1034 
FOREST AND STREAM 
Whether on the Roof of the Continent or Elsewhere, the Spot Where the Big One 
THE BIG TROUT OF COLORADO 
FAMOUS STREAMS THAT YEARLY DRAW 
THE EXPERTS FROM FAR AND NEAR 
By Arthur Chapman. 
T HERE’S a certain New York stock broker, 
who buys a ticket to Denver every year 
along about the end of June or the first of 
July, on the strength of a telegram he gets from 
a friend out west. The telegram consists of just 
two words, and they’re these: 
“She’s fine.” 
The “she” is the Gunnison River, probably 
the most famed of all Colorado’s trout streams. 
For the rest of the summer, this particular 
New Yorker may be found any day hip-deep 
in the Gunnison. And he’ll have for company 
there, cattle kings from Texas, range kings from 
Oklahoma, and mining kings from Colorado, and 
other monarchs of trade or finance. For how¬ 
ever divergent their interests back home, they 
all agree on one thing: all love to angle for the 
big ones that fill the streams up there on the 
roof of the continent. 
Those who angle there claim that fishermen 
can be found on the Gunnison from more widely 
scattered localities than on any other trout stream 
in the world. 
And the number of different places from which 
they hail took a big jump, and the distances from 
which they come lengthened out considerably, 
when the Rainbow Trail, already a famous auto¬ 
mobile route, was completed a few years ago. 
The trail extends across Colorado east and west, 
and rainbow and other trout actually may be 
caught from its roadbed for hundreds of miles. 
It is not unusual for a skilled fisherman, his 
automobile halted to pitch camp, to wade into 
the Gunnison and catch enough trout for sup¬ 
per before the frying pan is well unpacked. 
The big trout are imprisoned by natural bar¬ 
riers within forty or fifty miles of good fishing 
water. They never wander out of the Gunnison, 
but spend-all their days between its banks, where 
they grow constantly bigger until they fall victim 
to the angler’s lure, save for the few who may 
be said to die from over eating and drinking. 
One reason for the great size of these trout— 
ten-pounders are frequently caught in the Gun¬ 
nison—is said to be the prevalence of helgramites 
in the stream. These insects form one of the 
chief articles of trout diet and, incidentally, they 
are an ideal lure for the angler who is not “too 
proud to fight” with anything except the arti¬ 
ficial fly. 
There are other Colorado streams that crowd 
the Gunnison hard for fishing honors. Some of 
the crack fishermen of the state insist that the 
Rio Grande near its headwaters, in the vicinity 
of Creede and Wagon Wheel Gap, yields as many 
trout as the Gunnison, and that Rio Grande 
creels will weigh up with Gunnison creels, pound 
for pound. 
Others prefer the White River, in the north¬ 
western part of the state. Still others claim 
that there is no fishing that quite equals that on 
the headwaters of the Laramie, in North Park. 
Was Taken Is Ever Remembered. 
The South Platte and its branches have furnished 
good trout fishing at Denver’s door for many 
years, though the really big fish have not flour¬ 
ished in these “urban” waters. 
As a matter of fact, Colorado is a veritable 
network of trout streams. From timber-line on 
the Continental Divide, trout waters flow down 
in both directions, and one can travel the length 
of the newly created Rocky Mountain Park 
(which fits over the backbone of the continent 
like a saddle), crossing a trout stream every few 
miles. 
The fishing resources of this new National 
playground alone, which is only seventy-five 
miles from Denver, probably never will be ex¬ 
hausted. But in order to make doubly sure that 
the trout especially shall be preserved, the citi¬ 
zens of Estes Park, a famous resort region ad¬ 
joining the Rocky Mountain National Park and 
crossed by the same fishing streams, have built 
a model fish hatchery to protect them. 
In addition to this and several other private 
fish hatcheries in the state, there is a fish hatch¬ 
ery at Leadville conducted by the Government. 
There are also six state hatcheries, which con¬ 
tribute materially to the millions of trout fry 
placed in the streams of the state every year. 
In the planting, rainbow and natives have been 
about equally divided, and many eastern brook 
trout are now being introduced. 
Scenery and trout, it may be said, compete to 
lure the greater number of people to Colorado 
every year. The Colorado fish commissioner 
says it is the trout. Perhaps it is a combina¬ 
tion of both. 
At any rate, a modest army of anglers patrols 
the banks of Colorado’s fishing streams from the 
day the ban is lifted in the spring. And, from 
the grizzled veteran to the youthful beginner, 
they’re there because the trout are there. 
