Just months after the federal government closed on a land exchange with a billionaire, a proposal to institute a permit system on the Blue River has ignited a conversation about river access and fishery health in Colorado.

Blue Valley Ranch, a more than 2,000-acre property owned by billionaire Paul Tudor Jones II, and the nonprofit Friends of the Lower Blue River say a permit system is necessary to manage the negative impacts of increasing fishing pressure.

On the busiest days in recent years, the Lower Blue River — stretches of which are designated as Gold Medal fishing — has seen up to 45 boats on the river, according to data provided by Blue Valley Ranch. Meanwhile, the ranch’s data also show that fish mortality has increased while the number of fish per mile has dropped significantly in recent years.

“The Lower Blue River, long recognized as one of the greatest trout fisheries in the world, is at a crossroads,” the Friends of the Lower Blue River’s website explains. “With increase in use, so have the fishing pressures on the river. … Fish populations are declining, and the river’s world-class trout fishery is quietly slipping away.”

As currently proposed, the permit system would only apply to boaters planning to fish the Lower Blue River, while nonfishing crafts or those wading to fish would not need a permit. The Friends of the Lower Blue River launched a stakeholder process earlier this year to determine parameters of the permit system.

But the proposal has some anglers upset that a potential permit system wasn’t discussed in the years leading up to the closing of the land swap, despite their concerns about losing public access along the river.

In interviews and emails, more than a half dozen anglers who regularly fish the Lower Blue River said the land swap between Blue Valley Ranch and the federal government was sold to the public as increasing float access to the river.

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<figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Snow-capped mountains are visible in the distance Wednesday, May 29, 2024, above the heavily eroded bank of the Blue River near its confluence with the Colorado River. River restoration work is planned here, as part of a land exchange that the federal government and a private landowner closed on earlier this year.</figcaption><figcaption>Ryan Spencer/Summit Daily News</figcaption>

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The land exchange proposed by Blue Valley Ranch was negotiated over more than 20 years with the stated purpose of addressing the “checkboard nature” of ownership in the valley. Earlier this year, the parties closed on the deal, which traded nine parcels of federal land totaling 1,489 acres in Grand County for nine parcels of private land totaling 1,830 acres in Grand and Summit counties.

As part of the exchange, the ranch has agreed to cover the costs of river restoration work for a three-quarter-mile stretch of the Blue River near its confluence with the Colorado River, pay for the creation of the Confluence Recreation Area with more than 2 miles of new walking trails and wheel-chair accessible fishing platforms and provide Summit County with $600,000 for new open space acquisition.

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Public officials, including Colorado’s senators and Summit and Grand County commissioners, lauded the land exchange as a good deal for the public that would increase fishing access and improve the fishery.

Anglers who opposed the land swap because they felt it was tilted toward private interests, said they see the proposed permit system as the continuation of an effort by a landowner to restrict public access to the river.

“As I float down there today, compared to 20 years ago, there are video cameras all over the place now down there. The land swap happened, so there are less spots for rafters to stop and have lunch and have a break,” longtime river user Brett Wamsley said. “Every time I go down there it feels like it’s more and more difficult and more and more inhospitable to the public having a right to be able to go down there and fish.”

In most other states, the beds of navigable waterways are owned by the public, allowing for floating and wading, even where rivers are flanked by private lands. But in Colorado, river access laws are murky, and touching the riverbed through private land can be considered trespassing.

Blue Valley Ranch denied that it has attempted to restrict public access to the river. The land swap and proposed permit system are “two separate issues,” Blue Valley Ranch fisheries biologist Brien Rose said in a statement.

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<figcaption class="wp-element-caption">An angler fishes from a raft in the Green Mountain Canyon on the Lower Blue River in Summit County. Citing declining river and fisheries health, Blue Valley Ranch and the nonprofit Friends of the Lower Blue River are proposing to institute a permit system to float fish the river. </figcaption><figcaption>Courtesy photo</figcaption>

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“Blue Valley Ranch has long been committed to balancing recreational management with the river’s ecological needs,” he said. “The decision to consider a management plan is recent and based on growing biological evidence that the river’s ecological health is in decline.”

The ranch has a history of completing river restoration, and a statement on its website says that work “has stabilized the river banks, reduced erosion and sedimentation, narrowed the channel to keep water temperatures cooler at low flows, and provided habitat for fish at all stages of their life cycle.”

While interviewed anglers who oppose the plan agreed that the fishery along the Lower Blue River is declining, they said it’s unfair to pin the blame on increased recreation when there are a multitude of factors involved.

One local fly fishing guide, for example, is frustrated that the proposed management plan for the Lower Blue River doesn’t mention that Blue Valley Ranch has over the years fed the trout that it stocks along the stretch of the river that passes through the ranch.

The section of river through the ranch’s property has earned the nickname “Jurassic Park” due to the size of the rainbow trout there, with anglers reporting fish that weigh upwards of 20 pounds.

“There’s no recognition of the unnatural occurrences that are happening within the ranch,” said Ben McCormick, the owner of Cutthroat Anglers, a fly fishing shop in Silverthorne. “I believe the declining health of the river is almost entirely due to what the ranch is doing to the river. It’s not due to upstream factors.”

Increasing use, declining river health prompt permit plan

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<figcaption class="wp-element-caption">The existing boat takeout on the Blue River was heavily eroded on Wednesday, May 29, 2024. A new boat ramp is planned here as part of the land exchange the federal government closed on with Blue Valley Ranch earlier this year. </figcaption><figcaption>Ryan Spencer/Summit Daily News</figcaption>

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The Blue River starts high in the mountains of Summit County as snowmelt. It filters through dams at the Dillon and Green Mountain reservoirs before connecting to the mighty Colorado River a few miles after crossing into Grand County.

Below Green Mountain Dam, the river flows through a scenic canyon with Class II and III rapids and public lands on either side. Upon exiting the canyon, the landscape opens up, and the river is flanked mostly by private lands, including Blue Valley Ranch. Known as the Lower Blue, this about 15-mile stretch of the river from the dam to the confluence with the Colorado River is where the permit system is proposed.

“The goal of the permit system is to protect the river’s health while ensuring everyone can enjoy quality