Colorado Trip Report!

[ozark trout fisher]

I just got back yesterday from the Flat Tops Wilderness in Northwest Colorado. It was a great trip, with beautiful scenery, good trout water, and plenty of fish brought to hand. It was a relatively short trip, three days up in the mountains, but it was still awesome!

That country up there is strikingly beautiful, as we saw the first morning as we paddled around in the canoe we had rented from Trappers Lake Lodge. Trappers Lake is one of the bigger natural lakes in the state, located at elevation 9627 in the Flat Tops Wilderness. It's full of cutthroat trout, but a tough lake to fish! That first day I landed one very nice native Colorado River cutthroat out of the lake, and that was it. But we fished in the North Fork of the White, a little stream that flowed near camp mid-day. The trout weren't big there, but we caught plenty of fish, mostly small brookies. The trout were partial to little beadhead nymphs, fished upstream through the riffles. The North Fork in that area is hardly a river, just a little mountain meadow stream, with enough willing brookies to keep you busy whenever you're in the mood. And that was a good thing, because Trappers Lake was consistently tough throughout our stay, so most of our fishing was on the river. And we were able to find reaches of the river that had some much nicer cutthroat and brookies, it just took some hiking into a canyon a little further down the river. Most of our trout were caught on small nymphs, #16 Beadhead Pheasant Tails and Hare's Ears being the hot flies, with #18 Green Caddis Pupae nymphs working well too. We'd either fish them under a small Palsa Stick-on indicator, or suspended under a dry fly.

And speaking of dry fly fishing, that wasn't bad either. When you think of fly fishing for mountain cutthroat and brook trout, you probably think of big attractors dries. Not here! Dry fly fishing in that part of the Flat Tops mid-summer is a small fly game for the most part. #20 Parachute Black Gnats worked most consistently of our dry flies. Midge hatches were prolific in the evenings on both the slow meadow stretches of the streams and the lakes, and really got the trout rising. We did encounter one decent caddis hatch on the North Fork, where I managed to hook and lose on very nice cutthroat on an Elk Hair Caddis. But that was the exception, normally it was all about midges!

Besides fishing, we hiked a lot and made it up an 11,000 +foot mountain- a real tough scramble but with a view that was worth it. It was an amazing trip in an amazing place.

http://fishingintheozarks.blogspot.com/2011/08/colorado-trip.html

If you want to read more about it and see some scenery and fish pictures, check out my blog entry here.

[chambug]

What? No pics?

[ozark trout fisher]

What? No pics?

There are pictures. I just posted them in my blog.

In any case I am now in the process of trying to attach pictures. Just give me a minute.

[ozark trout fisher]

[dennis boatman]

I could fish that kind of water, not catch a fish, and be happy!! Headed to California next summer for some similiar fishing...I'm already excited!

[ozark trout fisher]

I could fish that kind of water, not catch a fish, and be happy!! Headed to California next summer for some similiar fishing...I'm already excited!

Yeah, you've got to love high mountain fishing. It's a whole different ball game.

[chambug]

There are pictures. I just posted them in my blog.

In any case I am now in the process of trying to attach pictures. Just give me a minute.

AWWWW....you are not helping me one bit. Seeing those kinds of waters takes 25 years off my life. Now I want to leave for AZ immediately.

Good pics OTF, and I'm glad you had a good time. I agree with Boatman....just being there is enough, but to catch a few trout too....WOWWWWW!

It's amazing how the mountains possess you when you get near them....

[ozark trout fisher]

It's amazing how the mountains possess you when you get near them....

That's a fact.

[gurzik]

Next time your up there try stagecoach res. Its about 6 miles s.e. of Steamboat springs. Great gold water fishing. The yampa river is off the backside of the dam. Some of the best trout fishing in the state. Many different species including dali varda, cutthroat, and big browns. Glad you had a good trip i was lucky enough to live in Summit, and Routt counties for 6 years. Some of the best times of my life.

[ozark trout fisher]

Next time your up there try stagecoach res. Its about 6 miles s.e. of Steamboat springs. Great gold water fishing. The yampa river is off the backside of the dam. Some of the best trout fishing in the state. Many different species including dali varda, cutthroat, and big browns. Glad you had a good trip i was lucky enough to live in Summit, and Routt counties for 6 years. Some of the best times of my life.

I've fished Stagecoach many times. It's a great lake, you're definitely right about that-it's got more than its fair share of fat rainbows. But since this was kind of a short trip, we sort of wanted to stay up in the high mountain country. I lived right on the Yampa for five years, a ways further down the drainage in Craig. I'll always miss the Yampa Valley and being able to catch trout and see mule deer and antelope right out the back door.