Gore Creek

Gore Creek is a four-mile Gold Medal stream that runs straight through the town of Vail, from the mouth of Red Sandstone Creek in West Vail down through Vail Village and Lionshead to its confluence with the Eagle River near Dowd Junction. Interstate 70 and the town's paved recreation path parallel the creek for nearly the whole run, so the highway noise and the trout water sit only a few yards apart through most of town. The creek takes its name from Sir St. George Gore, an Irish baronet who hunted and fished the valley in the 1850s with a small army of guides and pack animals. Through town it stays narrow and brushy, lined with willow and spruce, rarely more than knee to waist deep.

All four of Colorado's trout species turn up in Gore Creek: rainbow, brown, cutthroat, and brook. It is one of the few streams in the state where an angler can reasonably find all four in the same afternoon. Decades of road sand, magnesium chloride runoff from I-70, and streambank development have taken a toll on the fishery, and the Town of Vail and the Eagle River Watershed Council have put years of restoration work into the channel to hold the water's Gold Medal status.

CPW designates the reach from the Red Sandstone Creek confluence downstream to the Eagle River confluence as Gold Medal water. Rules on that stretch are artificial flies and lures only, with a 16 inch minimum size and a bag and possession limit of two trout. Public access runs through a string of town parks along the creek: Red Sandstone Park near the upstream boundary, Donovan Park in Cascade Village partway down, and Stephens Park in West Vail near the lower end, which doubles as one of only two off-leash dog parks in town.

Caddis carry the water from May into October, with golden stones and yellow sallies adding bigger bugs through the middle of summer. Pale Morning Duns run from June into mid-September, and terrestrials matter from mid-April through the first hard frost given how much brush lines the banks. Blue-Winged Olives and midges take over once the mayfly and caddis activity fades in fall. Confirm the current Colorado Fishing Brochure before you go; Gold Medal boundaries and limits on small streams like this one are enforced closely.