First Trip to North Catamount

I have got some writing to do! I'm three trips behind and I definitely wanted to get this one written up. It's tempting to skip right to the just under dirty thirty bow on the Taylor but it would be a sin to skip this trip and an awesome float on the Gunny so I'll go in order!

I have no idea why it's taken me 20 years to get up to this reservoir. I have always heard that there are good fish on Pikes Peak but I guess I've never been into stillwater enough to actually make it up there. A few things have changed my opinion on stillwater though in the recent past. The first is getting a membership at Rainbow Falls the past two years. I have learned a TON about stillwater fishing at that fishing paradise especially when it comes to streamer fishing. The second is a trip Ben and I did with Jon Kleis to Spinney Mountain Reservoir. Lets just say I have a new interest and appreciation for stillwater fly fishing.

Anyway, Ben and I learned a few things about the reservoirs on Pikes Peak. There are three of them. North and South Catamount Res and Crystal Creek Res. South Catamount and Crystal Creek allow bait fishing so we decided to hit North Catamount which is flies and lures only.

We didn't really know anything going in so we knew it would be a discovery trip. What we discovered is that this is an unbelievable beautiful place that you can be at in no time at all. It does cost $4 a person to drive up to the res but that is nothing for what you get. I had to stop and take the picture above. It didn't really matter if I caught anything after getting to stand in crystal clear water and see the Peak like that.

Ben figured out pretty quickly that very bright streamers were getting grabs. He had luck on small chartreuse and fluorescent pink slump busters. I had luck on small gray scuds although after speaking with a guy up there he stated that there aren't a lot of scuds in the res??? I think there are at least a few :-)

From talking to the same guy though we learned that there are in fact huge lake trout in the res and that it's best to hit it early (first two weeks after ice off). He has had really good luck on RS2s (I didn't see any Mayflys hatching). He said, "the smaller the better" as far as fly selection goes. Ben and I were probably using a little too big of flies since we didn't do very good.

We did manage to land a few though before the crazy weather blew in. It didn't take long at all for the fog to completely overtake the reservoir. It was very thick. If you were out in a float tube it would be hard to know which direction the shore was. Ben decided that we should probably start heading for the truck and it turned out to be a very good call. The Park Rangers started driving around the res with megaphones telling everyone about a severe thunderstorm warning. Turns out there were actual tornadoes that touched down that afternoon around Lake George.  We've had pretty crazy weather this spring but I'll take that any day over fires and floods.