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

Ruby River, Montana. PC: Bryan Gregson

Thrown for a Loop

Drake Magazine Fall 2025, Homepage Content, Opinion, Policy/Politics/Laws, Stream Access1 Comment

The press release arrived October 4, 2024: “Cox Enterprises Acquires Loop Tackle.” Atlanta-based Cox Enterprises Inc. is a 127-year-old, privately held, global media and automotive empire worth around $30 billion. Its purchase of a relatively small European flyfishing brand seemed odd. But, free country and all that.

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.