Fishing in Colorado

Do you need a license?

Yes, if you're 16 or older. Anyone 16 and up needs a valid Colorado fishing license. Kids under 16 fish for free — but they still follow all the bag and size limits. One license covers all the kinds of fish you can catch; there's no separate "trout license" and "bass license."

Two quick things almost everyone needs to know:

• Habitat Stamp. Most anglers 18 to 64 also need a yearly Habitat Stamp (about $13), added to your first license of the year. Some one-day licenses and certain approved lifetime, disability, veteran, and first-responder licenses are exempt — don't assume every discounted license skips it.
• Carry it. Keep a digital license on the myColorado / CPW app, or carry the paper one.

Where to buy: online at CPWShop.com, by phone at 1-800-244-5613, or in person at CPW offices and hundreds of shops. Heads-up: in remote mountain areas, license sellers are few and far between — buy before you go.

The license year runs March 1 through March 31 of the next year (about 13 months). An annual license bought in spring gives you a full season; one bought in late winter still expires at the end of March, so near the end of the cycle a short-term license is often the better buy.

Booking a guide? You still need your own license — every angler 16 and up does, even with a licensed outfitter. A good guide will help you get one before the trip.

Residents vs. visitors (and a key access quirk)

A resident is generally someone who has lived in Colorado for at least six months; CPW typically looks for a Colorado driver's license or ID issued at least six months earlier. Visitors (nonresidents) pay more — and there's no discount for out-of-state kids, so visiting anglers 16–18 pay the full adult price.

The quirk that catches people: if you're 16 or older, you need a valid hunting license, fishing license, or an SWA pass just to set foot on a State Wildlife Area (SWA) — even if you're only there to hike, picnic, or watch the kids. (Kids under 16 don't need a license or pass to access or fish an SWA, but they still follow all limits.) More in Where you can fish.

Gold Medal & Wild Trout waters

Colorado marks its very best trout waters with special designations. Fishing them is a treat — but they come with extra rules, and the rules still come from each water's own listing, not the label.

Gold Medal Waters

These are CPW's formally listed top tier — waters good enough to grow lots of big trout. To earn the title, a water has to consistently produce at least 60 pounds of trout per acre and an average of at least 12 "quality" trout (14 inches or longer) per acre, and be open to the public (rivers at least 2 miles long, lakes at least 50 acres). Colorado currently has roughly 11 Gold Medal rivers and 3 Gold Medal lakes — over 300 miles in all.

• They're usually artificial flies and lures only (no bait).
• Limits are tight — often 2 trout, 16 inches or bigger, and some are stricter (Spinney Mountain Reservoir is 1 trout over 20 inches).
• Famous examples: the Fryingpan below Ruedi Reservoir, the South Platte in South Park, the Gunnison, the Animas through Durango, and a long stretch of the Arkansas.

Wild Trout Waters

A separate program that protects naturally reproducing (wild, not stocked) trout. These are also typically artificial-only and often catch-and-release or low-limit, so the wild fish keep thriving.

Bottom line: on Gold Medal and Wild Trout waters, assume flies/lures only and small limits until you check the water's exact listing — and plan to release most or all of what you catch.

Legal methods & gear

Lines and hooks

You may fish one line, personally attended (you're holding it or right there with it), and each line can have up to three hooks. Want a second line? Buy a second-rod stamp — kids under 16 need it too.

Bait, flies, and lures

On most waters you can use bait (worms, dough bait), flies, or lures. On many Gold Medal / Wild Trout waters it's artificial flies and lures only — no bait, no scent. And live baitfish are heavily restricted (see Clean, Drain, Dry). Check the water.

Snagging — almost always illegal

Snagging means hooking a fish somewhere other than the mouth. It's illegal in Colorado except for kokanee salmon, and only at specific waters on specific dates listed in the brochure (for example, Blue Mesa allows kokanee snagging Nov. 1–Dec. 31). Don't assume "fall" means it's legal — check the exact water and dates. Snagging anywhere else, or any other fish, is poaching.

