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Home › Waters › Colorado › St. Vrain Creek
Creek · Boulder County, the plains reach below the Boulder Creek confluence east of Longmont, where the St. Vrain runs out of the Front Range toward the South Platte in northern Colorado · Colorado

St. Vrain Creek Fishing Guides

The plains reach of a Front Range creek below the Boulder Creek confluence, carrying trout down from the canyon into genuinely good smallmouth and carp water east of Longmont.

A mountain river running clear through conifer forest in the Rockies
Gauge location. Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors.

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About the St. Vrain Creek

St. Vrain Creek drains a large piece of the northern Front Range, gathering the North, Middle and South St. Vrain branches out of the Indian Peaks and the Wild Basin corner of Rocky Mountain National Park before running east through Lyons and Longmont toward the South Platte. The gauge reach sits below the Boulder Creek confluence on Highway 119, well out onto the plains, and that position is what defines it. This is not canyon pocket water. It is a slower, warmer, cottonwood-lined plains creek carrying the combined flow of two substantial Front Range drainages.

The fishing reflects the mix. Brown and rainbow trout drop down from the canyon reaches and hold through the cooler months and in the deeper shaded runs, but the plains water belongs to smallmouth bass, carp, channel catfish and sunfish through the summer. The smallmouth fishing in particular is better than most Front Range anglers expect, and the carp on the flats below the confluence have developed a small following among anglers who like to hunt them on sight with a fly. It is an urban-edge fishery, and it fishes like one.

The 2013 flood reshaped this creek more thoroughly than almost any other water on the Front Range, tearing out the Lyons reach and rebuilding the channel through Longmont. Much of what an angler sees now is engineered: restored riffles, constructed pools and reinforced banks, built during the recovery with fish habitat as an explicit goal. The result works better than the pre-flood channel did in places. Flow is heavily influenced by irrigation diversion and return, so discharge at the gauge can move sharply for reasons that have nothing to do with weather. Checking the gauge before driving out is worth the minute it takes, because an irrigation call can change this creek overnight.

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Read the full license

Version 1.0, dated 6 September 2026. Applies to every photograph submitted to GuidedFloats through the contact form, a species page, or the community board.

1. What you give us

By ticking the box on the form you grant Guided Floats, LLC (“GuidedFloats”, “we”) a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free license to store, copy, resize, crop and display your photograph on guidedfloats.com, in GuidedFloats’ own social media accounts and mobile apps, and in material that promotes the site itself, in connection with the fish, water or community feature you sent it in for. The license lasts until you withdraw it (section 4).

You keep the copyright. The license is not exclusive, so you can use the photo anywhere else and license it to anyone else. We will not sell your photo, license it on to anyone else on its own, or use it in paid advertising for a third party.

2. What you confirm

You confirm that you took the photograph yourself (or otherwise own the rights to it), that you have the right to grant this license, and that publishing the photo does not infringe anyone else’s copyright, privacy or other rights.

If any person is recognisable in the photo, you confirm that they have agreed to its being published here, and that a parent or guardian has agreed on behalf of anyone under 18. Please do not send photographs of other people’s catches, screenshots, or pictures copied from other websites or social media.

3. Credit

We print the credit name you give us beside the photo wherever it appears on the site, and record it as the photo’s creator in the page’s structured data. If you leave the credit blank we use the name you gave us on the form. Write “Anonymous” if you prefer no name at all. Your email address, phone number and the exact spot the photo was taken are never published.

4. Withdrawing the license

You can withdraw the license at any time by emailing hello@guidedfloats.com, or by using the contact form, and telling us which photo you mean. We will remove the photo from guidedfloats.com within 7 days of receiving your message and stop using it in anything new. Copies that are already outside our control — search-engine caches, social posts that have already gone out, printed material already produced — may take longer to disappear or may not be recallable, and we are not responsible for those.

5. What we may do

We choose which photos to publish and may decline any submission without giving a reason. We may crop, resize, sharpen or colour-correct a photo for display, and we may remove a photo at any time. We will not alter a photo in a way that misrepresents the fish, the water or you.

6. Your details

We keep your name, email address, the credit name, the water and date you gave us, and the network address the submission came from, with the submission record, as our evidence of this license. We hold that record for as long as the photo is published and for the retention period described in our privacy policy. Location data that your camera or phone embedded in the file is removed before the photo is published.

7. Versions

The version of this license you accepted is stored with your submission and printed with the photo. A later version does not apply to a photo you have already sent unless you agree to it.

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Posting to St. Vrain Creek.

JPG, PNG or WebP, up to 12 MB. We resize it and strip the location data out of the file.

The name shown under the photo. Leave blank to stay anonymous.

Reader photo license v1.0 — the short version:

  • You grant Guided Floats, LLC a non-exclusive, royalty-free license to publish, resize and crop your photo on guidedfloats.com and in GuidedFloats’ own social posts and apps. You keep the copyright and can use the photo anywhere else.
  • You confirm that you took the photo yourself, that publishing it does not infringe anyone else’s rights, and that anyone recognisable in it (or a parent or guardian, if they are under 18) is happy for it to appear here.
  • Credit is printed beside the photo wherever it appears on the site, using the credit name you give us. Leave it blank and we use your name; write “Anonymous” for no name. Your email address is never published.
  • Withdrawing is one email to hello@guidedfloats.com naming the photo. It comes off the site within 7 days.
Read the full license

Version 1.0, dated 6 September 2026. Applies to every photograph submitted to GuidedFloats through the contact form, a species page, or the community board.

