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Posted on August 21, 2013June 2, 2014 by The Fly Trout — Leave a comment

Get Lost

A few weekends ago my buddy Esteban and I decided to go on a short backpacking trip in the Lost Creek Wilderness in Colorado. This area is pretty popular because it’s not too far from Denver and there is an abundance of hiking trails. The plan was to get up early, drive to the trail head, hike until we found a good spot to set up camp, then fish the creek the rest of the day. The plan was going flawlessly until the rains came. Luckily the rain didn’t come until the afternoon giving us a few hours of fast and furious dry fly action. Those little brookies were slammin’ our dries on what seemed like every cast. Even though we didn’t get to fish as much much as I would have liked it was a great time being out in the wilderness. Check out some of the pictures from the trip. Stay fly.

Esteban at the trailhead.

Me at the trailhead.

The Lost Creek Valley

Gettin ready to rips some lips.

Big hopper, little brookie

Sweet colors on these little guys

Fire stayed lit even in the rain.

Posted on August 6, 2012 by The Fly Trout — Leave a comment

Lost Lake Backpacking Trip

The weekend before last my buddy Esteban and I decided to go on another backpacking/fly fishing trip. Originally we had planned to head to a lake that was south of Vail called Whitney Lake, but because it was only a 2.5 mile hike (we wanted to go a little further) and there were still fire restrictions in that county, we decided to head up to Lost Lake near Green Mountain Reservoir. As far as the scenery goes we made the right choice, but as far as the fly fishing goes we did not. We were both skunked and did not see one fish in that lake!

The most exciting part of our trip happened on the hike down the mountain. I was walking behind Esteban with my head down so that I could avoid tripping over one of the many rocks in the path. And just as we approached this little creek I heard Esteban say, “Oh Shit!” I look up and see two small black bear cubs just staring at us about 20 feet away. Not a second after I looked up to see the cubs, the mama bear jumps out of the creek and takes off up the mountain! It was a very intense and unexpected moment. I grabbed my bear mace he grabbed his pistol and I told him “we need to back up slowly” and he told me “get out your camera.” I was pretty nervous right at that moment because I have always heard that the most dangerous bears are ones with cubs. It was a little confused though, because this mother bear didn’t appear to be too worried about her young as she took off up the mountain and never looked back. By the time I did get my camera out the cubs had run off too far to snap a good picture, but were close enough to keep watching what we were doing. Esteban was able to get some video of one of the cubs climbing up a tree. Running into those bears, although quite nerve racking at first, was one the coolest moments I have ever had up in the mountains!

Now it’s time for some pics and videos:

Here is a look down to the Blue River Valley on the way up.

Me posing in front of the Brush Creek Trailhead.

A few pictures of the lake.

Trail intersection.

We haven’t been able to have a fire in over a month.

A little video about the flammability of whiskey.

And finally, the bear cub climbing up at tree.

Posted on June 24, 2012 by The Fly Trout — Leave a comment

Native Lake Trip

My buddy Esteban and I decided we wanted to do a backpack trip and since I love fly fishing, I found us a place that we could hike to and also get some fly fishing in. I chose Native Lake which is near Leadville, Colorado. It has an elevation of 11,293 feet and is home to brook trout and greenback cutthroat trout. This lake was very beautiful, but too shallow along the edges to be able to catch any fish. We saw a couple jumping in the middle, but without a canoe or belly boat there was no way to cast to them. I only caught two fish, one in the creek entering the lake and one in the creek leaving the lake. Here are some pictures from the trip.

Trailhead.

Little stream flowing down the mountain.

Esteban with Mount Massive in the background.

Me with Mount Massive in the background.

Native Lake from above. The most difficult part of the hike was from the trailhead to this point. From here to the lake was all downhill and much easier.

Here’s the part where I show you a bunch of different pictures of the lake. Make sure to check out the lake at sunset. Very pretty.

The Lake

Image 1 of 10

Our beer cooler.

Wait, where are the fish?

Here is the brook trout I caught in the creek that leads into the lake. The little guy squirted out of my hands as Esteban took the shot.

There is another lake, Rainbow Lake, we decided to hike up to and see if we could catch something.

Looking back away from Rainbow Lake.

Esteban found some snow. Thankfully we didn’t run into any polar bears.

I’m not sure why I am smiling because it was quite windy up there and I wasn’t able to cast out far enough to reach any fish.

I had a great time roughing it high up in the mountains. I would have loved to hook up with more fish but it was still a nice little adventure.

Catch ya later, Native Lake.

Oh, you might be wondering about the other fish I caught. He was a nice little greenback cutthroat trout. I didn’t get any pictures of him, but Esteban got it on video and I haven’t had a chance to upload yet. I’ll post the video once I get it ready. Stay fly.