Fly / Guide Selection - Durango CO July

Don’t have anyone down there. If you don’t get any answers, book through a fly shop down there.

Son says check in with Duranglers

He’s in Dallas now in the real world. He does work seven on, seven off, though. Still plenty of time to fish.

I don’t have any first hand experience with the fly shops, but word of mouth wise I don’t think you can go wrong with either Duranglers or San Juan as previously mentioned.

As far as your float, if you want to charter a float I recommend Durango Rivertrippers. The owner’s name is David, and he’s as solid as they come.

If you just want to float yourself, park your car at Santa Rita Park and Uber back to the City Market grocer on 32nd. Put in there and float back to your vehicle.

Water that time of year should be 2000-2500 cfs, class 2 water on the Lower Animas at most. Perfect for what the locals would call a booze cruise.

Enjoy man, very jealous

Thank you everyone for the recs.

I now have more info on my end, we booked a house on the Florida River, which seems to be all private.

It looks like Duranglers owns a stretch of this water 2 miles downstream from me called Red Creek Ranch, so Im taking that as a good sign.

The water is damn near 20 feet from the back porch. I am so jacked.

Cant help with any guides but my grandmother lived in Durango for about 10 years off of falls creek road and I would drive down and fish the Animas every summer. Beautiful place, you're going to love it. I know you said you only have a day but if you get the opportunity take the Durango to Silverton narrow gauge rail, awesome trip that follows the animas upstream through the mountains. You're also not far from Mesa Verde national park, highly recommend. Good luck!

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Headed to Durango in July. I will probably get a 1 day trip with a guide, maybe a float just for the experience. Any leads appreciated.

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Are you gonna fish the Animas in town or head down to the San Juan? Personally, I'd start with Duranglers in town, but if you head further south to the San Juan let me know, I might have a name for you.

For small stream cabin fishing in July I'd have a good selection of terrestrials for the daytime and caddis for the evenings. I would also guess that Pale morning duns (PMDs) would also be going that time of year. I know that in early June we have an awesome Green Drake hatch than lingers into later in the month. I don't know how the timing would be effected that far south. You can usually cover them with a size 12 adams tho.

Fished with Duranglers multiple times. Typical flyshop/outfit experience.

Highly recommend

If you want to do some bank fishing to mix it up, you can catch rainbow on Lake Haviland about 20 miles north of town on 550. (On the way to Silverton). There’s a campsite there if you have family in tow and want to spend a day