Colorado Now Has 200,000 More Acres for Fishing, Hunting

The great outdoors in Colorado just got greater. Colorado Department of Wildlife will be announcing where the newly available land is this fall.

The Colorado Sun has the story on how we Coloradans will technically have one acre short of 200,000 acres for us to use. I'm guessing if it's 200,000 or above it turns into a big rigamarole or something more legal-sounding.

The new acres will be open for access by hunters and anglers with licenses. That's not to say that you won't be allowed into the areas if you don't want to do either of those activities, but you will need to buy either a fishing or a hunting license to get in. These fees help to cover the maintaining of the new acreages.

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With this new 199,999 acres coming onboard, that brings the total amount to nearly one million acres available for public use. The land comes from the Public Access Program of Colorado's 'State Trust Land;' the trust, started in 1876, leases out that land and uses that money to pay for school funding. The trust is in control of Colorado's three million surface acres.

As a Coloradan that doesn't really hunt or fish but does like to hike on occasion, I guess I'd purchase a fishing license for $35 to be able to have access, though CPW is saying the lands won't be set up for 'widespread hiker access.' I'll just have to wait to see where the lands are when CPW releases that information later this year.

Get more on the (near) 200,000 acres from the Colorado Sun HERE.