Blue Mesa Reservoir

Blue Mesa backs the Gunnison River up for about 20 miles west of Gunnison, the largest body of water in Colorado and the heart of the Curecanti National Recreation Area. It sits at about 7,500 feet in three basins, Iola, Cebolla and Sapinero, from east to west, with the Black Canyon dams below it.

It is a lake trout and kokanee fishery first, and it has more lake trout than its kokanee can feed, which is why there is no limit on them. For a fly angler, the best of it is spring after ice-off, when rainbows and browns cruise the shallow east end of the Iola Basin and the inlets, and the weeks around ice-up in late fall. A float tube or a small boat works along the shore on a calm morning; the open basins take the wind hard in the afternoon. The Gunnison and the Lake Fork come in at the east and west ends.