Boulder Creek is one of the more enjoyable streams to fish that are close to town. This section in particular flows right through town and has a ton of easy access and hundreds of little brown trout to catch. From Arapahoe all the way up to Eben G Fine Park, you can catch eager trout on dries, nymphs and streamers in every likely spot. These fish, though they see more and more pressure these days, still remain fairly easy to catch. If you learn to watch you backcast, you can land a lot of little brown trout in this river. If you try to stick to your traditional overhead cast, you’ll find more trees than fish.

There is an easy walking path right along the river and there is an abundance of holes, runs and riffles. Don’t overlook any of the water as you’ll find fish are spread out well through the entire river. Dry Droppers are best for most of the year, though nymphing does best in early winter and early spring. The creek freezes over most years in Jan – March, but if the temps warm up you can find some fish even in the dead of winter in the holes.

This sections only weakness is the tube hatch of college kids that float down the river from 10 am to 9pm daily it seems during June to August. When the flows drop, the tubers find more rocks than water and start to give up. For this reason the best seasons are spring and late fall to fish this river and early morning before the college kids are up. The fish don’t seem to mind the tubers but it can be frustrating in certain sections to be interrupted and other sections are better to fish when the tube hatch is strong.
Recently there have been some larger cutbows up to 16” in the river that came in from the flood in 2013. They live up next to Boulder Library in the most popular section to fish. Large dry flies and big streamers will coax these fish to your net. The entire river is catch and release in town so please practice catch and release especially during spawning times and if you catch larger fish. Fish above 14” are a prize in this river and should be released safely and quickly using our catch and release guidelines.