Time: 11:30AM – 2:30PM
Location: Inlet area
Urad Lake 06/30/2023 Photo Album
Friday was available for a short day of fly fishing, since Jane and I had a whitewater rafting trip planning session on the agenda for Friday evening. I checked the Front Range flows, but they remained unfavorable, so I once again chose a lake for my fly fishing outing. The Big Thompson River was actually a stream possibility with flows at 124 CFS, and I have had moderate success at those levels in the past, but I felt more comfortable with a lake adventure. It has been several years since I visited Urad Lake, so I decided to revisit the high elevation gem just up the mountain from the Henderson Mine. Fortunately the mine is not visible from the end of the lake, where I fished, but the drive on a rough dirt road to the parking lot was not scenic. Actually I had very little time to look at the scenery, as the access road was extremely bumpy with potholes everywhere. I suspect that my average speed was less than 5 MPH, as I crept along fearful of bottoming out on one of the bumps.
Weather was another consideration. The closest Weather Underground station was Idaho Springs, and the graphic depicted thunderstorms in the morning and then again at 2PM. I gambled that I could sneak in three hours of fishing before the weather forced me to quit. I drove through the morning thunderstorm and showers, and when I arrived at the parking lot just under 11,000 feet, the temperature registered a cool 41 degrees. I pulled on my Adidas pullover and followed that with my North Face light down coat and then covered those layers with my rain shell. My New Zealand billed hat with earflaps was a no brainer, and I was pleased for every layer that I added. For casting, I assembled my Sage R8 four weight pole, as I expected an abundant quantity of longer casts.
South Looking North
The Cove Beyond the First Inlet
I climbed a steep four wheel drive road for .2 mile, and I paused three or four times to catch my breath. Once the road evened out, I maintained an even pace and then dropped down a winding trail with switchbacks to the edge of the lake by the eastern inlets. Two creeks enter the lake at the southern end of the stillwater, and I began my day with the first one that I encountered. I began with a tan size 8 pool toy hopper, a prince nymph and a salvation nymph. A prince and pheasant tail were suggested by the book. In this case the book was not helpful, so after a reasonable amount of time I swapped the salvation for a salad spinner. These flies proved ineffective, and I exchanged the salad spinner for a zebra midge, and finally a small rainbow trout followed the flies and then turned and snatched the midge imitation. I was on the board with one fish before lunch. I sat on a grassy bank and inhaled my lunch, and by now some blue skies appeared, so I removed my raincoat and stuffed it in my backpack.
Brilliant
After lunch I stayed with the dry/dropper; however, I replaced the prince with a hares ear and added a zebra midge as the end nymph. I wanted lighter nymphs to combine with the less buoyant hippie stomper. I could see sipping rises throughout the plume of the entering creek, so I was fairly certain that the trout were tuned into some form of midge. I decided to explore the other entry creek, and I moved west to a prime spot, where the faster water spread out and dropped off in the lake. Quite a few fish were visible in the narrow riffle section of the creek right above the entry point, and fish rose along the current seam that flowed into the lake. I began prospecting the riffle area, and the fish count mounted to five, as rainbows and brook trout picked off the zebra midge and hares ear. This period of success was accompanied by quite a few refusals to the hippie stomper.
Look at the Speckles
After I disturbed the water considerably by landing fish, I turned my attention to the deeper water of the lake proper. I pivoted to face the lake and several sporadic rises were evident to my right. I fired some casts to the vicinity of the rises, and in one instance after I allowed the flies to rest for a thirty second count, a fish raced to the surface to crush one of my flies. I was certain that it took the stomper, but when I settled it in my net, I found the zebra midge in its lip. Moreover, the fish was a six inch tiger trout. I am not sure I ever caught a tiger trout before, so I was rather excited despite the small size.
Inlet Number Two
Beauty Over Size
Next I focused on the deeper water, where the entering current fanned out, and here I landed a couple very small brook trout, but the hippie stomper continued to elicit splashy refusals. After a particularly long lull in action, I stripped in the flies, and I made another significant shift. I removed both flies and attached a single light gray size 16 deer hair caddis to my line. The move was a roaring success, and over the remainder of my time the fish count elevated from eight to fourteen. The solitary caddis was particularly effective in the riffles of the creek, and some spectacularly colored rainbows in the eleven to twelve inch range lingered in my net. A few hungry feeders also nabbed the caddis where the creek fanned out into the lake.
Yellow, Blue and Green
Love This
By 2:00PM some threatening dark clouds appeared above the ridge to the southwest, and I heard the din of distant thunder. The wind escalated, and I pulled up my hood and snugged my collar around my neck. It became increasingly clear that I was in the bullseye of the storm, so I hooked my fly to the rod and began the .5 mile hike back to the parking lot. I ascended the steep hill to the rough road, and at this point heavy snow flakes began to pelt my body. My raincoat did a fine job of protecting me, but my bare hands took the brunt of the wet snow and sleet. Ice accumulated on the cork rod handle, and I switched the grip from left to right and back to left in order to shove the off hand in the fleece lined wader pockets. My hands were stiff claws, when I reached the Santa Fe, and the stiffness inhibited my ability to remove the fly and breakdown the rod. The parking lot was muddy, so I left my fleece lined tights on under my jeans, and I did not bother to swap out my socks. When I was ready, I jumped in the car and turned on the defroster and ran the heater for five minutes, before I made the challenging pot hole drive down the four wheel drive rock garden.
Submerged
Lovely Shade of Pink
In spite of the rough drive and the adverse weather, I enjoyed my brief day on Urad Lake. I was challenged to solve the riddle, and eventually success came my way. This was an instance where experimentation and persistence paid dividends. It was evident that Urad Lake has not been stocked yet in 2023, but I actually liked the challenge of catching wild or carryover trout. Hopefully I can transition into edge fishing bigger rivers next week, but if lakes continue to be my destination, I feel like like I have made significant progress in my lake angling evolution.
Fish Landed: 14