Time: 12:00PM – 2:00PM

Location: Above Ypsilon Lake trail bridge

Fish Landed: 1

Roaring River 07/13/2013 Photo Album

After a slow day on the Eagle River on Wednesday, I was excited to fish a smaller headwater stream that didn’t have fussy brown trout. Jane and I talked and decided to drive to Rocky Mountain National Park and hike up the Lawn Lake trail to fish the Roaring River. Well at least I would fish the Roaring River and Jane would enjoy the scenery and take her Kindle and hammock and find a peaceful place in the beautiful outdoors.

The Roaring River is in the northern part of Rocky Mountain National Park and holds 100% greenback cutthroat trout. These fish are colorful little gems and while not that big, I’ve enjoyed some fabulous days fishing the Roaring River. Generally I visit this stream in early July so I was quite optimistic that I’d catch a bunch of greenbacks.

We got off to somewhat of a late start and arrived in the park by around 10:30AM. The highlight of the day was discovering at the park entrance that I qualified for a senior pass for $10 because I am 62 years old. This pass entitles me to unlimited admission to all U.S. national parks and national monuments and national recreation areas for the rest of my life. It also entitles me to a 50% discount on national forest campgrounds and this is a feature that I will use quite a bit.

Dave Enters Roaring River on Saturday

Jane and I parked at the second lot that services the Lawn Lake trailhead and began our ascent of the steep trail that leads to Roaring River. We took the trail branch that leads to Ypsilon Lake and then turned right just before the one log bridge and found a base area to stash our backpacks and equipment. I quickly got into my waders and assembled my rod and began fishing for a half hour. I started with a Chernobyl ant and trailed a salvation nymph, but this yielded no results. I exchanged the salvation nymph for a beadhead hares ear and once more I was shutout from landing any fish. Not only was I not catching fish, I also wasn’t observing refusals or even spooked fish. I decided to take a lunch break at 12:30 and returned to our base camp where Jane was surprised to see me.

Stonefly Found in Water in Roaring River

After lunch I walked back to my exit point and continued fishing upstream quickly prospecting all the likely spots where trout might hold. I decided to switch flies and tied on a bushy small stimulator with a green body and this may have provoked one refusal. I added a pheasant tail below the stimulator and still had no success. I downsized the stimulator to a light gray caddis and that failed to produce as well. Eventually I tied on a size 14 lime green trude and landed my first and only eight inch greenback and quickly took a photo as I was sensing this would be my only chance. By two o’clock I’d covered quite a bit of water with only the single greenback and a few more refusals to the trude to show for my efforts.

Greenback Cutthroat

I was getting further away from Jane and the fishing didn’t seem to be improving so I decided to rush back to base camp before Jane set out on a hike to Ypsilon Lake. When I arrived she in fact was getting out of her hammock and preparing to hike, but she agreed to pack everything up and head back to the trailhead to move to another stream within RMNP.

Where are all the greenback cutthroats in Roaring River? If I had seen more fish but was unable to catch them, I’d be less concerned, but I clearly was not spotting the number of trout that I did in my many previous visits to this stream.