Backpacking for Cutthroat - Dream Lake (RMNP) CO - July 11, 2010

Today I crossed off one of those things from my list of things that I once thought would be cool to do.  A long time ago, when I started really getting into flyfishing, in Randall Kaufman's Tying Nymphs I looked at pictures of guys hiking into high Rocky Mountain lakes to fish for Cutthroat trout.  Backpacks on, above the treeline, and easy fish on the surface was the message in the picture.   Someday, I thought, I want to do that.

Well, today was that day.  With Nadya, Stefan and friends Russ and Terri, we drove up into Rocky Mountain National Park and parked at Bear Lake trailhead for the one mile hike up the mountain to Dream Lake.   I shouldered my backpack, full of waders, boots and fishing gear and we started in, first passing by a beautiful lake called Nymph Lake.  It was glass clear, with lilly pads on it and a great view of Long's Peak in the background.

After reaching Dream Lake, standing at the outlet of the lake with Russ, I saw a few fish rising in the shallow clear water.  Good sized cutthroat for this lake, about 12 inches.  I slipped below the outlet, put my backpack down on a rock beside the stream, and geared up.  Once ready, I slipped upstream and crawled onto some logs that laid across the outflow of the lake like a makeshift beaver dam and cast to the feeding fish.  It was challenging with a breeze in my face, the log pile in front of me grabbing my leader, and a narrow channel between tall pines behind me in which to cast.   None the less, I managed to cast my Griffith's Knat to the fish and soon had on my first cutthroat.

I called out for Stefan, who had been eager for me to catch a cutthroat for a while, and we met downstream for the pictures and release.  It was a nice fish, brilliant red spilling from its throat to his belly and black spots on gold.  A few more takes by other fish but they got off, but it was fun even so since I could see the fish cruise over to my fly, inspect it, often reject it, and sometimes suck it in.

And then I looked up.  Wow!  Across the lake, towering above, was a giant shear stone cliff of a mountain called Hallett's Peak.  I couldn't believe that I had been so focused on the fish that I didn't see this thing staring me in the face.

A few storm clouds were rolling in so we headed out.  Before doing so, though, in a wide pool of the stream below, I saw a few more fish so had to try for them.   One rejected me flatly.  Another was more eager and after taking him, Stefan was by my side to help net it.

Although not above the treeline and not as much solitude as those early pictures had me envision (this lake gets a lot of foot traffic from hikers), I am glad to have had the opportunity to take my first cutthroat with Stefan there, and to hike in with Nadya, Stefan and our friends.