Gunnison - Black Canyon / Gorge

The Gunnison below Crystal Dam, running through Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park and then the Gunnison Gorge downstream of it.

Tailwater
Western Slope
Nearest town: Montrose

What the water is like

Big water at the bottom of a very deep canyon, and the least casual fishing on this list. Reaching it means either a steep and strenuous descent or a multi-day float, and getting out is harder than getting in.

Getting on it

Park sections are National Park Service managed with their own access and permit requirements. The Gorge below is a federally managed conservation area reached by trail or by boat.

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 Gunnison - Black Canyon / Gorge 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 tailwater 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