Facing extreme drought in the wake of an exceptionally mild winter, officials in Colorado and Oregon have thrown up their hands and told anglers at some reservoirs: Catch all the fish you want, because they’re going to die anyway.

Conditions aren’t nearly so dire at two of Wyoming’s premier fishing reservoirs, Flaming Gorge in Sweetwater County and Boysen in Fremont County, where limits remain in place and the angling should remain good this summer, a state park manager and marina owner told Cowboy State Daily.

In northeastern Oregon, fishing limits were lifted on three reservoirs on the Powder River, a tributary of the Snake River, which originates in Wyoming.

Colorado is allowing unlimited angling on Antero Reservoir on the South Platte River in the central part of the state, and the Nee Noshe Reservoir to the southeast.

Utah has loosened catch limits on Crouse Reservoir, east of Salt Lake City, and Nine Mile Reservoir, south of the city.

In each instance, state agencies surmised reservoirs are getting so low and stagnant the fish are doomed regardless, according to numerous media reports.

No Emergency, Yet

Despite drought conditions across the state, the Wyoming Game and Fish Department doesn’t have “immediate plans to enact emergency regulations to liberalize creel limits,” according to fisheries management coordinator Mark Smith.

“However, conditions could change rapidly. If an emergency change to creel limits were to occur that information would be disseminated widely to the public and posted at the water for anglers to find,” Smith said in an email to Cowboy State Daily.

Some of Wyoming’s larger reservoirs have conservation pools, or “dead pools,” to act as buffers for fisheries when water is running low, Smith said.

Even so, “all stored water has limitations,” he added. The water at Flaming Gorge and Boysen is expected to drop enough to render some boat ramps useless.

So, Game and Fish is watching closely for a “tipping point” that might warrant a change in fishing regulations, Smith said.

Bad New For Small Waters

For smaller fisheries, the news isn’t quite so good.

“Ultimately, our goal is to protect all of our fisheries, but we recognize that some of our small waters have already been lost, or will be lost, to drying,” Smith said.

Sometimes that happens so fast there isn’t time to react, he said.  

“For example, when we were finally able to access roads and assess small ponds in the 33 Mile country north of Casper this May, most of those fisheries had already succumbed to low water elevations and poor water-quality conditions,” Smith said.

“Other sagebrush stock-water reservoirs could face a similar fate,” he added.

Emergency regulations require the governor’s signature.

“Emergency regulations take effect immediately upon the Governor’s approval and would be lifted if conditions improved and fish were likely to survive,” Smith said.

Boysen Could Lose Boat Ramps

Boysen Reservoir has been roughly 70% full during June, Boysen State Park superintendent John Bass said.

Boysen is one of Wyoming’s top destinations for walleye, and also boasts good trout fishing.

Bass said he doesn’t anticipate the reservoir dropping to the point of mass fish die-offs or calls to lift all fishing limits.

According to Bureau of Reclamation estimates, Boysen will slowly fall, but remain above 50% capacity.

All four Boysen boat ramps are usable, he said. They are Bannon, Tough Creek, Fremont Bay and Cottonwood Bay.

“Although, as the lake starts falling, the Fremont and Cottonwood Ramps will be too shallow to use. But that’s a fairly common occurrence in my 10 years here,” Bass said. “The Brannon and Tough Creek boat ramps will be usable for the remainder of the year, until ice-up.” 

‘The Marina Could Be Gone’

Likewise, there’s no reason to think officials will call for a free-for-all at Flaming Gorge, which straddles the Wyoming-Utah state line, Buckboard Marina owner Tony Valdez said.

“I don’t think we’ll be at the stagnant water level, where we could lose all of the fish,” he said.

Flaming Gorge draws anglers from all over the region for its prized kokanee salmon. It’s also known for lake trout and other species.

The Bureau of Reclamation this spring announced that Flaming Gorge is set for a million-acre-foot drawdown to make up for severe shortages downstream at Lake Powell, on the Utah-Arizona state line.

An acre foot is the amount of water that would flood an acre of land to the depth of one foot.

Valdez has previously expressed concerns the drawdown could ruin kokanee spawning areas. Kokanee are already under pressure because of competition with lake trout and burbot.

Wyoming Game and Fish and the Utah Division of Wildlife already lifted catch limits on smaller lake trout (under 28 inches) and burbot, in hopes of helping the kokanee.

Valdez said he doesn’t expect fishing limits to be suspended on any other species.

However, boat ramps could be rendered useless as the reservoir drops for the drawdown, he added.

Valdez said his marina could also tank this summer.

“This year, the marina could be gone. In fact, I’ve got to go deal with that right now, and move some stuff around (because of dropping water levels),” he said during a telephone interview with Cowboy State Daily.

Catfish Getting Scarce

Valdez said if there’s any danger of water dropping to fish-killing levels it would hit first upstream, at Fontenelle Reservoir.

“If it did get that low, the first one to go would be Fontenelle, then the Green (River) and then Flaming Gorge. But I don’t see it dropping that low,” he said.

Drought has ruined some of the fishing on the Blacks River, which feeds Flaming Gorge on the west side, Valdez said.

That river once was a hot spot for catfish, he noted.

“People still catch catfish near the confluence, more so in the lake than on the river. The river gets stagnant,” he said.

While Flaming Gorge is holding its own for now, the long-term picture could be stark.

During a Tuesday meeting in Denver, members of the Upper Colorado River Commission said conditions along the river system – which includes the Green River – are dire.

Wyoming state engineer Brandon Gebhart said it could be the worst year on record for the Colorado River basin.

Mark Heinz can be reached at mark@cowboystatedaily.com.

