In rivers like the upper North Platte, which flows north out of Colorado, low water runs not only warm but slow and clear, cultivating algae. Mats of algae can collect insects while offering trout shade and cover from predators, but they’re also a symptom of warm and stressful conditions, said Jeff Streeter, who guided on the upper North Platte before becoming a local representative for the fishing-oriented conservation group Trout Unlimited.
Upstream of Seminoe, however, the river is more subject to the vagaries of nature. For trout fishing, mountain snows are at least as important as rain patterns in warmer months but expectations based on decades of snowpack records have come under doubt. August 2021 verges on the 10 lowest on average. Mountain snow last winter and spring was about normal, but the ground was so dry from last year that much of this year’s melt soaked in without contributing to the flow.
Yet no heavy rain might not be all bad for the river’s trout, given a massive 2020 wildfire that charred a vast area just east of the upper North Platte, in Medicine Bow National Forest.In July, a mudslide in a burn area just 50 miles away in Colorado killed three people and clogged the Cache la Poudre River with silt. That hasn’t happened on the North Platte, but the West’s ever-hotter wildfire seasons are a threat to trout populations, said Helen Neville, senior scientist with Trout Unlimited.
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