Cement Creek, August 2015
Visitors still ask about 2015 before anything else, so start there. According to the EPA, on August 5, 2015 its crews were investigating the Gold King Mine near Silverton when excavation above the old adit released pressurized water that had built up behind collapsed material. About three million gallons spilled into Cement Creek, a tributary that RiverReports places just below Silverton. The EPA later added the Bonita Peak Mining District, which includes Gold King as one of the potential sources of contamination, to the Superfund National Priorities List.
For the trout water down in Durango, the report from anglers has been steady. RiverReports' Colorado page cites Orvis saying the fishing remains strong with plentiful insects supporting large trout, and CPW continues to list the town reach as Gold Medal water. RiverReports' Durango page notes that above the Cement Creek confluence the upper river near Silverton runs clear and fishable.
Seven miles of town water
Durango's public water is unusually easy to reach. Duranglers, whose shop on Main Avenue sits two blocks from the river, reprints a description from Fly Fishing Southern Colorado that counts almost seven miles of public access from the 32nd Street Bridge down to the Rivera Bridge south of town, with two well-marked private parcels in between. Access points include the 9th Street and 32nd Street parks, the state fish hatchery at 151 East 16th Street, and the chamber of commerce park along U.S. 160 at the south end. The Animas River Trail follows much of it.
Do not mistake easy access for easy fishing. The same source describes a river almost 100 feet wide through town, full of big rocks, deep holes and bottom stones as slick as any in the West; Duranglers' guides nickname it the Animal. Below the Rivera Bridge the river crosses private land and then the Southern Ute Indian Reservation, where tribal water along La Posta Road is open only with a Southern Ute tribal permit.
Sixteen inches, flies only, and the noon rule
CPW's 2026 brochure lists the Animas as Gold Medal water from Lightner Creek to the Rivera Crossing bridge, and the special regulations match that boundary: from the Lightner Creek confluence to the Rivera Crossing Bridge, artificial flies and lures only, and a bag and possession limit of two trout, each at least 16 inches. From the Hermosa Creek confluence downstream to the New Mexico line there is no bag or possession limit on bass, northern pike, walleye, channel catfish and the other warmwater species CPW lists. Gold Medal status itself is CPW's designation for water that holds at least 60 pounds of trout per acre and at least 12 trout of 14 inches or longer per acre on a sustained basis.
Summer adds a time limit. Since July 13, 2026, CPW has asked anglers not to fish the town reach from 32nd Street to the Rivera Bridge between noon and midnight because of low water and temperatures reaching 71 degrees, and Duranglers' current river report says the request still stands. RiverReports' advice is blunter: carry a thermometer and stop at 68 degrees.
Where 200 to 400 cfs comes from
The Animas has no dam above Durango, so the gauge at Durango, USGS 09361500, is a straight read on snowmelt and storms. RiverReports gives Durango's working bands for it: under 200 cfs is low water with fish packed into holes, 200 to 400 is the ideal wading range, 400 to 800 is fishable with careful wading, 800 to 1,500 is float-only, and above 1,500 is runoff. Duranglers' guides float the river from late spring through midsummer depending on flows.
The record, going back to 1897, shows why September is the month everyone mentions: median flow falls from about 2,400 cfs in June to around 900 in July, 490 in August and 370 in September, then settles near 200 through the winter. Runoff generally runs from late April into early June.
Sculpins first, then caddis
The Fly Fishing Southern Colorado account reprinted by Duranglers calls sculpins the most important food for the Animas's big trout, and caddis the most important insect, beginning around June 1 while runoff is still going and continuing all summer, with good evening dry-fly fishing in July and August. PMDs come off late in the morning from July into early August. Hoppers, and a Dry Muddler skated in 8 to 12, cover the gaps, and blue-winged olives and midges return around midday in October and November.
RiverReports' Durango hatch table agrees on the timing and adds golden stones in late June and early July, with terrestrials from July into October. Most trout in town run 10 to 15 inches by the book's account, but a past state-record brown of more than 20 pounds came out of the Animas in the 1950s, worth remembering when you tie on a sculpin and swing it through the deep slots.