Fern Lake RMNP

[spilunkr]

This week our son and his girl friend are visiting. But, yesterday was a day for relaxing and they decided to just spend the day chilling in old town Fort Collins; which meant that I got the chance to get some fishing in and to get away from the 90+ temperatures here in town. Well, I got a relatively early start as it was my intent to hike into Fern Lake in Rocky Mountain National Park.

I got to the trail head parking area at 9:30 and got the last parking place. A few minutes later and I would have had to add another ½ mile walk to the next parking area. The trail to Fern Lake from the trail head is 4 miles one way with an elevation gain of 1,300’ on what is described as a moderately difficult trail. Fern Lake is about 10 acres in size with a maximum depth of 25’ and sits at an elevation of 9,500 feet. The lake itself is crystal clear.

The first 2 miles of the trail is relatively level and follows the upper Big Thompson River. It was difficult to keep walking past so much great looking water so I did stop at a couple of nice pools and got one nice 10” greenback.



Two miles up the trail at a place called “The Pool” the trail splits and leaves the Big Thompson which headed up Forest Canyon. The Pool is an impressive pool just above where Fern Creek joins the Big T. About 200 yards up the trail to Fern Lake from the Pool, the trail parallels Spruce Creek a small tributary to the Big T. Just to see what might be in Spruce Creek, I stopped to fish a couple pools and got my first brookie of the year.






After that the trail really started to gain elevation. I think almost ¾ of the elevation gain is in the last 1 ½ miles. Occasionally while walking up the trail I could hear Fern Creek in the canyon below. But, there is only one place where the trail meets Fern Creek and that is at Fern Falls a cascade that drops about 200’ in total.



Finally, at about 12:30 I got to Fern Lake which sits below Gabletop Mtn. and the Little Matterhorn. The air temperature was a pleasant 70 which is where it stayed all afternoon. Fern Lake is a popular day hike and there were also a number of people fishing. But, it definitely was not crowded. It also was not hard to find fish cruising in the crystal clear water.






Over the course of the next three hours there were always fish rising and most of the rises were within easy casting distance of shore negating the need for the wading gear I had brought. Mostly the fish appeared to be taking tiny specks (midges?) off the surface. Except for about 45 minutes when some callibaetis started dancing over the small flat at the lake outlet. During the callibaetis hatch I managed to get three greenbacks on a #14 callibaetis dry. Other than that most of my fish came on a #22 griffiths gnat and a couple took a #22 crème midge. It is probably the food source, but I thought the greenbacks in the lake were particularly well colored with a lot of red on the gill plates and belly.



Around 2:45 the almost obligatory afternoon shower rolled in. It rained and hailed for about 15 minutes before the sun came back out. I fished another 1/2 hour until 3:30 before beginning the hike out.

The fishing was interesting. The idea is to pick out a cruising fish, determine where the fish is going and cast the fly several feet in front of it’s path. While that worked for some fish, most of them responded to the fly actually hitting the water and would immediately rush over to the fly as soon as it would hit. At that point they would either turn off the fly, which is what most did, or else immediately grab it. All told I wound up catching about 20 greenbacks all of which were between 10” and 13” in length. I saw a lot of smaller fish but none showed any interest in my flies.

Being all downhill the hike out went considerably faster than the hike in taking a bit less than 1 ½ hours to hike out. About ¼ mile from the trail head, there were a pair of grouse a few feet off the trail.



Fern Lake is one of four lakes in the headwaters of Spruce and Fern Creeks. They all contain fish and are located within a mile of each other. At some point it will be worth packing a tent in and spending the night in order to try them all.

Guy

[HJS]

Water doesn't get any clearer than that... truely impressive. Nice looking fish too. Looks like the lake is pretty much surrounded by trees. How difficult was it to get a cast off without using boots?

[spilunkr]

I only walked about 15% of the shoreline and did not find casting to be much of a problem. Granted there are not a lot of places where you can get a long back cast because of the trees. But there sem to be lots of spots where a 20' to 25' back cast is possible. But for that distance a roll cast works just as well. Most of the fish I was catching were within 20' of the shoreline.

If fishing with a spinning rod, then the trees are not a problem at all. But I don't know how effective the spinning gear would be. There were a couple of guys using spining gear, fishing just up the shoreline from me for about an hour and I did not see them with a single fish on. From the looks of it they were using casting bubbles to cast flies.

Guy

[Jeffrey Rasband]

Sweet report. That fish looks photoshopped! Stillwater fly fishing for trout is something I need to do more often.

[McFly]

Guy-

Great report & pics. Though I've read most of Gierach's amusing stories about Colorado flyfishing, I think I've learned 10x from your wonderfully detailed and illustrated postings since you've been out there. For us eastern "bums" it's truly vicarious living. Thanks and keep at it.

Charlie

[spilunkr]

Jeff,

The grenback picture is as it was taken, it has not been altered. The color on some of those lake fish was unbelievable. The picture really does not capture the true color. I took shots of several fish but none got the intense red color right. The camera processor must record the color different than my eyes because I have tried to shoot the shots at different angles to the sun. My polarized sunglasses do enhance the contrast of colors but I have used a polarizing filter on the camera but it has not made much difference. I may actually have to photoshop a picture to show the correct intensity of the fish's colors.

I've not done much fishing for trout in alpine lakes. Over the years I've fished a couple in Yellowstone Park, fished a couple of lakes along the Beartooth Highway and Sylvan Lake in Beartooth / Absaroka wilderness where I caught golden trout. Fishing the high lakes for trout is definitely different than fishing moving water. In looking through the guide book I have for fishing RMNP; it looks like there are a good two dozen lakes in the park that can be hiked into and fished as a day trip. I'm definitely looking forward to more of this type of trout fishing.


Charlie,

Thanks for your kind comments, I enjoy writing the reports and I'm glad you and others enjoy reading them.



Guy