Summer Outlook For the Rockies, with Chris Steinbeck

The Orvis Fly-Fishing Podcast

James Hathaway

Sports, Wilderness, Education, How To

4.8 • 2K Ratings

🗓️ 25 May 2026

⏱️ 64 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

My guest this week, Chris Steinbeck [25:15] of the Blue Quill Angler in Colorado, shares his strategies for dealing with what we expect will be low water and possibly water that is too warm for ethical trout fishing. This doesn't mean you have to forgo fly fishing! There are many options for continuing your trout fishing through the summer, plus loads of alternatives to trout that are amazing fun on the fly rod. Chris has some solid tips for enjoying the summer with your rod, and for treating the fish properly in low water. Although Chris concentrates on Colorado fisheries, his advice is solid for any part of the Rocky Mountains.

In the Fly Box this week, we have these questions and more:
If I briefly hook a brown trout, do you think it's still worth trying for that fish?
I have an old Orvis Bamboo rod left to me by my grandfather. Should I fish it, and if so how should I care for it?
Is there a material you could wrap around a dry fly to make it float better?
Which types of dubbing are best for dry flies?
Can I use jig nymphs on a dry dropper setup?
How can I strip "retired" flies of their dressing so I can re-use the hooks and beads?
I fish a cold tailwater but have not seen or caught a trout. Why are there no trout in it?

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hi, and welcome to the Orvis Fly Fishing podcast.
0:15.9	This is your host, Tom Rosenbauer.
0:17.7	And my guest this week is Chris Steinbeck of Blue Quill Anglers in
0:25.0	evergreen Colorado I've been I've had a bunch of requests for a podcast on
0:33.2	the low water situation that we're going to have in many places in the western United States
0:40.4	this year and what to do what what can we do what to do about it how can we still enjoy fly
0:45.7	fishing so I can't think of anyone better than Chris to to give us some advice on that and it's not
0:53.5	a podcast that's going to urge you to not fish because there will still be plenty of opportunities in the Rocky Mountains.
1:01.0	You may not be able to fish some of the bigger rivers, the floatable rivers that you like to fish during the summer.
1:09.4	But Chris has lots of options for us, both for trout and for alternative species.
1:15.2	So we're going to have low water this summer in the Rockies.
1:18.8	We just need to learn how to deal with it and learn how to treat those fish properly during low and possibly warm water.
1:27.9	A couple announcements.
1:29.9	One is I'm going to be at the Caledonia Trout Festival, May 30th.
1:36.2	That's in Caledonia, New York, outside of Rochester.
1:40.5	And I'm going to be doing two presentations, one at 11 a.m. on prospecting for trout and one at
1:47.1	2 p.m. on small stream trout fishing. And in between those times, I'll have a little booth.
1:54.4	I'll have some books to sell and sign. So I hope to see you there. It's a fun event. It's a place where I grew up, fly fishing,
2:03.8	and it means a lot to me. And it's a great time. It's a very family-oriented festival. So hope to
2:11.9	see you there. Again, that's May 30th and Caledonia, New York. And you can look up the festival online.
2:20.2	Just search on Caledonia Trout Festival.
2:24.0	And let's talk about some places that you can go fishing this summer.
	...

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