Cache la Poudre

The Poudre runs northwest out of Fort Collins through its own canyon, and is the only river in Colorado carrying a national Wild and Scenic designation.

Freestone
Northern Colorado
Nearest town: Fort Collins

What the water is like

A true freestone: it rises hard with snowmelt, drops through the summer, and fishes very differently at each stage. Long canyon road access means a lot of water within reach of a day trip, with pocket water, plunge pools and wilderness stretches higher up.

Getting on it

Highway 14 follows much of the canyon. Upper sections sit in national forest, with some designated wilderness where different rules apply.

Access arrangements are the single thing most worth confirming before you drive. Public frontage, parking, fees and seasonal closures all change, and on several Colorado rivers the boundary between public and private water is neither obvious nor forgiving. Check with Colorado Parks and Wildlife and, where the water runs through a national park or a federally managed area, with the agency that manages it.

Before You Go

What this page will not tell you

What the Cache la Poudre is running at today, what is hatching this week, and what the current rules are. Those are live facts with an official publisher, and sending you to them beats printing a number here that goes stale by April.

USGS current water data for Colorado

Live streamflow and water temperature, gauge by gauge.

Colorado Parks and Wildlife

Current fishing regulations, licences, and property and access rules.

CPW fishing conditions and closures

Voluntary and mandatory closures, including heat-related ones.

Water levels and weather change daily and can be hazardous, and nothing on this page is a safety assessment of this river or of conditions on any given day.

Gear for this kind of water

What a freestone asks of your kit, written for the situation rather than as a product list.

Any Colorado river, any season

Colorado fly fishing gear checklist

Everything worth having in the car and on your person for a Colorado day, what each item is actually for, and what changes by season.

Colorado rivers, season by season

Colorado fly box: what to carry by season

A working fly selection for Colorado water through the year, organised by what the river is doing rather than by a hatch calendar that cannot be promised.

Other waters

Front Range