Full-Day Float on the Gunnison River

About this trip

The Gunnison below town is a big, honest freestone that rewards anglers who can read water. We launch a drift boat and cover eight to ten miles in a day, which sounds like a lot until you realize how much of this river is transitional water nobody stops for. The good stuff is where the current seams stack against the willows and where the riffles dump into the deeper runs. From a boat you get one shot at each of those, and my whole job is putting you in position to take it. Most of the season this is a dry-dropper river. A big foam attractor with a beadhead trailing eighteen inches under it will move fish from May through October, and there is a stretch in July where the hoppers get taken seriously enough that you can fish a single dry all afternoon. Runoff usually has the river blown out from late May into mid-June. I will not take your money during that window, and if you book into it I will call you and move the date. Late summer and fall are the best of it: clearer water, better hatches, and the browns get aggressive ahead of the spawn. The fish here are wild rainbows and browns, mostly twelve to seventeen inches, with a real shot at something over twenty every trip. This is not a numbers river where you catch fifty small fish. It is a river where you work for eight or ten good ones and remember two of them. If you want a photograph of a big fish and you are willing to make a hundred accurate casts to get it, this is your day. The float suits anyone who can cast forty feet with some control. You do not need to be good, but you do need to be willing to listen, because casting from a moving boat is its own skill and most people have never done it. Total beginners are better served on a wade trip first. Two anglers per boat, one fishing from the bow and one from the stern, and we rotate. Species: wild rainbow and brown trout. Season: mid-June through October, best from August on. Meeting point: the public boat ramp east of Gunnison, 7:30am, and we are off the water around 4pm. Experience level: intermediate. You should be comfortable casting from a moving boat, or willing to learn on the way.

About your guide

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River conditions

10-day forecast

What's included

• Drift boat and all rowing
• Rods, reels and lines if you need them
• All flies, tippet and leader
• Streamside lunch, snacks and drinks
• Shuttle between put-in and take-out

What to bring

• Colorado fishing license (buy online before you arrive)
• Polarized sunglasses. These are safety gear in a boat, not an accessory
• Rain shell, it storms most summer afternoons
• Sun hoody, hat and sunscreen
• Layers, because mornings can start near freezing in the fall