South Platte trico falls turn on tailwater trout despite drought lows

What's biting

What's next

With no fresh moisture in the outlook and Colorado sitting in what Pat Dorsey Fly Fishing's Drought Update calls one of the worst water years on record, expect flows on the South Platte and Arkansas tailwaters to keep dropping and clarifying over the next few days. That's a double-edged sword: gin-clear water makes for leader-shy, technical fish, but it also concentrates trout into predictable holding water — the deeper runs, current seams, and shaded pockets that Cutthroat Anglers' low-water tips flag as the go-to spots when flows run this thin.

Morning trico spinner falls, the pattern Gink and Gasoline built a whole piece around after fishing a South Platte spinner fall, should keep firing in the first couple hours of daylight as long as this dry, stable weather pattern holds. Plan to be on the water at first light with 6X or lighter tippet ready before the spinners hit the film. As the sun climbs and water warms through midday, expect the bite to go quiet, echoing the seasonal slowdown Anglers Covey describes setting in as summer heat deepens — a more leisurely pace, fish sliding into shade, with better odds picking back up in the evening than through the heat of the day.

For subsurface presentations, AvidMax's clear-water midge patterns — the Titan Tube Midge and Chocolate Foam Back — are well suited to the low, technical flows the tailwater sections are showing right now, fished on light tippet under an indicator or as a dropper behind a dry.

Heading into the weekend, don't count on a flow bump to bail anglers out; with snowpack this far behind, tailwater releases are more likely to hold steady or trend down rather than spike. That means the dawn trico window paired with a slow, methodical approach to deeper holding water through the day remains the highest-percentage plan. Anglers willing to work farther from access points, per Cutthroat Anglers' guidance, should find less-pressured fish still willing to eat.

Context

Mid-July on the South Platte and Arkansas tailwaters is normally trico season regardless of water year — the hatch Gink and Gasoline describes from a South Platte spinner fall is a fixture of Colorado summer tailwater fishing, not a sign of anything unusual. What is unusual is the water behind it. Pat Dorsey Fly Fishing's Drought Update places 2026 alongside 1975-78, 2002, 2012, 2018, and 2020 as one of the driest years Colorado anglers have seen, driven by the lowest recorded snowpack on file. Cutthroat Anglers' spring update independently told the same story, describing Colorado's snowpack as 'historic for all the wrong reasons,' and that shop's more recent low-water tips piece frames 2026 as a season where more than 60% of the Lower 48 sits in some level of drought.

For added context, the South Platte's Dream Stream section — a lake-run stretch of the same river — saw one of its best migratory fish runs in years this past spring according to Colorado Trout Hunters, and that shop's fall reports describe a strong run of migratory brown trout later in the season. Those runs are tied to reservoir movement rather than summer resident-fish behavior, so they aren't directly comparable to today's trico-and-low-water pattern, but they suggest the fishery itself remains healthy even as flows run thin. No direct comparative flow data was available in this feed to say precisely how far below normal current levels sit; treat the drought framing as directional rather than a specific percentage.