Fishing Near Idaho Springs

Spending time near the water is a great way to spend your late spring and summer. One of the great things about living in Colorado is that there are many water activities available. Whether you’re looking to go hike, fish, or just enjoy yourself by the stream or lake there are plenty of these opportunities in and around Idaho Springs.

One of the more underrated and overlooked streams in the Colorado high country is Clear Creek. This stream starts off above Georgetown and flows through Idaho Springs where we commercially raft at AVA. However, it is also a great river for fishing! It flows just west of Golden and empties into the South Platte River.

There are plenty of easy access points to Clear Creek making it convenient to hike along or cast a line. This is your typical skinny water, free stone creek with crystal clear water. The native Brown Trout can be easily spotted through the riffles and pocket water. An interesting fact about this stream is that it used to be as wide as the Upper Colorado River until Interstate 70 was built in the 60’s narrowing the river. These alterations created great rafting conditions down certain stretches. You may hear some people refer to Clear Creek as “Franken River” due to how we manipulated it.

 

Another great spot near Idaho Springs is St. Mary’s Lake at Glacier National Park. This amazing lake is located right outside of Idaho Springs in the small town of Alice right off the Fall River Road exit from Interstate 70.

Once you get to the town of Alice you’ll be able to pick out the St. Mary’s glacier trailhead. You can take a short mile and a half hike that puts you out at the large lake with steep mountains surrounding three sides along with rolling prairies and foothills. This lake has very few boaters due to the remoteness and lack of boat accesses. A wide variety of fish can be found here, many different kinds of trout along with white fish are easily caught here because this lake does not receive much fishing pressure. Along with the fishing, the area around St. Mary Lake holds some of the best hiking trails in Glacier National Park.

A fun fact for you: the only place in the United States where a river flows into a creek is right by where you exit off of the highway.The Fall River flows into Clear Creek at this location.

Let AVA Rafting be your Colorado guide. While visiting the Idaho Springs area give us a call and one of our sales agents will gladly assist you with knowledge on things to do in the area and set you up with adventure activities.

Alison Mathes
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