found it. The word to describe the scene is breathtaking.

To the fly-fisher more accustomed to a traditional meadow or mountain stream, the Colorado River is often initially intimidating. However, in reality, it is much like a giant limestone river or spring creek with diverse fishing opportunities. The gravel bars, backwaters, eddies and main river channel offer opportunities to fish dries, nymphs and streamers within a few hundred yards. Stalk rainbow trout in water only a few inches deep or cast size #18 or #20 midge or pupae patterns to trout feeding in deep, dark runs. It’s hard to believe that a very large trout in the massive Colorado River will seek and eat such a tiny fly. They do. While the Colorado River at Lees Ferry is ideally suited to fly-fishing and is our primary emphasis, spin casting with appropriate barbless lures can be equally rewarding.

Lees Ferry is managed as a trophy trout fishery. The river yields wild rainbow trout from 14 to 22 inches. And larger.

Our philosophy of caring for this treasure of a river as a living resource will provide angling adventures for the next generation … and the next.