Time: 11:30AM – 12:00PM

Location: Ptarmigan Lake

Ptarmigan Lake 07/21/2021 Photo Album

On Wednesday morning Jane and I decided to do a combined hiking and fishing adventure on our getaway day from Buena Vista. We arrived at the Ptarmigan Lake Trailhead at 9:30AM, and we were forced to park along the highway due to a full parking lot. Apparently a lot of outdoors folks had the same idea as us. The sky alternated between sunny and cloudy for most of the morning, as we endured the unrelenting climb over three miles. I wore my wet wading attire, but the only wetness I experienced was the soaking perspiration from the challenging hike.

Moraine Passage

Lower Lake Before Ptarmigan

When we arrived at the lake, I spotted two very nice cutthroats, as they sipped tiny morsels from the surface. I immediately rigged my Sage four weight and tied on a peacock hippie stomper. Before I could cast, however, a cloud blocked the sun, which created some wind, which put a chop on the surface of the lake. This circumstance made it impossible to sight fish, so I made some fruitless prospecting casts to the area of the rises to no avail. The protected left side of the lake remained smooth, so I decided to shift my base of operations, but before doing so and while the wind was up, I wolfed down my sandwich.

My Best Catch Ever

Jane and I hiked the short distance to a small protected cove, and the sun emerged once again, and this halted the air disturbance temporarily. I spotted three rises in this area, which was much deeper than the spot where the trail initially met the lake. The stomper was not drawing interest, so I added a zebra midge on a two foot dropper, but another cloud rolled in, and the wind once again ruffled the surface. The direction of the wind shifted out of the north, so the protected calm area was back, where I began.

This Gem Was My Only Catch

Jane and I moved, and I spotted a rise within casting distance in the shallow flats near our initial arrival point. I flicked out a thirty foot cast, and I was shocked, when a fish attacked the hippie stomper. In short order an eight inch cutthroat entered my net and then slipped through a net hole. This provides a good idea of the diminutive size of my sought after trout. In the process of releasing the little guy the dropper leader and zebra midge inexplicably broke off.

A nice band of shallow smooth water extended across the northern shoreline of the small lake, so Jane and I managed to find a rough path to the one-third point. Reaching the beach required bashing over some tough stunted evergreens, but I managed the feat, while Jane looked on from behind the low and stubborn branches. As I surveyed the area, I spotted a gorgeous orange-red cutthroat cruising in a tight circle within easy casting distance. This was the prize I hiked three miles to stalk. I lobbed five or six casts to the cruising field of the fish, but the target cutthroat ignored the oversized hippie stomper.

Ready to Descend

I stripped the fly in to replace it with something smaller and more imitative of natural food sources, but as I initiated this strategy, several adverse factors came into play. Most importantly, a huge dark gray cloud hovered in the northeast sky, and the wind direction suggested it was headed our way. A loud clap of thunder resounded across the above timberline landscape, and the orange-red cutthroat shifted its food searching operation farther from shore. Jane was justifiably spooked by the threat of lightning, but I hastily tied on a size 16 light gray comparadun, even though I intended to experiment with a gray deer hair caddis. I fired some forty foot casts toward the spectacular cutty, but came up a bit short, although the fly may have been close enough to attract attention from the cruiser. It never made a move or even twitched its tail. Meanwhile a pair of smaller fish swam by me at close quarters, and I dropped some casts ahead of their pathway, but again to no avail.

Scarlet Indian Paintbrush

Jane was getting extremely antsy, and another loud rumble forced me to admit that the sane course was to descend to the trailhead ahead of the storm. Ultimately the storm changed direction and headed northeast away from Ptarmigan Lake, but hindsight is always 20/20.

On the Way Down

Landing one small cutthroat in thirty minutes of fishing after a three mile continuous uphill hike was obviously very disappointing. Even more frustrating was the sight of vividly colored wild trout in the clear high elevation lake, as I realized that my fly fishing time was ending prematurely. Abandoning the search in the face of inclement weather was certainly the wise course of action, but I was angry with Mother Nature nonetheless.

Fish Landed: 1