Ep 143: Fly Fishing Rocky Mountain National Park, with Joe Croteau
Joe Croteau is a pivotal person in my life. He is the person who got me into fly fishing many years ago, hiring me at his fly shop before I really knew what I was doing. He knows fishing around Rocky Mountain National Park better than most. He recently released a guide book, Fly Fishing and Guiding in Rocky Mountain National Park. In this episode, we talk all about fishing in the park, including seasons, hatches, flies, gear, backcountry permits and camping, belly boating, and much more.
Sasquatch Fly Fishing: link
Joe’s Book: Fly Fishing and Guiding in Rocky Mountain National Park
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Katie
You're listening to the Fish Untamed Podcast, your home for fly fishing the backcountry. This is episode 143 with Joe Croteau on fly fishing Rocky Mountain National Park. I'm actually surprised it's taken this long to get you on because you are the reason that I've gotten into fly fishing. But I know it's like weird to start this way with because I know you, but I actually don't know how you got started in fishing. And I usually ask people how they got started. So tell me how you got introduced to fly fishing because I actually don't know.
Joe
Yeah. Well, I grew up in Littleton, Colorado, down by the South Platte near Waterton Canyon. And when I was in high school, I had some friends who liked to fly fish. And so we'd go down to, they'd take me down to Deckers and we'd fish Cheeseman Canyon. And I'd watch these guys catch fish and I would catch nothing. And then I spent years doing that and got better and better. And then as I, as I got older and gotten into my college years, I would, I would, I was up at CSU in Fort Collins and I, I fished the Poudre River any chance I could on my days off. And then slowly over time, I would say just headed into the national park, working at the YMCA, the Rockies in my, in the mid, mid nineties. And that's when I really took off is once I started up in Estes Park working. It was one of those deals where in the backcountry, I really started falling in love with the idea of like fishing off the grid. And that's when I did more fly fishing in that sense.
Katie
And how did you start Sasquatch? So just for a quick background, that's the company I worked for for you for a couple of years and how I got introduced to it. But how did you come around to starting that?
Joe
Well, so we'll go back just a little bit. So in college, I went for a degree in recreation management. And so for that degree, I had to get a summer job working for a recreation style company. So I worked for a company which we all worked for called the YMCA of the Rockies. That's where Sasquatch is now located. But the YMCA of the Rockies hired me on as like a seasonal employee to come up and do like nature walks and like playing mini golf and things like that with all the kids. And so what I did is I every chance I had a day off, I would go fishing. And all my friends would always ask, well, where are you fishing? How are you doing this? So for about two summers while I was up there doing my internships, I would just go back and explore and take all these friends of mine fly fishing. And they're like, man, this is great. So I got a small job in town on some days off to work for like Estes Angler. And there's another shop at the time called Colorado Wilderness Sports. So I guided for them every summer, kind of like off on my days off. And then I noticed one of my biggest disappointments with those shops is they never, they never offered a lot of back country stuff, which again, that's one of my passions is back country fly fishing. So I, I noticed everything they did was just a quick half day trip to the big Thompson river or a quick half day trip into Moraine park. So I, I asked the YMCA if I could do some guided trips and do more backcountry remote style fly fishing tours. And they agreed. And so the first summer I did that in 1996, I started taking people into the backcountry and it went from like two trips a week is what they allowed me to do. And by the end of that summer, the trips were so popular. They allowed me to expand to doing trips every day, sometimes twice a day. And then the following summer, they said, why don't you hire a couple of people to help you? And then, so we hired a couple more people and I hired some former hike masters who guided hiking trips for the Y. And so they, we, we, we ended up doing a lot more, extreme back country stuff because these hike masters had been to every lake and peak in the park. So that's where we really expanded into the back country style of fly fishing. Uh, and then today, obviously it's went from just the me doing it to two or three people. Now we have, you know, 17 to 15 or 17 20 guides who will go back into the backcountry and take people fishing in Rocky.
Katie
How different are the trips today compared to what you were doing back then? Like if someone went on a trip then and went on a trip now, how similar would they find it?
