It must have been the first of July. When the dry heat sunburns everyone on the Colorado Plains and it’s so ungodly hot in Texas old people drop like flies while mowing their lawns. The high mountains somehow have a cupcake layer of white snow frosting and the rivers and streams throughout the high country are busting at the seams like a fifty-year-old in skinny jeans.
Cory had made the arduous journey across Texas and New Mexico to meet me up near the William’s Fork to try and recapture a glorious trip from years before where the fish were twenty inch missiles and even the little ones were a triumph to guys who were so inexperienced, we barely knew how to pull on a pair of waders.
En route from Denver we stopped by a fancy fly shop in Silverthorne for flies and local intel. I knew about where we’d camp on the Upper William’s Fork and had circled a tiny blue dot on the map that might be a high mountain lake. It was either a mud puddle or a mosquito controlled wetlands, or maybe if lucky, a pond that was off the radar to all the other fishermen in the world. After ponying up too much money for a handful of flies we assumed were life changing, we asked an older guide if he had ever fished this little lake. He was visibly a grumpy old fishing guide with his best years in the rearview mirror and said without looking up from the cash register that this lake was probably dried up and held no fish. “That’ll be seventy-five dollars.” Sheesh.
Another young lad with a bit more of a gleam in his eye said he’d heard of people fishing it but wasn’t sure of much else but the long hike. That was enough to keep us interested.
We fished the raging William’s Fork and caught a couple fish among the reeds which are usually way up on the bank, and Cory caught his thumb so deep with an aptly named Blood Midge he had to use the old clamp and jerk method to free himself.
After an evening of dodging a cow moose and catching brookies in the blown out upper William’s Fork, (and Cory beating the ever living shit out of me at Cribbage for the second consecutive evening) we decided after some liquid courage to hike up to this blue dot on the map of a lake the next morning. Some decisions like this are best made after already catching fish and understanding everything else on a trip is just gravy. Also, both of us know that near-death experiences end up being the story you tell for years afterwards anyway.
After a hearty camp breakfast, we drove as far as the rutted cliff side forest road would take us and parked at a nondescript trailhead at the dead end of the extremely rough road. We packed too much stuff in our backpacks and started up the moderate looking trail. About a mile in, we were post-holing in thigh deep snow drifts on the north face of the mountains. Then the trail disappeared completely. Yet there was a tiny creek we kept passing over and being the positive outdoorsmen we are, we figured some sort of body of water must sit at the top. That is, we hoped.
At one point we were hiking straight up the mountain through fallen trees, deep brush, and more snow than a Texan coming from 101 degrees could believe existed in July. Somehow, we hit the trail again, marked by reflectors nailed to the pines, and decided to keep an eye on the markers and ditch our instincts, which when being honest with ourselves, are questionable in the first place.
After a few false summits, the trail flattened out and once again disappeared into the trees, then the sun glinted off the riffles of a small lake snuggled up to a three-hundred-foot rock cliff still smothered in melting snow. We sighed and shrugged off our heavy packs and sat down to rest and eat our lunch of summer sausage and cheese just staring at the scenery and catching our breath.
Then there was a dimple on the surface. Then another. Then twenty. With faces full of cheap Safeway sausage and cheese we strung up our rods with shaking hands and guessed at classic smallish Adams dry flies. These fish were as clueless as we were and starving from a long winter under the ice. They glided through the shallows and ate like cruise ship tourists.
These fish were all about 12” long and were brilliant deep red on their bellies with black spots. Colorado River Cutthroats like I’d only seen in The Drake Magazine. We eventually lost count and agreed this is how fishing is supposed to be. Cast after cast. Fish after fish. It felt like we had finally figured out this whole fly fishing thing. It also crossed my mind that I should quit my job and start guiding. You know, a guy who at the time could name maybe ten fly patterns and didn’t even know who Jeff Courier was. Subsequent trips would quickly put us in our place (picture me wadding up my letter of resignation), but for one afternoon amid the show capped peaks of a high-country spring we were fly fishing gods.
A week later I sent the youngish guide at the fly shop (whose card I had taken) some photos of our high mountain lake fish, reminding him there were in fact “NO FISH” in that lake and he should keep this information to himself should someone ask. Which in reflection is probably what the old guy was doing. With few secrets left in the world, one should guard their sacred spots while they can. Regardless, I hope the young guide made the journey up there on his guide’s day off. Maybe even with the old man. And hopefully they had the place to themselves.
The Confluences 