Last summer we had a big family trip up to Granby Colorado. That was my first time catching rainbows and browns and it was crazy fun for the whole family. Me and my wife are actually going back to CO in April to have our honeymoon in Durango while trying to land some bigger trout this go around! Hope y’all enjoy the pics.

Awesome. Lifetime Memories.

Great place to be in August instead of Texas. Enjoyed your pics.

while in durango, go east on 160 to the piedra river crossing, west side of river used to have public access back when I lived there. excellent trout hole just above the bridge and on up river where you can get to it.

vallecito and lemon reservoir have trout and kokanee (type of salmon), both are good eats.

oxbows above durango on the animas were good areas too.

get some yellow coach dog roostertails and use 6#, you should load up, the 1/8 and 1/16 oz size.

too early in the yr. for a raft trip, you will freeze your patoot, water temp is probably upper 30s or so.

enjoy. pics too, haven't been there in a long time.

almost forgot, the quality waters below navajo res. are some excellent waters for large rainbow or brown, 10 - 12# size.

be sure you read the rules/laws for new mexico quality waters though, gw is likely. you can wade it with waders or get a dory trip with a guide.

been some huge browns taken from there.

Precious kiddos. Way to get em started trout fishing.

Thanks for the info! I’ll definitely prep and use this. How’s the weather typically and this fishing around the end or April? Trying to make sure we grind the proper clothes so we don’t freeze. Last year up in Granby it was still snowing and below freezing at night in June.

Noice

Great pics!

Lifetime Memories!

Looks like fun

Awesome!

still a good chance of snow, storms. good thing about the storms is it usually takes them until 3pm to fire up, if they do then get under cover as the lightning can be intense. spent about 3.5 hrs under my canoe waiting one out that caught me off guard, no fun at all.

be real sure to read up on the rules for the body of water you fish, they will ticket you and they are not cheap, some are artificial only, some no barbs some are use what ya got.
best lure I ever used is the yellow coachdog roostertail, caught some really nice browns on the 1/8oz and even a few on a 1/4oz. 1/8 and 1/16oz are best size tho.

april will be runoff from snow melt, if the rivers/creeks are muddy then navajo, vallecito, lemon reservoirs will be your best bet, below navajo in the quality waters will be really good (those trout get hammered a lot, that roostertail for spinning, nymphs, fur ball salmon eggs and maybe some skeeter dry flys on a 22 or so hook.

if you want to get really adventurous see if you can get a trip to the mt. lakes in the weimenuche to some of the high lakes, those were always a blast when I guided, native cutthroat, rainbow were always excellent dinner fare since the water is always really cold.

west of durango is the delores river, dam released and clear, caught my pb on a trip when the river was super low, dam was shut down, 12# rainbow on a skeeter but that was in aug. you can access a lot of area on the delores to fish from the bank. maybe see if you can get a low water 2 day trip while the dam is slowed down. good rapids for fun and excellent fishing.

I grew up not far from Granby. Great fishing in that area. I know exactly where that bridge is in the background of that one photo. But if you were in Granby you should have spent some time fishing for Mackinaw in Granby Res. My biggest one out of that lake is 28 lbs and there are lots of 10-20 lbs fish in that lake and the best part is they can be caught from shore on sucker meat.