A short but steep hike through lush alpine meadows took us to a will-remain-unnamed lake in Colorado’s Mt. Massive Wilderness. We spent the day trying to outsmart the lake’s very healthy-sized, very picky cutthroat trout.

Thus far, most of our Colorado Rockies exploration has focused on the Front Range and Rocky Mountain National Park, so we were excited to sink our teeth into the Sawatch Range near Leadville.

We scoped out a few alpine lakes that may have some Colorado River Cutthroat in them, so we spent one of the days over Labor Day weekend hiking up short but steep 2200 ft. with hopes of landing a few fish.

The trail started out mellow (and pretty chilly in the morning shade), winding through some small meadows and paralleling a creek for about half a mile. At this point we headed off trail following a small side trail up onto a hanging bench.

The use trail headed straight up the side of the valley, gaining 700 ft in about 3/4 of a mile. We were thankful for the use trail showing us the best way through the dense fir forest; without it we would’ve spent considerably more time bushwhacking up a steep hill.

All the huffing and puffing was well rewarded once we emerged above treeline into an alpine meadow. There were some amazing views across the valley and up towards the meadows and tall peaks that framed the bench.

We kept climbing higher through the meadows at 12,000 feet and the views kept opening up. It’s amazing how lush the Colorado Rockies are despite the elevation. Hiking at 12,000 feet in the Sierra would involve a lot of rock hopping.

The Colorado Rockies, like the Sierra, had some ridiculous snow pack this past winter, so despite being the first weekend in September the wildflowers were still in bloom.

After 2.5 miles of uphill we finally gained the elevation of the lake. It was in its own little bowl with just a trickle of an outlet stream this late in the season.

The first question at an alpine lake is always, what rig to go with? Terrestrial? Strip a leech? Chironomid under an indicator?

I ended up tying on foam ant for Alyssa, and I went with the double chironomid rig I’d been fishing the whole summer. As we walked the shoreline of the lake we could see good sized cutthroats cruising the drop off, but they wanted nothing that we were offering. Within the first hour I had 3 fish come up and hammer my orange indicator. It was the oddest, most frustrating behavior.

I bailed on the midge setup in favor of stripping an olive leech and finally managed to entice a healthy female.

iPhone photo

That was the only fish we caught that morning despite being able to see plenty of fish. I sat in the grass and ate my lunch, while contemplating what I should fish next.

Lunch view

I walked around the lake into one of the back corners where the drop off was a bit deeper and kept stripping the leech to no avail. Refusal after refusal. Alyssa came up to me and asked me to tie something new on for her because she was frustrated at the all of the denials.

At that moment it hit me. They loved the orange indicator, why not try an orange scud?

When I was done with my clinch knot, several large fish were cruising by. Alyssa got excited and put her fly right in the middle of them. All 4 of them immediately turned toward the scud and raced to see who could munch on it first.

It was a fat 15″ Colorado River Cutthroat.

Apparently they like orange stuff. Another iPhone shot.

It was getting late in the afternoon at that point, but I immediately tied on an orange scud too. I managed to get one more take before we had to start the hike back. It was a nice colored up male.

Why were these fish so picky? Why did these fish like orange things? I don’t know and I don’t know if I’ll ever know (if you know, please enlighten me), but experiences like this keep me coming back. I love walking through alpine meadows, fishing to these crazy beautiful fish, hanging out with wife and brother in the middle of pristine wilderness.