Joe
Yeah. I mean, I think the half day trips are always going to be the same because when you do half day trips, you're kind of limited on location. So, you know, Sprague Lake or the Big Thompson River and Moraine Park or Fall River. So those half day trips are kind of limited. But I would say the three-quarter day and the all-day trips are much different because we have more guides. Back when it was just me and a couple other guys, we would usually just have a handful of places we could go because we only offered one or two trips a week. And so we knew, you know, we're going to go to Fern Lake again. We're going to go to Spruce Lake. We'd always kind of go to the same spot. Once we added more guides, that's when we really started to explore more of the park. So today, what's cool about it is you can pretty much go to any spot you want. You just have to find the clients who are willing to go there. And that's probably the biggest drawback today is just a lot of people don't want to do backcountry. They want to do the half days. So, you know, 80% of our trips are just going to be a half day trip. Whereas people aren't realizing the opportunity of the national park. It's by far the craziest, greatest national park in all of the United States for fishing. People don't give enough credit for how many opportunities there are in that park.
Katie
Yeah, sometimes when I'm scrolling around a map just looking for places to go, I'll see a big cluster of lakes and I'm like, oh, what's that area? And I zoom in and I'm like, oh, it's Rocky Mountain. That's where all the lakes are.
Joe
And I think that's also true for other parts of Colorado. They just happened to make this national park right here. And it is absolutely, if you compare it to, say, a Yellowstone or a Glacier, which I've fished both of those, they're great to fish. Those national parks are awesome, you know, epic. But as far as fly fishing goes, there's no other national park that's like Rocky. I mean, it's just got so much variety in such a small area. It's phenomenal.
Katie
And something I want to highlight about your trips that I feel like you won't mention if I don't bring it up is just that it's got you've got trips for all ages and all group sizes. And I feel like a lot of a lot of people skip going on a guided trip because a lot of places will charge you like a zillion dollars to go out, you know, you and one other person for a half day. And that's it. And you can do that. And but you don't charge a zillion dollars. But you can do that with you. You can do these, you know, private trips. You and one other person go somewhere super remote. But there's also opportunities for coming with the whole family, bringing the kids along. And, you know, the kids can spin fish because you have so many guides on hand that you can take large groups out and introduce people to fishing. You know, you might have somebody who's done it before and can go off on their own and then have your family members get, you know, guided and have your kids have somebody putting worms on hooks for them. And that's just not something that I feel like it's offered very often.
Joe
Right. I think it goes back to the YMCA when I started there, you know, their hike masters, I would see every day I'd go into work and I'd see the hiking crew. They'd have like a group of people they're taking out. There's, there's 12 or 15 hike masters back when I worked there in the early nineties. And I'd watch how they ran their trips and they would have these groups of people show up to do these hikes. And I'm like, huh, they do everything by group. And every time I went into town to guide, it was always like, you're talking about a two on one or a one on one sort of deal. And it's very expensive. So when I started doing the fly fishing trips for the Y, I kind of modeled it after the hiking department of the YMCA where they would allow groups of people to come together. And those hiking groups, all the people got to know each other. And so it became like a group where everyone was out to do the same thing. All those hiking people were up to go hike to a peak together. They were out to hike to this lake together. I thought, wouldn't it be cool to allow fly fishermen to do the same thing? They're all there to fly fish. Why do we have to charge everybody exponential money when you can do it as a group, bring the cost down and still have this amazing experience? And for a lot of people like myself who didn't grow up with a lot of money, I didn't have the opportunity to do a lot of guided trips to learn how to do it. So I thought it'd be a good way to get people to be able to experience what I experienced in the national park and do it at a price that is reasonable for everybody. And if you have enough guides, which we obviously do, you can have some people do the fly fishing. We have a few people who, if needed, they can do some spin fishing with fly and bubble. And that's just a way to keep costs down and also let everybody experience fly fishing in the park.
