Jewel of the Rockies

The jewel

Steve Schweitzer

Back in 2002 I was visiting GFF partner Steve Schweitzer in Colorado. The story has been told before in this article. We fished a lot of different waters and caught quite a few fish during our stay, but I want to pick out one certain trip and fish from that journey.

One day we packed for a long day out. Bread and stuff for sandwiches, drinks in the ice box and Steve's home made trail mix for replenishing energy.
We went to Rocky Mountain National Park. I remember going there, seeing fantastic landscape, the wildlife, even a coyote, and driving as far up as we could before parking, and hiking on up to one of the lakes.
As many of you know Steve is the authority on fishing these places, and already back then he knew what he was doing. Kasper and I were huffing and puffing our way higher and higher. Nice trails, but still hard for us lowlanders.

Steve led us to the most beautiful little lake between the tree clad mountains and we had hardly arrived before we saw the first fish. Little jewels of the mountains, greenback cutthroats cruising along the shore, easily visible from the rocks and eager to take almost anything offered.
Talk about fun fishing!
Stand on the rocks, elevated above the water, great visibility.
Wait for a fish to come by.
Cast a small ant imitation a foot or so in front of it and watch it go directly for the fly.
I had brought my Partridge 3-4wt. split cane and it was perfect for the purpose. These fish aren't big.

I enjoyed it immensely, but my friend GFF partner Kasper found it almost too easy, and simply stopped fishing.

Never the less I had a very memorable time, and will never forget the trip and these little beauties.

Fishing the Rockies

Martin Joergensen - Kasper Muhlbach