James Peak Wilderness Area

Met up with Jim and lil' Jim and headed out to JPWA. We drove through clear creek canyon, through Central City and up into the mountains. The off-road driving is slow and jarring. The path is unmaintained which in the Rockies means, yes, lots of rocks. I found myself wishing I was wearing one of those double strap harness seatbelts.


Here is a clip of us traversing the mountains and approaching an ancient juniper forest. It's hard to make out in the video, but the junipers are all growing totally sideways due to the voracious winds that rip into them during the winter.

Bumping and bouncing along, the first glimpse of one of our lakes peeks around a mountain side - Echo Lake.


...and then James Peak Lake and little James below it complete the triad of fishing ahead of us. This is the first time I've ever looked down onto the lakes I'm about to fish. Normally it's a trek up.



We briskly scamper down the path to get out of the 40+ mile per hour winds on the knoll, and look back up to where we have to return. Always in the mind of a hiker - what goes down must come up. Jim's jeep rests invitingly at the top of the foot path.

The scenery included the typical critters along with some literal twisted metal in the rocks.

See, not all people are qualified to drive in the mountains. In fact, not all people are qualified to drive on paved roads. The difference is that those who can't drive on roads run into cars, signs, curbs, etc., while those who can't drive on mountains run into... err, fall off of, mountains.


We pass little James lake on the way. This lake is pretty shallow and probably winter kills so we didn't spend any time on it.


The jaunt ends at an old miner's cabin that overlooks James Peak Lake.

The lake produced small cutties and was just gorgeous. The clouds were soaring across the sky and casting flowing shadows across the mountain sides.



After spending some time fishing, relaxing, and taking photos we moved on to Echo Lake. We had heard that there are lakers in Echo. Lakers (aka mackinaw, lake trout) live very deep. Echo lake is an absolute pit of a lake that just drops straight down into an abyss.

We saw nary a fish. I fished my sinking tip as deep as I could for some time, which gets very tiresome and boring. I hate to say it, but barring a very unique day, this lake is more fit for spin casting a big chunk of metal down into the depths.

We packed out around 3 and I got back to Golden just in time to meet my brother to head to the STS9 concert at Red Rocks.

I could barely stand up by the end of the concert. What a sweet day. Gotta love Colorado.

Shout Out

Since the NFL has started I've sacrificed my Sundays for football, so I only have Saturdays to fish now. I'm a fanatical Washington Redskins fan. I know many of my readers are friends and family visiting this blog from back in DC. For those of you interested you should check out The Om Field blog.

This guy is one of the few skins fans who can analyze and assess the team objectively. I find myself agreeing with everything he says. Check him out, he's a quality source and a pleasure to read.


Now back to FISHING. I know that was hard for all you non-football persons to read.

The bad news is that I haven't been fishing last weekend and I won't be fishing this weekend (my family is visiting). This will be the longest I've gone without wetting a line since winter.

The good news is that I have a couple fishing trips I've gone on that I haven't put up a blog about yet and they will surface next week (with some video).

The even better news is that my close friend Armin is flying into town next weekend for four days and we are gonna fly fish for two of those days.

High Country Winter Wonderland

I met a fly guy through work who expressed interest in hitting a high lake with me. Since it rained during the end of the week in Boulder I expected a little bit of snow up high. I didn't expect snow drifts over a foot high. If I hadn't been up there before I would have been totally lost due to the snow covering the path.

Vaughn trudging through the snow and probably wondering why he is following this psycho through this place.


Breaking trail turned out to be just as exhausting as it ever was. I'm not gonna lie though, I enjoyed it. The air was super crisp and a perfect temperature for hiking.

Got to the lake and photographed some fish porn laying near the bank. The boils on its stomach is rotting flesh.


The fishing at the lake lacked. The water was glass with no hatches to speak of. Lots of small to medium trout sunning in 4 inches of water that would bolt if you farted within 60 feet of them. The water would boil with chain reaction spooks, very frustrating.

We both got broiled by the sun/snow. Should have worn my snowboard goggles.

Very beautiful scenery though.



I like to constantly stalk around the bank in search of trout when I fish high lakes. The deep snow really made that harder and way more exhausting.

The snow combined with the poor fishing made for an easy decision to pack out of there. Vaughn had a place in mind to go catch some kokanee salmon to shake the skunk.

We hike down down down and get back to the truck and drive drive drive to get into some kokes. He caught 3 nice ones with about 4 misses, and I just stunk it up with the ole' skunk. I even copied his rig... then stole his spot... then used his rod/rig in his spot, but nothin!

Didn't take any pictures of the kokes because I was bitter. It was a 16 hour day. I crashed hard when I got home.

Q & A

Q.
Hey Man, Nice blog! Love the pics too.
How do those black beauties and zebra midges do?
Where are they good at?

-Charles

A.
Hey, glad you like the blog.

The BB and ZM are good trailing under a dry fly on a dead drift. They simulate the broad category of midge, emerging midge, nymph... whatever. You can tie them in different color thread like olive, tan, and black depending on the food in a particular stream. They can also be pulled slowly through still water or just sat under an indicator for cruising fish. Even better when attached below a bigger nymph like a stone fly making a 3 fly rig.

-TANGLER

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