Uncompahgre National Forest

The next stop on our epic trip was backpacking in the Uncompahgre National Forest in the San Juan Mountains near Telluride CO.  We drove out Highway 70 though the Eisenhower tunnel at over 11,000 feet and drove past more famous trout streams than you can shake a stick at.  The Eagle, the Roaring fork, the Thunder etc.  No time to fish them all on this trip.  Our plan was to stay out two nights and try to summit a nearby fourteener on the second day. The hike in wasn't long but it gained almost 2 thousand feet in 4 miles.  We set up camp and I got my first chance to fish the lake we were camping at.  The wild flowers were out in full force.  The native columbines were huge and everywhere. 

My dog smells trout

I am by no means an expert lake fisherman but I learned a lot on this trip.  First piece of advise is find the fish.  Not every inch of shoreline on a lake has fish and you can waste a lot of time fishing poor water.  It would be like fishing rapids on a stream.  Maybe fish pass through but not enough to waste your time on.  The obvious places are inlets and outlets.  I happened to find a string of inlets from a creek that held 40 to 50 feeding fish each.  They may have also been tying to spawn in some moving water but it was too deep for me to see exactly what was going on.  The second lake in the chain of three had a number of fish spawning at the outlet (I didn't fish there).  The fish in the lower lake turned out to be some of the most beautiful I have ever seen. They were Colorado river cutthroat in full spawning colors.  Fish of the genus Oncorhynchus (cutthroat, red band, golden trout etc.) spawn after ice out in the spring but at 10,000+ feet "spring" comes in June or this years case, July. 

Male Colorado river cutthroat in full spawning colors

As far as fly patterns go, terrestrials are the way to go. Ants, beetles and grass hoppers out fished any other pattern when there was no hatch.  If there is something specific coming off go that direction if not tie on a beetle and a small dropper. I had tons of fish inspect my parachute Adams and then pass by but the ant got nailed almost every time. 

Female Colorado river cutthroat trout

The water is super clear

This place is absolutely beautiful and is an easy hike in as far as backpacking trips go.  It is typically a day hike for most visitors.  Since the fish are decent sized and the lake gets some pretty good traffic I don't want to name names but the lakes are named appropriately and if you dig enough I gave you enough info to find them.