Presidio Heights is proving to be a center of gravity as luxury housing supply in San Francisco vanishes and the city’s well-to-do scramble to claim their slice of the artificial intelligence industry’s nerve center.

On the same day last week, the city recorded two home sales in the wealthy neighborhood for $9.2 million and $10 million.

The first reflected the fortunes being created by the AI industry. Venture capitalist Kenneth Wallace and his wife, Moriah Lewis, sold their five-bed, 4,755-square-foot home at 3875 Clay Street for $9.2 million. Josh McAdam of Sotheby’s International Realty represented the seller. The property last sold for $6.8 million in 2021. 

The buyer initially kept their name hidden behind a Delaware-incorporated LLC named after the property’s address. However, according to public loan documents, the LLC is managed by Daniel Berrios and Kimberly Tan, a couple in their early 30s who graduated from Stanford into the San Francisco tech sector. Berrios works on special projects at OpenAI, and Tan is an investing partner with blue chip venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz. Wells Fargo Bank provided a $5.4 million loan for the purchase.

Ten blocks east, sellers Herbert and Shwu-Ling Wei sold their six-bed, 5,000 square-foot home at 2881 Jackson Street for $10 million. Kyle Vineyard, a CPA with Realize Tax Advisors, is the trustee of the buyer, RKLA Trust. It is unclear whether Vineyard’s involvement is purely professional or if he’s connected to the trust.

The home last sold in 2014 for $6.8 million.

Presidio Heights, the neighborhood that runs along Presidio Park at San Francisco’s north end, has experienced a hot streak during the first half of 2026. Earlier this month, two mansions in the area sold for a combined $32 million, marking the fourth and fifth sales this year to eclipse $10 million. There were seven sales above that benchmark in Presidio Heights in all of 2025, according to Zillow data.

San Francisco, where the median home sale fetches $2.2 million, is dealing with its own version of champagne problems: a mansion shortage. The AI boom has attracted a wave of high-paid employees, apparently leaving the city with more millionaires than mansions. Steep capital gains taxes have made some mansion owners hesitant to let go of their property. Others are holding out for the expected spike in luxury home demand following Anthropic and OpenAI’s initial public offerings of stock, which are expected to come later this year.

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DENVER — The biennial Transplant Games wrapped up in Denver this week, bringing hundreds of organ donors and recipients together to compete in everything from cycling and swimming to darts and trivia at venues all over the city.

In fact, the games set a Guinness World Record for most living donors and recipients in one place at one time, with 966 gathering at the Colorado Convention Center.

PREVIOUS COVERAGE: Transplant Games bringing competition, life-saving message to Denver

Angela Laino, who used to live in Boulder, came back to Colorado to compete in the games. She donated a kidney to a stranger in January before running in the 5K event.

“I’m what they call a non-directed living kidney donor, which means that I don’t know who my recipient was,” she explained. “So I just said, ‘Whoever needs my kidney, I’m sure they’ll find the best match for it.’”

• Watch the full story in the video player below.

Transplant Games in Denver sets Guinness World Record

Laino said she was inspired by her job, working “on and off” as a dialysis social worker for 17 years.

“I really saw the challenges that my patients faced,” she said. “I saw what they had to go through to get on the [transplant] wait list… I know what transplant means for people. I’ve seen it firsthand. And to be able to see them come out here, compete, they’re doing basketball, they’re doing badminton, they’re swimming, they’re cycling, they’re running. They are living their full lives, and that’s really what transplant can do for people.”

Laino said the games unite the community and show off its resilience.

“When you go through the transplant process, sometimes you feel alone, you feel like you’re the only one going through this,” Laino said. “And then you come to an event like this and you literally see thousands of people. You see recipients, living donors, donor families coming together for the same cause. It’s really inspiring, because it really helps to get the word out, spread awareness about the organ shortage, and it shows people what recipients and donors can do after they have the surgery.”

Dr. Michael O’Shea — a nephrologist, a doctor who cares for kidney disease patients and the kidneys in general — agrees. But he said more needs to be down to support patients and spread the word about the need for organ donations.

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The National Kidney Foundation estimates 37 million Americans have Chronic Kidney Disease, which occurs when kidneys cannot filter the blood properly, leading to serious health issues. Because symptoms can be minimal in early stages of the disease, many patients don’t realize they have it.

“I think education about kidney transplant, both on the patient side as well as on the potential donor side, could be markedly ramped up and improved,” Dr. O’Shea said. “It’s struggles with communication between transplant centers, patients, and community nephrologists. No one’s fault. It’s just a very complicated delivery system.”

In the case of kidneys, people can become diseased donors — who register to donate in the case of their sudden death — or living donors, who donate one kidney will relying on the other. Dr. O’Shea said both are critical to meet nationwide demand for life-saving transplants, though the living donations tend to have a longer lifespan — around roughly 20 years — for recipients.

“A number of folks get transplanted every year off this list,” O’Shea explained. “It is also true that a greater number of folks get added to the list every year.”

To register to become a deceased donor, Coloradans can visit their local Department of Motor Vehicles office or visit registerme.org.

O’Shea said those considering living donations face an “exceedingly small” medical risk for end-stage kidney disease, but should consult with their doctor about the decision.

Even as the games leave Denver, a reminder will stick around through the summer. Denver Parks and Recreation, the Downtown Denver Partnership and DaVita have partnered to set up a basketball court in Skyline Park near Arapahoe and 17th Streets, in order to keep the spirit of the games alive and honor the resilience of organ donors, recipients and their families.

Denver7 | Your Voice: Get in touch with Ryan Fish

Denver7’s Ryan Fish covers stories that have an impact in all of Colorado’s communities, but specializes in covering artificial intelligence, technology, aviation and space. If you’d like to get in touch with Ryan, fill out the form below to send him an email.