Let me preface this by saying “I know Joel Hays, and flyfolks, you’re no Joel Hays.” I have a clear bias toward Joel’s perspective as he is the ground zero person who infected me with the fly fishing virus only a short while ago. Four fishing rods, two vices and accompanying tying shrapnel lay scattered, but constantly used, on my back porch waiting for the thaw. He knows his stuff – from Rocky Mountain High Stream to South Padre Saltwater Flats, and everything in between. If you are thinking I am going on too long, gushing perhaps – read on…

Three days of backpacking had finally led us to this spot – a small, alpine lake in the Weminuche Wilderness of Southern Colorado. The blisters, bad food, and sweat of three thousand feet of elevation gain were forgotten as soon as I unzipped the tent on a crisp morning. Rest day. Time to fish! Coffee and oatmeal are consumed with the same urgency as the previous mornings but this morning it’s not because we need to break camp and get on the trail. No, this morning the urgency is transmitted by the rise forms already beginning to dot the surface of the small lake.

A few hours later we realize that this paradise is flawed. The lake is absolutely FILLED with some of the dumbest brook trout I have ever seen. They strike at anything. Dry, nymph, streamer, bare hook, a twig thrown in the water – it doesn’t matter. They all exhibit the signs of overpopulation; bodies stunted in relation to their heads. Lots of 6-7 inchers. It gets old fast. I went back to camp for a cup of coffee and then head to the tail out of the lake to find Shannon. He’s fishing in the stream below the lake, enjoying his new TFO 2wt. Finesse. It’s a tiny little stream, six feet across on average with a chain of twenty foot runs. I can’t help but slip into “guide mode” and he catches another brookie in minutes. This fish is nothing like his cousins in the lake a few hundred yards away. He’s a healthy, strong ten inch trout that was clearly the ruler of his small pocket of Turkey Creek. He was picky, too. This trout knew what food should look like and made Shannon work for it. We quickly agreed that this fish was worth a hundred from the lake.

Shannon graciously offered me the rod. He muttered something about “great light” and wanting to get some photos but I know he was just being nice. I’m sure I was whining or salivating after seeing this perfect little stream and beautiful, small fish. In the next thirty minutes we worked the 200 yards or so back to the lake – catching jewel-like fish on dry flies under the Colorado majesty. A wonderful day!

In the mid-90’s I spent my summers guiding in Colorado. The Gunnison area has many exceptional rivers and the fly shop I worked for specialized in float trips on the Taylor, East and Gunnison. The local guys usually guided the float trips and I did trips to the trophy water on the Taylor (the infamous “Hog Trough”) or small stream fishing. This was during the explosion of fly fishing. Fly rod companies were producing lighter and faster rods, new patterns were popping up, and float trips were the “new thing.” Sage, Scott, and Orvis were also beginning to experiment with smaller line sizes. The first 2 weights were produced, then the Orvis 1 oz. rod, then the Sage 1 wt. I found myself drawn more to the smaller waters, native cutthroats and little rods. By the end of my second summer guiding, I was “the small water, alpine guy.” Interest in this kind of fishing was growing and I would have at least two trips a week with clients that wanted to go catch native fish on their new Superfine or Scott. We would pack lunch and drinks and fish up the headwaters of one of the numerous creeks. A hand full of Humpies or Elk hair caddis was the whole fly selection (the Stimulator was just coming into vogue) and an 8 foot 5X was all the leader choice. In most locales we would start off catching rainbows and browns, and then segue into brookies and finally cutthroats. By the end of the day, we would be fishing pocket water in streams that you could often jump across; often in sight of the tree line and RARELY seeing another human. I remember one client that gave me a $100 bill for a tip (on a $275 guide fee) saying that it was the most gorgeous day in the mountains he had ever seen. He probably caught 70 to 80 fish that day and we had retired 7 or 8 Humpies that had been chewed beyond recognition.

to be continued …