But while there's some room to spread out on the Blue and the Frying Pan, the Taylor River can be akin to combat fishing, albeit less so in the wintertime.

"Everyone knows about it (the Taylor River)," said Rod Cesario, owner of Dragonfly Anglers fly shop in Crested Butte. "There's only one area you can fish on the Taylor. It's right below the dam and it's less than a half-mile long."

But what a half-mile it is! Even with the crowds that will sometimes show up on the Taylor, the river is worth a midwinter visit from trout anglers.

"The river has gotten incredible amounts of publicity, including that cover shot on Fly Fisherman magazine a couple of years ago," Cesario said. "There's no hiding from the crowds, but it's the only place to catch the large ones."

Is fishing the Taylor River a hassle? Well, you be the judge - is a huge rainbow trout measuring 30 inches or more and weighing in the 14-pound range enough to tempt you? It is me!

"It's definitely worth it to chase one in the winter," Cesario agreed. "I remember many fish in the winter, from November through February, which were in the 27- to 28-inch range and weighed around 10 pounds."

The Crested Butte fly shop guru instructs anglers to use 5x or 6x tippet and admits that fluorocarbon definitely helps tip the odds a bit more in the angler's favor. At the end of those tippets, he says Chocolate Emergers, Black Beauties, Brassies, WD-40s, Pheasant Tail nymphs and mysis shrimp patterns in Nos. 18 through 20 are good bets for a Taylor River fly box.

One other key, according to Cesario, is the water flow coming into the river. The higher the flow, the better the fishing tends to be.

What should you do if you actually hook one of the Taylor's legendary 'bows? Well, besides pray a lot, it helps to let the fish dictate the fight. "Let them run," Cesario said. "That's the hardest thing to do. It's harder to land them than it is to hook them, I think. It's a 'Catch 22' - you have to use really small tippets to get them to take, but then you've got to know what you're doing to land one of these fish."

Part of that reason is that private land surrounds the best portions of the tailwater. Sure, there can be some superb fishing in town, even in the dead of winter when ice conditions permit it. But for those willing to pay to play with local fly shop guides who have the keys to the locked gates in their hands, fishing on private stretches of water can be nothing short of spectacular.

TAILWATER CONTACTS Yampa River — Bucking Rainbow Outfitters in Steamboat Springs: www.buckingrainbow.com; (888) 810-8747; Taylor River — Dragonfly An-glers in Crested Butte: (800) 491-3079; www.dragonflyanglers.com. Frying Pan — Frying Pan Anglers in Basalt: (970) 927-3441; http://www.fryingpananglers.com. Blue River — Trapper Rudd’s Cutthroat Anglers in Silverthorne: www.fishcolorado.com; (888) 876-8818. — Lynn Burkhead

A couple of years back I made a late-winter visit to the Yampa with my buddy Rhett Bain and John Duty, owner and operator of Bucking Rainbows Outfitters fly shop in Steamboat Springs. With the temperature near 20 degrees and 18 inches of fresh powder burying nearby ski slopes, the day was frigid to be sure.

But the action on the private water was red hot, producing numerous hook-ups with big rainbows. I landed a personal best 24-inch 'bow but busted off a fish that might have been its twin, thanks to an unforeseen ice ball build-up that caused me and the big rainbow to part ways.

Bain had his own big-trout troubles, battling for 10 minutes with a true-blue rainbow monster that was likely 8 pounds or better.

"You might want to go ahead and fish," Bain told me as I readied the camera for the grip-and-grin hero shot. "This is a real pig and it's going to take awhile."

Unfortunately, Bain's fly line eventually went limp too, once again victimized by ice build-up.

Which brings up an important consideration on any of Colorado's rivers during the midwinter cold: How do you avoid a broken heart caused by the unfortunate appearance of ice on your fly line or leader? "It's just constant maintenance, really," Duty said. "The only thing that you can really do when you're playing a fish, you've got your tip up and you suddenly realize that you're starting to ice up, is to drop the tip down into the water. That will normally help clear it up."

While anti-ice build-up products are on the market, Duty cautions that they're not miracle cures and that anglers must constantly be aware of the condition of their equipment when on a trout stream in midwinter.