Not a great stretch for rafters looking to float

Colorado Stream Access

Drake Magazine Back Issue 2025, Drake Magazine Winter 2025/26, Homepage Content, Stream Access, U.S. places3 Comments

Take any Colorado stream-access battle that has taken place this century, and a small, relatively unknown but politically connected nonprofit has likely played a role. The secretive Creekside Coalition has fought for much of the past thirty years to keep stream-access laws in Colorado from becoming anything like those in Montana, where the public is allowed to recreate in its rivers and streams up to the high-water mark

St. Peter’s Fly Shops

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In the late 1880s, a stone mason in Fort Collins, Colorado began building a home out of materials he had salvaged from the decommissioned county jail. After its completion in 1889, this structure would go on to house several mayors, serve as a hospital, and enter the national register of historic places before becoming a fly shop. The shop’s founder had a brother who was a Trappist monk so he named the shop after St. Peter, the great fisherman and disciple of Jesus. Since 1992, St. Peter’s Fly Shop has been servicing, outfitting, and educating Colorado’s Front Range.

We never found the "water" we were searching for, but it didn't quite much matter when we stumbled upon this view and this stream, full of little wild trout. When we first walked down we saw red flashes - thinking we had stumbled upon native cutties, we began casting, only to catch the char gems we cherish back in the Southeast, somehow slightly dissapointed that we did not find the native fish to this region we were hoping for. Angler: Adam White. Photo: Sammy Chang

Colorado’s Access Issue

Drake Magazine Back Issue Content 2023, Fly Fishing News, Homepage Content, Policy/Politics/Laws, Stream Access, U.S. places1 Comment

ON JUNE FIFTH, the seven members of Colorado’s court of last resort unanimously ruled that 81-year-old flyfisherman Roger Hill “lacks standing” to continue his decade-long legal battle for public access along the Arkansas River (Hill v. Warsewa).

Stream Access

Photo by Corey Kruitbosch

Public Mistrust Doctrine

Conservation, Daily Drake, Drake Magazine Back Issue Content 2021, Freshwater Fly Fishing, Homepage Content, Policy/Politics/Laws, Stream Access, U.S. placesLeave a comment

“The topic of stream access illustrates one of the most perplexing types of legal conflicts that can arise… Indeed, it is difficult to find a legal issue that is more tangled and uncertain.” —A Wildlife Primer (2009), by Eric Freyfogle and Dale Goble

Colorado’s river laws might be in trouble. Roger Hill, the octogenarian trying to fulfill his dream of legally wade-fishing the Arkansas River, was at the Colorado Court of Appeals on January 27 and got good news about his case—Hill v Warsewa. 

Clyde and the Shark Louisiana Redfish Ahead

Clyde and the Shark

Destination travel, Drake Magazine Back Issue Content Winter 2018, Ride With Clyde, The Put In, U.S. places1 Comment

If you linger around a fly shop long enough on a slow day, you’ll eventually hear some crazy and creative fishing plans. My shop—Arbor Anglers in Golden, Colorado—is no exception, and on a recent afternoon in late October, the fishing plans got a little nuts. What started with: “We should find a big-ass shark-mount somewhere…

Festivarians gather for the Telluride Bluegrass Festival

Bluegrass and Fiberglass

Drake Magazine Back Issue Content Spring 2018, Fly Fishing Industry, LifestyleLeave a comment

It’s 1 a.m. and we’ve just shuffled out of the Sheridan Opera House, halfway through The Travelin’ McCoury’s NightGrass after-show. Not because they weren’t fantastic. Fronted by the sons of bluegrass legend Del McCoury, they lived up to their pedigree. But we’re exhausted. Ignoring the advice of experienced Festivarians, we have not paced ourselves. It’s…

A public-lands debate at your doorstep

Utah’s Monument Problem

Conservation, Drake Magazine Back Issue Content Summer 2017, Policy/Politics/LawsLeave a comment

IN THE SPRING OF 1996, President Bill Clinton created the 1.8-million-acre Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, encircling a swath of twisted canyon country in southern Utah. Using the Antiquities Act, he sidestepped Congress—as 16 presidents have done, creating 157 national monuments—and delivered the proclamation in a ceremony on the rim of the Grand Canyon.

Umpqua Feather Merchants collaborates to conserve habitat in Tongass National Forest.

Umpqua Marks 45th Anniversary with $45k Pledge

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LOUISVILLE, CO — Forty-five years ago, Umpqua Feather Merchants opened its doors to anglers and shops in search of high-quality flies and unmatched variety. Now it’s wrapping its anniversary celebration around a good cause, collaborating with Trout Unlimited and the Sportsman’s Alliance for Alaska to raise $45,000 to help conserve and restore key salmon and…

Russell Miller took him passion and made a career out of it.

Flyfishing Grind: How to Turn Passion into Pay Dirt

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Scoring a paycheck to fish incessantly seems like a savvy career move—if you can find the right mix of employer (preferably a company churning out badass gear) and locale (somewhere near steelhead, or poon flats, smallies ponds, tidal redfish… a carp ditch). Insatiable flyfisher Russell Miller began the process in Boulder, CO, in the late…