Fly-fishing for trout in Colorado

sunrise over Moraine Park campground

Fishing for trout on the Big Thompson River

My recent fishing trip to Colorado started in Fairplay, and then continued to Estes Park, within the Rocky Mountain National Park (RMNP). For this portion of the trip, we decided to stay in the Moraine Park campground within striking distance of the Big Thompson River, commonly known as the ‘Big T’. This water is so close to the campground that you could walk to it from your campsite, but opted to drive down to one of the many parking areas/pull offs along Fern Lake Road just south of the campground to easy the burden of carrying a good bit of gear.

Fishing for trout in Moraine Park

One has to wonder why this water is nicknamed the ‘Big T’, particularly within Moraine Park. Between the Cub Lake and Fern Lake trailheads, the river was rarely more than 10 – 12 feet wide, and not very deep. In this section, the water is largely hemmed in by fencing to discourage large game access, but that did not deter the four-legged interlopers as we witnessed plenty of tracks - even coming across a family of Mule deer camped out in the high grasses. We also found ourselves doing a bit of bushwhacking to get to certain parts of the water in this section.

fishing the 'Big T' in Moraine Park

But the effort was worth it as we found quite a bit of water that did not seem to have much pressure, given how willingly the fish pounced our flies. We hooked up a good number of brookies and browns on elk hair caddis, as well as a tandem of two dries - comprising a floating ant trailing behind a parachute hopper, royal wullf or elk hair caddis.

'Big T' brookie hooked on an ant pattern

Fly fishing for trout on the Big Thompson River at Waterdale Ranch

Our next date with the ‘Big T’ was our last day in Colorado and the only day we contracted a guide for our excursion. A visit to a private water - Waterdale Ranch - was to be the highlight of our trip and is located near Loveland, about 30 miles east of Estes Park. A guide from Kirk’s Fly Shop was our host on an exciting section of the ‘Big T’, which included an iconic waterfall feature that some very big trout called home.

As it turned out, this would be an anti-climactic end to our fishing adventure. This section of the river was seriously discolored as a result of rain storms that caused ash sediment from wildfires to the north to wash down the north branch of the Big Thompson. This caused the water to take on the look of a dark alpine snowmelt, the color of a Guinness stout beer. These were not good fishing conditions.

fishing in chocolate milk at the waterfall hole at Waterdale Ranch

Our guide, Gabe, from Kirk’s Fly Shop, tried everything in his arsenal of flies. When that did not work, he then turned to our fly boxes for inspiration. On this day we were reminded of why the sport is called 'fishing', not 'catching' as we managed only a few hookups, with just one rainbow in the net. I do not want to discourage my readers from fishing this water, we were just subject to the whims of mother nature on that day. My fishing companion has had epic fishing experiences on this private water, as have others I have heard from.

Tight Lines!

Note: I am not being compensated by my mention of Kirk's Fly Shop.