Katie
Yeah. Well, the reason I brought you over today is that you have a new book out. I've got it right here. Fly Fishing and Guiding in Rocky Mountain National Park. Yes. And I haven't read through it in detail, but I've glanced through it and it is pretty comprehensive. you've got a lot of places in here, a lot of information. So I think today we're just going to kind of cover kind of like what content is in the book. Obviously, we're not going to cover every place that you have in there, but I have a list of things we talked about ahead of time, just kind of information if you were coming to Rocky Mountain National Park and you were like, I have no idea what to do. I'm here with my fly rod. Tell me everything. And we'll just kind of break it up. And I don't know if you have any preface to this or if you want to just dive right into.
Joe
Yeah, we can dive right in. That's great.
Katie
All right. Well, the first thing I have is areas of the park. So the park is kind of officially almost broken up into some areas, but then there might also be areas that you've kind of designated as like, you know, the fishing over here is different than the fishing over here. So walk me through like how you divide the park up in your mind.
Joe
Yeah. I mean, in my head, you know, there's obviously east side, west side. That's the easy way because you have that trail ridge road, which takes you from one side to the other. So, you know, east side is definitely going to be a lot more crowded and have a lot more people. That's where a lot of the guide services run out of as well. So you got to kind of be aware that the east side is going to be the Estes Park side. That's the part where you're going to have the most people. And then the west side is Grand Lake side and less people over there. But everything's kind of a little more spread out over there as well. And then you have, I call it the north side. I don't know how other people break it up. But the north side is like the area that to access, you probably got to put some miles in to get to some of that water. So those are the three areas of the park that I break it into.
Katie
And what are you considering the north side here? Just so I can picture.
Joe
Yeah. So north side to me is like if you're going to go back into the Lost Lake Valley. So you go up by the Dunraven Trailhead up near, there's a town up there called Glen Haven. You go past Glen Haven and anywhere back in that valley would be considered the north side. And then additionally, you could drive up Poudre Canyon and come in Rocky Mountain National Park through a trailhead called Corral Creek. And that's obviously north side. The only way to access that area is either you hike very far from the Dunraven Trailhead or you come down from Corral Creek Trailhead into the north side of the Poudre River headwaters. And that to me is just on north side.
Katie
And you're considering Wild Basin as part of east side, I assume?
Joe
Yeah, I mean, because it still is, you know, it still is on the east side of the Continental Divide. It's even though it's down on the south side of the National Park, it has its own entrance station. To me, it's still considered east side because it's only a 15 minute drive from Estes.
Katie
Yeah, I was thinking you were going to say east, west, and south because I was thinking you might classify Wild Basin differently. I feel like Wild Basin, a lot of people really like that area of the park. It's really pretty and has a lot of opportunity. And how about the fishing in each one? I know you said the west side is a little bit more spread out, but if somebody is trying to decide, apart from just crowds, where they might want to go, what might they find in each one?
Joe
So if you're talking about the east side versus the west side, I think, you know, the east side of the park, there's a lot more trailheads that are like kind of clumped together. And you're going to access a lot of different lakes within one to two, three miles in. And, you know, super easy access. Whereas the west side, you're really going to be driving up and down the Colorado River drainage, trying to find trailheads that will take you back into spots. And it's just a different feel on both sides of the park.
Katie
So east side is a lot more like a cluster of kind of like shorter, you know, you could pop here, pop there. You may even be able to do a couple places in a day. And the west side would be more of a lengthy, like you're going to plan something out and you've got a handful of options that are a little bit different. Like you're not going to pop from here to there to there, unless you're just kind of driving along the river.
Joe
Yeah, if you're going to make a commitment to the west side, you're probably going to make a commitment to one spot to fish that day. Whereas the east side, it's kind of great. The east side is kind of great because when you're, say you head to a spot and it's crowded. I'm going to hike up to Mills Lake and I go, oh my gosh, there's a lot of people here today. It's not a big deal to just hike past Mills and go up to another lake, go to Jewel, go to the Black Lake drainage. Or you could pop back down and go to the lock. Whereas if you're on the west side, you're kind of committed to that spot.
Katie
Have you noticed a distance that it takes to escape the crowds? I feel like in Rocky Mountain, it's kind of like people are willing to hike, especially on trail. And I feel like once you leave the trail, that's where you start to kind of escape the crowds. But have you noticed like a distance, like if you're willing to hike such and such distance, you're more likely to find yourself at a place that's not just like shoulder to shoulder with people?