Spearfishing & bowfishing

You can take carp and northern pike by underwater spearfishing, archery, slingbow, or gig — generally statewide (east of the Continental Divide you can also take suckers and gizzard shad this way). Bows must have a reel, line, and arrow attached; no CO2 or cartridge-powered spear guns. Bullfrogs can be taken by hook and line, bow, hand, gig, or net, and bowfishing for kokanee is allowed only where snagging is allowed.

Trotlines and jugs

A trotline (a long line with many baited droplines) and jugs (baited floats) are allowed only on specifically listed waters, with limits like one trotline of 25 droplines or 10 jugs. The trotline list and the jug list are not identical — a water can be on one and not the other. Check the methods section before using either.

Releasing fish

Not keeping it? Release it right away, alive, into the same water. Handle it gently, keep it wet, and use barbless hooks where rules require them (they're kinder everywhere). Remember the stringer rule above.

Seasons & the fishing year

Good news: most Colorado waters are open year-round. A few have seasonal closures to protect spawning fish (stretches of the Blue River and Tenmile Creek are examples), so check the water. The rhythm of a Colorado fishing year:

• Spring (Apr–May): snowmelt fills the rivers; they run high and muddy ("runoff"). Lower rivers and reservoirs fish best now; high lakes are still frozen.
• Early summer: Free Fishing Days — the first full weekend of June (June 6–7 in 2026) — when anyone can fish without a license or Habitat Stamp. A great time to take a beginner.
• Summer (Jul–Sep): prime time. Mountain roads open, so the high country comes alive. Watch for afternoon thunderstorms.
• Fall (Oct–Nov): brown trout get aggressive before spawning, kokanee run red, and the crowds thin.
• Winter: ice fishing on frozen lakes, plus open-water tailwater fishing (the river just below a dam stays ice-free and fishes all winter, like the South Platte below Cheesman).

Ice fishing notes: you still need your license and you still follow each water's limits. Some waters allow portable shelters only. And no ice is ever guaranteed safe — check it yourself.

Protect the natives (and the state fish)

Colorado's state fish is the greenback cutthroat trout (named the state fish in 1994). Its story is remarkable: it was presumed extinct by 1937, later rediscovered, and today lives in only a tiny number of streams. Greenbacks and other protected fish must be released immediately if you catch them, and many native-cutthroat recovery waters are catch-and-release, so check the special regulation. Colorado has three native cutthroat lineages — greenback, Colorado River, and Rio Grande. (The Snake River, or fine-spotted, cutthroat you may hear about is stocked here, not native.)

There's also a list of threatened, endangered, or nongame species that are illegal to take and must be released immediately — including the Colorado pikeminnow, humpback chub, bonytail, razorback sucker, Arkansas darter, and Rio Grande sucker, plus amphibians like the boreal toad. You don't need to memorize the list — just know some fish are off-limits, and the brochure names them. Spot a sick or unusual fish? You can report it through the CPW app to help conservation.

Wading & stream access (Colorado is unusual)

This catches visitors and newcomers more than any other rule, because it's the opposite of what many states do. In Colorado, the landowner generally owns the bed of a non-navigable stream. That means you can fish where the land is public or where you have permission — but standing on the streambed or banks of private land can be trespass, even on a river you legally reached.

Floating through on the surface is generally tolerated, but the moment you touch bottom, anchor, or step out on private ground, you may be trespassing. There's no statewide "right to wade" up a river through private property. Watch for posted boundaries and fences, and when you're not sure whose ground (or riverbed) you're on, stay on public land or ask first.

Floating anglers, two more things. Fences and cables strung across rivers are real (and sometimes legal) hazards — slow down and look ahead. And irrigation diversion dams and low-head structures are silent drowning machines: portage around them, never over. If a stretch is posted or cabled, take out and walk around on public ground.

When in doubt, stay off private bottom. This is a genuinely contested area of Colorado law. Use CPW's access maps, public-land boundaries, and the landowner's permission — not assumptions from another state.