The Dolores below McPhee is the tailwater that should be one of the Southwest's best and too often isn't, because in dry years the reservoir keeps the water and the river below runs thin. When the release is good it's a fine cold-water brown-and-rainbow fishery in red-rock canyon country; when it's bad it's a cautionary tale about how a tailwater lives or dies by what the dam lets through. This is a river where the release figure isn't background detail — it's the whole forecast. Check the flow before you make the long drive, and respect a stressed low-water year.
- Mixed
