Fly Fishing Insider Podcast
High mountain lake trout are easiest to find at ice-out, when they cruise shallow shelves next to deep water and hit aggressively. Rowing slowly with a streamer and a nymph trailing behind locates the small traveling schools; once a fish eats, stop and cast that spot rather than continuing to troll past it.
Bob Terwilliger is a Colorado guide of fifteen years who works out of a remote backcountry lodge, taking clients to high mountain lakes and small wilderness rivers on horseback.
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What does ice-out fishing on a high mountain lake look like?
Ice-out is the first productive window of the season on lakes that sit between roughly 8,500 feet and a little over 9,000 feet, and it is one of the best times of the year for big trout. Coming off winter the fish turn opportunistic and cruise the shallow shelves close to deep water, particularly on days when sun has pushed some warmth into the top of the water column. Strikes at ice-out are aggressive enough that presentations which would be ignored in midsummer, including a mouse fished in the middle of the day, get eaten.
Should you fish to spawning trout in a lake inlet?
Trout stack in lake inlets at ice-out, and some of them are there to spawn. The approach here is to leave the spawning fish alone and fish behind them instead, where non-spawning trout sit picking off what washes down. That water below an inlet holds actively feeding fish and produces without disturbing the spawn.
How do you use trolling to locate trout in a high mountain lake?
Trolling a fly rod is a way of using the whole lake as a search grid rather than a way of catching fish. Rig two flies, a streamer with a nymph or scud behind it, wedge the rod between your legs pointing out the back of the boat, and row slowly along the shoreline. When a fish eats, the forward motion of the boat helps set the hook; drop the oars, lift the rod tip, and then stay and cast that spot, because high mountain lake trout travel in small schools and there are almost always more where the first one came from.
Why fish the windblown side of a mountain lake?
Wind piles food against the downwind shore and stirs the shallows into a band of cloudy water. The productive lane is the mud line itself - just back from where the water goes turbid, where it starts to clear enough to see into. Trout hold along that edge on the windblown side of a mountain lake for the same reason they stack at a river mouth in salt water: the current is doing the collecting for them.
What rod weight works best for high mountain lakes and small rivers?
Small backcountry rivers fish well with an eight-and-a-half or nine foot rod in a three or four weight, which is the sweet spot before afternoon mountain wind starts beating a softer rod around. High mountain lakes are a different problem, because the casts are longer, the roll casts are longer, and the wind is constant. A ten foot rod in a five or six weight covers that water, and the extra length also gives more leverage for bringing a big fish to the net.
How does a two-fly rig tell you what the trout want?
The rule is simple: fish two flies and keep switching until both flies are catching. On small rivers that means an attractor on top - a foam hopper, a large elk hair caddis, a humpy - with a size 16 or 18 nymph, beaded or unbeaded, underneath. On lakes it is a streamer in front tied on with a loop knot and a larger nymph or scud about sixteen inches behind. If one of the two is not producing, that fly gets changed, even when changing it means retying the dry.
What line management mistakes cost beginners the most fish?
As soon as the line lands, the index finger of the rod hand should trap the line against the grip while the other hand strips just fast enough to keep the slack out - not fast enough to drag the fly. Keep the rod tip low and pointed at the fly so the distance between rod tip and fly is as short as possible, unless a strong cross current requires holding the tip up out of the water. Once a fish is hooked, the two habits that lose it are swinging the rod from side to side, which hands the fish slack on every switch, and pulling the fish closer than the leader-to-fly-line connection, which gives it leverage to break off.
Is a horseback fly fishing trip hard if you have never ridden?
Horseback access is what makes a lot of high mountain lakes and small wilderness rivers fishable in a single day, and it is not a skill you need to bring with you. Any outfit worth booking keeps riding stock suited to every ability level and has staff whose job is to get inexperienced riders comfortable. The remote lodges themselves range from cabins with hot showers, a full-time cook and horses saddled at the stables each morning, to wall-tent camps where mules pack the gear in and the stock goes back out, leaving you free to fish the last hour of daylight and walk back to camp.
Key takeaways
- Fish high mountain lakes at ice-out, when trout cruise shallow shelves next to deep water and strike aggressively.
- Troll a streamer and trailing nymph from a rowed boat to locate small schools, then stop and cast the spot where the first fish ate.
- On a windy day, fish the mud line on the downwind shore, just back from where the water goes cloudy.
- Carry a three or four weight for small backcountry rivers and a ten-foot five or six weight for wind-exposed lakes.
- Run two flies and keep changing whichever one is not catching until both produce.
- Never draw a hooked fish closer than the leader-to-fly-line connection, and stop shifting the rod side to side, which gives the fish slack.
- Keep a fishing log by water and reread it before the first trip of the season - lakes, and cutthroat especially, are more pattern-specific than small rivers.
