A team of Colorado fisheries biologists was busy Friday morning saving as many fish as possible from Antero Reservoir, a popular trophy trout lake that is being drained and closed due to drought. Colorado Parks and Wildlife says the salvage operation was a success, with around 1,000 trout netted and transferred to nearby water bodies.
Antero Reservoir (Fish Salvage Operation)
“There’s a lot of really nice fish in Antero. That’s why we’re trying to move them,” Kyle Battige, one of CPW’s senior aquatic biologists, said in a video highlighting the operation. “Two-thirds of [the fish] were brown trout ranging from six inches up to, gosh, I mean probably 28 inches. There are some nice fish in there.”
The rest of the salvaged fish — 981 in total — were mostly big rainbows and cutbows, along with one tiger trout and a tiger muskie. After concentrating these fish in one of the reservoir’s outlets, the crew used nets and an electrofishing rig to stun and capture as many trout as they could. The fish were then transferred in hatchery trucks to Eleven Mile Reservoir, a larger waterbody that’s part of the same chain of lakes.
Colorado Parks and Wildlife had been planning the operation since April, when Denver Water, the utility that owns Antero, announced that it was draining the reservoir as part of its drought response plan. Although the news came as a major disappointment to fishermen in the nearby Front Range, it was not a surprise given the conditions — and the fact that Antero was built for this exact purpose. The reservoir was drained in 2002 as part of the same drought response plan, and again in 2015 for maintenance.
The historically weak winter of 2025-26 led to the lowest snowpack levels in Colorado’s recorded history, while a searing heatwave in March further compounded what DW called “an abysmal snowpack and runoff season.” Without enough snowmelt to recharge the watershed, the utility was forced to drain Antero in order to prop up Cheesman Reservoir, which supplies drinking water for more than a million people in the Denver metro area.
“Antero is a drought reservoir, designed to provide water to our customers during a severe drought,” DW’s water supply manager Nathan Elder said in an April statement. “Consolidating this water into Cheesman will help us make the most of the water we have.”
Following DW’s announcement, CPW enacted an emergency fish salvage at Antero, with bag limits lifted through May 13, when the reservoir was officially closed to the public. (It remains closed to public access through 2026, and there are no indications as to when it could re-open.) At the time, local guides and fishermen were hoping CPW would organize a salvage operation to move some of Antero’s trophy trout before the lake went dry.
Battite explained last week that while no angler likes to see their favorite lake dry up, the draining of Antero will help bring down populations of other fish, like suckers, that compete with trout. (He said that many of Antero’s resident trout had already dropped down into other reservoirs during and after the public salvage.) The loss of water will also foster more vegetation growth along the banks and increase the amount of nutrients available for aquatic insects and other forage species. In this light, Battite said the drawdown serves as a “hard reset” that will help Antero return to its former glory when it gets refilled in the future.
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“And [these drawdowns] are really part of the reason why Antero is the fishery it is today,” Battie said. “Once we have water again, Denver Water will start filling it … and when it’s suitable for fish, CPW will restart stocking. And, you know, it’s gonna be good again. We are dedicated and devoted to bringing Antero back.”
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