1. What you give us

By ticking the box on the form you grant Guided Floats, LLC (“GuidedFloats”, “we”) a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free license to store, copy, resize, crop and display your photograph on guidedfloats.com, in GuidedFloats’ own social media accounts and mobile apps, and in material that promotes the site itself, in connection with the fish, water or community feature you sent it in for. The license lasts until you withdraw it (section 4).

You keep the copyright. The license is not exclusive, so you can use the photo anywhere else and license it to anyone else. We will not sell your photo, license it on to anyone else on its own, or use it in paid advertising for a third party.

2. What you confirm

You confirm that you took the photograph yourself (or otherwise own the rights to it), that you have the right to grant this license, and that publishing the photo does not infringe anyone else’s copyright, privacy or other rights.

If any person is recognisable in the photo, you confirm that they have agreed to its being published here, and that a parent or guardian has agreed on behalf of anyone under 18. Please do not send photographs of other people’s catches, screenshots, or pictures copied from other websites or social media.

3. Credit

We print the credit name you give us beside the photo wherever it appears on the site, and record it as the photo’s creator in the page’s structured data. If you leave the credit blank we use the name you gave us on the form. Write “Anonymous” if you prefer no name at all. Your email address, phone number and the exact spot the photo was taken are never published.

4. Withdrawing the license

You can withdraw the license at any time by emailing hello@guidedfloats.com, or by using the contact form, and telling us which photo you mean. We will remove the photo from guidedfloats.com within 7 days of receiving your message and stop using it in anything new. Copies that are already outside our control — search-engine caches, social posts that have already gone out, printed material already produced — may take longer to disappear or may not be recallable, and we are not responsible for those.

5. What we may do

We choose which photos to publish and may decline any submission without giving a reason. We may crop, resize, sharpen or colour-correct a photo for display, and we may remove a photo at any time. We will not alter a photo in a way that misrepresents the fish, the water or you.

6. Your details

We keep your name, email address, the credit name, the water and date you gave us, and the network address the submission came from, with the submission record, as our evidence of this license. We hold that record for as long as the photo is published and for the retention period described in our privacy policy. Location data that your camera or phone embedded in the file is removed before the photo is published.

7. Versions

The version of this license you accepted is stored with your submission and printed with the photo. A later version does not apply to a photo you have already sent unless you agree to it.

Flow alert

Tell me when the St. Vrain Creek cfs

Now: 84 cfs, read 6:00 am CST, Mon Nov 2, 2026 (USGS 06730525, ST VRAIN CR BLW BOULDER CR AT HWY 119 NR LONGMONT).

We never use this address for anything else and never share it. See the privacy policy.

Access

Highway 119 crossing - the gauge reach below the Boulder Creek confluence and the most direct access to the lower creek.
Longmont - the city upstream, with a long run of open space and greenway frontage along the creek through town.
Sandstone Ranch - the Longmont open space on the lower creek, with parking, trail access and walkable water.
St. Vrain State Park - the state park near the South Platte confluence, with developed access and the warmest water on the creek.
Lyons - the upstream town at the branch confluences, the head of the colder trout water.
Boulder Creek confluence - the junction immediately above the gauge, where the two drainages combine and the creek roughly doubles.
Pella Crossing - the Boulder County open space with ponds and creek frontage north of the main channel.

Seasons

Spring: high and often muddy with runoff and irrigation calls, with the creek fishing poorly until flows settle and clarity returns.
Summer: the warmwater season, with smallmouth, carp and catfish active through the plains reach and the trout holding only in the deeper shaded water.
Fall: the best all-round window, as water temperatures drop, irrigation demand ends, flows steady and the trout push back down out of the canyon.
Winter: low and clear with ice in the slow water, offering sight-fishing opportunities for trout and carp on warm afternoons.

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Questions

What is the current flow on the St. Vrain Creek?

As of Nov 2, 6:00 am, the USGS gauge ST VRAIN CR BLW BOULDER CR AT HWY 119 NR LONGMONT reads 84 cfs. Conditions update every 15 minutes.

What species can you catch on the St. Vrain Creek?

Anglers target Bluegill, Brown Trout, Channel Catfish, Common Carp, Green Sunfish, Largemouth Bass, Rainbow Trout, Smallmouth Bass, White Sucker on the St. Vrain Creek in Colorado.

Where can you access the St. Vrain Creek?

Highway 119 crossing - the gauge reach below the Boulder Creek confluence and the most direct access to the lower creek. Longmont - the city upstream, with a long run of open space and greenway frontage along the creek through town. Sandstone Ranch - the Longmont open space on the lower creek, with parking, trail access and walkable water. St. Vrain State Park - the state park near the South Platte confluence, with developed access and the warmest water on the creek. Lyons - the upstream town at the branch confluences, the head of the colder trout water. Boulder Creek confluence - the junction...

When is the best time to fish the St. Vrain Creek?

Spring: high and often muddy with runoff and irrigation calls, with the creek fishing poorly until flows settle and clarity returns. Summer: the warmwater season, with smallmouth, carp and catfish active through the plains reach and the trout holding only in the deeper shaded water. Fall: the best all-round window, as water temperatures drop, irrigation demand ends, flows steady and the trout push back down out of the canyon. Winter: low and clear with ice in the slow water, offering sight-fishing opportunities for trout and carp on warm afternoons.

Where are the fishing regulations for the St. Vrain Creek?

Regulations change by season and section. Read the current rules on the Colorado agency site: https://cpw.state.co.us/rules-regulations