Lower canyon: Gateway to Poudre Park and Mishawaka
The Poudre leaves its canyon a few miles northwest of Fort Collins, and Colorado 14 turns up it at Ted's Place. The USGS gauge on this page sits at the canyon mouth. Gateway Natural Area, Picnic Rock, Poudre Park and the stretch around the Mishawaka amphitheater make up the lower canyon, the closest water to town and the most fished. From the Gateway diversion down to the North Fork confluence the river is flies and lures only with all trout released.
Mid canyon: Stove Prairie to Rustic
Above Mishawaka the road passes Stove Prairie Landing, the Narrows and a string of Forest Service campgrounds on the way to Rustic, about 30 miles up the canyon. This is classic boulder pocket water where dry-dropper rigs fish all summer, and it is where local shops send anglers when the lower canyon is warm in August. The reach from the Hombre Ranch boundary below Rustic down to the Pingree Park Road bridge is a second catch-and-release, flies-and-lures reach.
Upper canyon: Kinikinik to Big Bend and above
Beyond Rustic the river shrinks past Kinikinik and Big Bend campground toward Chambers Lake and the Joe Wright Creek confluence, with the South Fork coming in from Rocky Mountain National Park. From Big Bend campground down to Black Hollow Creek all trout are released, and from the park boundary down to Joe Wright Creek the limit is 2 trout on flies and lures. Brook trout and the occasional cutthroat show up here along with small browns and rainbows.
Brown trout
Wild browns are the main fish of the Poudre from the canyon mouth to Rustic; they hold in the pockets and under the boulders and come out for caddis, stoneflies and PMDs after runoff and for baetis and midges in fall and winter. The lower canyon fishes through the winter on mild days, and the few weeks after runoff ends in late June or early July are the most consistent of the year.
Rainbow, cutthroat and brook trout
Rainbows and cutbows are mixed in with the browns throughout the canyon. The native cutthroat of the Poudre, a South Platte tributary, is the greenback cutthroat, not the Colorado River cutthroat of the west slope; pure greenbacks are rare and any cutthroat should be handled gently and released. Brook trout live in the cold upper reaches and the tributaries.
Season and regulations
The Poudre is open all year. Statewide limits of 4 trout apply outside the special reaches listed above, all of which are artificial flies and lures only; two of them are catch-and-release. Runoff generally runs high from mid May through June, and flows fall to well under 100 cfs by late fall.
Local reports treat the canyon as wadeable and productive from roughly 50 up to about 575 cfs at the canyon mouth, with the 150 to 200 cfs late-summer flows described as ideal pocket-water wading; the river is not floated for fishing. Check the current Colorado Parks and Wildlife brochure and its Upper Poudre River map before you go.