Rio Grande Cutthroat Country – Day 3 continued

Man, it doesn’t seem very fair to write a blog post, end it with “to be continued”, and not actually continue the story, lol. Especially when the tale takes place on one of the best cutthroat streams I’ve ever fished. My apologies on the three year absence; the adventures never stopped, but the passion to document them sure has – hopefully y’all have found me on Instagram by now @mountainstomarsh

This place was special. A Colorado stronghold for Rio Grande cutthroat. I knew we needed to fish it on our trip based on research ahead of time, but also on the recommendations of people I trust. A lot of times places like that have a hard time living up to their billing – your expectations going in can be too great. This place didn’t have that problem. Cutthroat were tucked in seemingly every undercut bank ready to come out and eat a well placed dry fly. The fish made us look like pros that day.

I was originally worried about other anglers – whether they were there that day or just from the pressure they had put on the stream in the days prior, but that was really all for naught. When the fishing is that good time just kind of goes away, hunger never sets in, you forget about everything else going on, and are consumed by what you are doing – catching fish, lol. It’s an amazing feeling.

We fished our way up the stream, catching our way through beaver ponds, until eventually we ended up at a lake. What a dynamic fishery – a forested section to a meadow section to a section with beaver ponds and eventually a lake – I told y’all this was a special place.

Some time has passed by now and my recollection of the day is probably hazier than it would have been had I written this shortly after the trip, but from what I can recall we didn’t catch fish right away on the lake. There were fish holding too deep to sight fish, but there were also sporadic cruisers which you could try and cast to. As we made our way around we were able to catch some fish, but the fishing there wasn’t lights out – it was a fun challenge though and some of the fish we did catch were really colored up – some of the most vibrant reds were on trout from the lake.

What I do remember very well was that this was the toughest hike out I can remember ever doing, lol. After fishing as far as we did and for as long as we did my legs were shot. There were numerous times I had to stop and take extended breaks on the walk back. Time and neglect are not ideal ways to stay in shape and they definitely caught up with me on that day.

We managed to make it out before the sun set though and I will tell you that I would do this trip all over again just to fish this stream. Definitely a top 3 cutthroat destination that I’ve been to – right up there with Shangri-La – a stream we hit during our Wyoming Cutt Slam trip.