Joe
Yeah, I would say, you know, that it used to be back in the day, Katie, when I would fish around, I saw so few fishermen in the 90s and early 2000s. Like it was, you'd hike in a mile or two, you run into hardly any fishermen. And today fly fishing and backcountry fly fishing in particular has gotten so popular, you can't go to the lock. You can't go to mills without running into another fisherman.
Katie
There's going to be someone else there fishing.
Joe
So I always say if you're able to go past about three or four miles, you're going to have a lot more remote feeling. So the two mile rule is probably what I would say. If you're in two miles, you're going to run another fisherman. If you go past that, you're going to cut your fisherman down by 90%.
Katie
I think one good point too is that because there's so many lakes, these lakes are destinations. So people are heading there. So if you're willing to fish the stream that comes out of a lake and goes down into the woods or something, it's probably going to be a lot easier to find a little bit of solitude because all these lakes have a trailhead. It's like, I'm going to this lake. And so people go there. And I feel like people might overlook some of the smaller little feeder streams and things like that that hold just as many fish coming in or out of the lake but don't have the people going there as their goal for the day.
Joe
Yeah, if you're a bushwhacker, you're going to have a great time in Rocky because almost everybody who's hiking are usually just tourists. and if they're bringing their fly rod along, they're not going to want to get off the beach path. They want to get to the spot, try fishing, say they did it. But if you're out to explore, there's like every drainage holds fish. So yeah, that's definitely an opportunity that people overlook.
Katie
And how about the seasons, both in terms of crowds and in terms of weather? And maybe we can then transition that into like hatches and things. But tell me about the seasons in the park and how fish each of them?
Joe
Yeah. So early season is rough. The wind is pretty horrific in Estes Park from about November through probably end of March. I would pretty much say the National Park itself is not going to be a great fishery until everything starts to melt off. And then you can look at the lower section of the park being Moraine Park, the Fall River drainage, Wild Basin drainage, and that's going to be pretty fishable early until the runoff hits. So from early May to probably early June, you're going to be looking at early season and you're not going to fish the back country at all. It's going to be, everything's closed up. So you're really limited just to that, the front side meadows. Once runoff is over and the back country opens up, I always put on my calendar kind of a little asterisk by about June 15th. That's when things really start to pop. So if you can start getting to the backcountry about June 15th on, you're going to get hit. A lot of lakes will still be thawing, but that's when the lakes really start to open up and the streams kind of are still blowing up. So that's when I tell people, if you're going to fish the park, I fish the streams and the rivers before runoff, usually before May, end of May. and then start to hit the backcountry, the lakes and whatnot from about mid to early June all the way through the rest of the summer.
Katie
And then how about fall?
Joe
Fall's great.
Katie
Fall is like a lot of the crowds are starting to leave by fall.
Joe
The guides will take over a lot of the time in the lower parts of the park. A lot of the drainage is fish really good in the fall. So I always tell people if you're going to fish backcountry and you can make it out on August, September, October, you're going to have a great time in the backcountry in the fall.
Katie
Yeah. I feel like families are going back to school and stuff too. So I've pictured July as being kind of the, you know, like the fishing is going to be amazing, but everybody in the country is in Rocky Mountain National Park in July. That's right. That's right. But by September and you're starting to get like the elk rut is kicking in. So it's just, I feel like that's a really nice time to be, you know, up in the mountains and fishing and people are back to school, back to work, all that kind of stuff.
Joe
Yeah. I'd say if there was a month you could pick where you wanted to really hit the park hard and not have the crowds, September. is like probably the month to shoot for.
Katie
I think it's also, you mentioned that a lot of places are closed in the winter and it's not just closed, like they're iced over. Like you can't drive into a lot of places in the winter. It's actually closed. So it's just kind of not, unless you're back there skiing or snowshoeing, I feel like there's just not a lot going on in the park in December, January. That's just not a thing. And then how about the hatches?
