if not catching fish, might as well do it somewhere high and handsome..

5 miles hike into Rocky Mountain National Park, up from 8500ft to 10000ft. On the way up we met an 83-year-old man turning around at the creek where the bridge had been washed out by last years' floods. He said he didn't want to take his old bones hopping across those rocks anymore, but he could still get up and down the trails, so he did.. he's my role model for getting older.

My friend Ken did get two cutts, here is one.



That's an Abel TR1 but not glass, a Sage 3wt LL. My rod was glass, more anon.

This is of course what we used to think was the native Colorado greenback cutthroat trout. Following DNA analysis, turns out to be just a subspecies of the Colorado River cutt, finely adapted to its life in the high country (see the article by Erin Block in the latest Trout magazine).

Ten years ago this lake and drainage was full of these beautiful cutts, 8-12" long on average, with the occasional 15" monster (at 10000ft the growing season is just a couple of months long). We had not been up here in years and found the cutts have been outcompeted by the Eastern brook trout, which tend to overpopulate and get stunted in this environment. So we caught about 60 fish between us, 58 of them small brook trout 4-8", pretty little fish but not the outrageous beauty of the natives. I did not take any pictures of them, being haunted by the ghosts of the vanished cutthroat and too sad to photograph the meager brookies.

We spent a couple of hours bushwhacking down along the stream, in case the cutts were holding out in some remote pool or riffle. Here I am trying to look as inconspicuous as a tree,



Nothing but shoals of desperate brook trout, unfortunately.
Here's my Fibatube (Hardy) 3 1/2 weight, dragged out of the dusty back shelf. This doesn't get much exercise in CO (or WY) as I prefer a longer rod for the open streams and lakes and winds we usually encounter. However it's perfectly suited to the tree tunnels of the small high streams, had forgotten how it will happily cast nothing more than a tapered leader accurately and easily.



The original 6'1" was too short for me, so added a butt extension and built the handle over that, to make a 6'10" rod. The first time I took it out on a backpack trip in the Drakensberg, it ran into a 20" rainbow on one of the low lakes, a shock for all concerned. Next trip found a 19" brown in a tiny stream at dusk, after catching 6-9" rainbows all day: nearly fell flat on my back as the fish rushed off three pools upstream. It tapered off after that unfortunately.



The reel is an Argus 56LT, looks just like one of the Pfleuger Supreme 1834s scaled up. At first thought it was a copy of the CFO, but after looking at the Abel maybe it's copying that ?
Either way it's a nice little reel, a good copy and well sized for a DT 4wt and some backing. The rod is a tad underlined with 4wt oddly, should have gone with a 5wt.

Five miles back out and down in the gloaming, to a fine burger and beer at Oskar Blues Brewery in Lyons - highly recommended.

Next day we tried a big Wyoming river. On the drive in a big old moose crossed the road, stopped in the middle to glare at us, and took his time shambling across. This was supposed to be an easier hike, into the canyon from the plains,



Unfortunately we got a mite confused (as Dan'l Boone used to call getting lost) and wound up going up and down the canyon sides a couple of times, without benefit of trails. It was real pretty though, and we walked up on another moose resting in the shade on top. He was a young fellow, a fine glossy black beast, who looked at us in horror and ran off, all elbows and knees. Here we are about to clamber down the 500ft back to the river again.



The fishing was awful slow, so we slogged out and hiked in to a different creek further down the drainage. This is the first time in 15 years of fishing together that Ken and I didn't have good catching. Ken was grumbling that his good-luck charm (me) had stopped working, I grumbled right back that my WY guide (him) wasn't up to snuff anymore.. ha.

One nice brown in the new creek as consolation, and a smattering of smaller ones.

On the drive out there was a family group of moose (meeses ? mice ?), papa, mama, and baby, browsing next to the road. These were quite unperturbed by us but the light was low, so no good pictures. Here's a fuzzy pic of papa.

Me too...I think the LL/VPS-Lt 379 is the best most glass-like graphite rod ever made.

my usual trout rod is a Sage LL 5-wt, which replaced an Orvis Spring Creek 9'3". The Spring Creek felt like bamboo, very slow and easy, loved it. When it delaminated explosively one day, went out and cast everything I could get my hands on, the LL was the best of the rest for a 9' 5wt.

Here in Colorado they encourage the removal of overly prolific brook trout by allowing fishermen to keep 10 brook trout under 8 inches, apart from the normal trout limits.

If I decide to keep trout, normally they will be these small, non-native Brookies.

I'd like to 'not catch' fish the way you do!

yes, don't kill trout much anymore - it occurred to me later, should have kept a mess of them, breaded and fried them up like whitebait..

upstreeam - it is a little odd, was quite happy catching brookies in the Appalachians where they belong, but unhappy in CO..
Mostly it's because the cutts do so much better in the CO high country, the tiny little streams will routinely support cutts up to 13" where the brookies just don't do that.

Quote:
"Ten years ago this lake and drainage was full of these beautiful cutts, 8-12" long on average, with the occasional 15" monster (at 10000ft the growing season is just a couple of months long). We had not been up here in years and found the cutts have been outcompeted by the Eastern brook trout, which tend to overpopulate and get stunted in this environment. So we caught about 60 fish between us, 58 of them small brook trout 4-8", pretty little fish but not the outrageous beauty of the natives. I did not take any pictures of them, being haunted by the ghosts of the vanished cutthroat and too sad to photograph the meager brookies."

Man, I hear you!!
Having grown up in Colorado, I’ve seen this very thing happen way too many times in streams & lakes that I had fallen in love with. Frustrating, since this is my preferred quarry on a light glass rod.
Interesting that you also brought up the dna testing that revealed some of the cutthroat populations weren’t what they were touted to be—& another sore spot among Colorado anglers.