Trout Slum — Qfor23

Here’s something a little different: This blog is not about catching a 23” monster Smallmouth. In fact, this isn’t a story about catching Smallmouth at all. I guess when I’m not writing about Smallmouth, specifically big Smallmouth, that’s one way to know I’m telling the absolute truth. Let me set the scene for one of my coolest fly-fishing experiences:

In July 2017, I did a 10-day trip with my wife to Colorado. We started out in Telluride. While out in Telluride, I did some fishing in the Cimarron River and the trophy water section of the Gunnison River (See below). The Gunnison River in Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park is an absolutely stunning fishery. The river has cut thousands of feet into the earth and is absolutely teeming with Brown Trout. It’s a pretty unique fishing experience to catch fish while standing at the bottom of such a large canyon. Anyways, after leaving southwest Colorado, we headed back to RMNP.

We were lodged in Grand Lake, CO near the southwest gate of the Rocky Mountain National Park. I really had no plan once we got into town, we just were going to go rover inside the park and get really high (in elevation). Colorado has really good resources to locate trout. Their Gold Medal water has something like 60lbs of trout per acre and they publish each gold medal stretch on a website. Pretty cool. Needless to say, the terrain and the fishing, in general, amounted to something completely different than the flattened bass-only world I am used to. On day one in RMNP, there was a storm blowing in from the north, but we didn’t let that stop us from attempting a short hike. The hike we selected paralleled a creek that is known for Brook Trout and it’s also known for a beautiful waterfall that’s only about ½ mile from the trailhead. We climbed around the waterfall first, then continued up the trail. The description said that upstream from the waterfall there is a giant flat meadow that had a meandering creek running through it. The rain started coming down about the time we reached the meadow. Shortly after reaching the point where the trail meets the meadow, we saw a moose slip into the high alpine forest.

I had my 5wt with me, but I wasn’t sure if I was going to fish or not. Honestly, Brook Trout have never floated my boat since they are so small. Soon after we sat down next to the trail, a father and two sons come strolling past my wife and I. They had big grins and broken down fly rods. I asked the normal fishing question, “you guys do any good.” The guy just laughed and said, “throw whatever you want and they’ll eat it.” I promptly rigged my rod with a stimulator fly and approached the closest area. My fly was wet for maybe 10 seconds when the first Brook Trout hit my fly like an 8” version of Jaws. This spot was pretty rough water, so the take didn’t really excite me or anything, but the fish was an absolutely gorgeous Brookie (see below).

An audience gathered since I was fishing so close to the trail. I caught another and a bunch of kids were taking turns getting a close look while I held the trout under water. This experience just made me look forward to fishing with my son and daughter. They were exclaiming, "he's a monster" which I thought was pretty hilarious since he couldn't have been more than a 1/3 pound. After the rain let up, we moved up the trail and deeper into the huge meadow. The meadow was rain soaked and sat in a bowl of surrounding mountains. I ended up selecting an area that was flat and open on both sides to stalk some feeding Brookies. I spent the next hour watching 8” Brookies climb the ladder and either refuse or eat my little bug. These fish turned me into a satisfied customer. I'm not selling my bass gear any time soon, but they were an absolute blast to coax into eating. Of course, the fight wasn't much to speak of.

The mountains surrounding the meadow, the meandering creek, and the tranquility of being miles away from anything was a uniquely archetypal fly-fishing experience. The meadow was rain soaked and the creek was ice cold. When I’m out in nature, I routinely stop and admire the scenery. However, standing on the edge of a mountain stream while chasing native, and eager eating, brookies is a memory upon which I frequently reflect. The peace of seeing a fly resting on the surface of flat and slow-moving creek, then seeing a nice Brookie rise to the occasion is absolutely worth the trip.

I did more fishing on the trip in the Upper Colorado and in the 11 Mile Canyon where I caught some really quality Brown Trout. I actually did really well on the trip considering how little I fished. I caught 20 Browns on a massive Trico Hatch one morning. However, when my mind wanders to this last Colorado trip, I think about a rain-soaked meadow and a Brook Trout filled meandering creek.