Joe
Yeah, hatches are interesting in the park because you always got midges coming off, but it, I saw it like, you know, I fished the frying pan river. I fished the South plat a lot. You have these epic hatches of, blueing olives or, or other mayflies. The park is really just more of a cat. I call it a caddis park. It's like, there's a lot of caddis. There's a lot of midges. Um, there's only a couple of drainages where the, where the mayflies are really prevalent. Um, I always tell people when you're starting to fish the park, have a good selection of, of caddis flies once June hits. Uh, so again, when the water temperature hits around 50 degrees, you're going to see a lot more caddis popping. Um, and mid summer, you will see the, the PMD hatch come off quite a bit in certain drainages, particularly on the, the big Thompson side, on the West side of the park, you do see, quite a few drakes. There's quite a few, green and gray drakes that come off through the north inlet drainage and the collard river drainage it's it's an interesting part for hatches because everyone always assumes that there's going to be bluing olives and they'll start coming off at this time and all the PMDs will come off but because everything's freestone it's it's really a crapshoot for when hatches come off so you You can't rely on your traditional, oh, starting on May 15th, we'll have some blooming olives that show up. You might, but you might not see those until later in June. It's just really as a crapshoot for hatches.
Katie
And how about, I know it's not really a hatch, but hoppers and other terrestrials. I feel like that's something I think of as high mountain lakes. For some reason, I just picture a lot of beetles and things. That's not really a hatch, but talk about that.
Joe
Yeah, so if you are going to fish the park, you better have a good selection of beetles and even hoppers. There really isn't a hopper hatch like there is in other parts of the country. You will find some grasshoppers in the lower sections of the Fall River drainage, especially. But yeah, you'll want to have a good selection of beetles, especially for the backcountry. A lot of those fish, I will tell you, in the backcountry, once you get two or three miles back off the trail, you really don't need to worry as much about fly selection, which I'm sure we'll get into in a second. But for the front part of the park, the main drainage of the Colorado River, you might want to have specific patterns that gear toward caddis and mayflies. And once you get into the backcountry, having those terrestrials is going to work along with almost every other pattern that you have.
Katie
I feel like that isn't super unique to the park. Like if you're just willing to get away, you know, and the fish don't see flies very often, especially those high lakes where they only have a couple months a year to put on like all the weight they're going to get for the year because it's going to ice over. They don't seem too picky. Although I have found that when they are being picky, what changes their mind is often like a beetle or an ant. I don't know what it is about those, but you might cast every other fly in your box on a picky day. And then those two patterns are like what changed their minds.
Joe
Yeah, I agree. I've taken many a trip where I think I tied on a beetle for one person and tied on a parachute caddis for another. And we never changed the beetle the whole day. Like it was a destroyed beetle. Like that fly is just is definitely one of the ones that you should have in your box. I will also say that, you know, when I guided in town for those few years, there was a guy who I ran into, a local guide who was very knowledgeable. And he taught me a lot about fish in the park. And his big saying he used to say was, you know, Joe, when you're guiding the park, you're looking at about 10% fly selection and 90% presentation. He always would say that. It doesn't matter what fly you have on there. As long as they can present something, they're going to eat it as long as it's presented right. And I took that to heart when I was guiding and I realized where you're standing, how you're presenting stuff was really more important than the fly. Now, I think that's changed because that was in the 90s. And I think now the fish see a lot more fishermen. And I think they're a little more picky. So if you're fishing the Big Thompson River, you're fishing the Fall River where it's easy access, those fish get hit a lot. And I think fly selection is actually pretty important. But as Bobby said, if you go back country, if you get back into the High Mountain Lakes and those little streams, it's really going to be more about presentation than about fly selection.
Katie
And I think especially on the lakes, the farther you go back, the less both of those matter. You know, those fish don't see a lot of people. There's a lot of them. They have a short window to eat. And I've seen some fish deep in the backcountry do some pretty stupid things. That is so true.
Joe
We've had some mini competitions of like, hey, I'll bet your beer you can't get it to eat this fly. But I'll take that bet. And almost always they're going to eat it.
Katie
Yeah. I've thrown some flies on after I've caught enough fish that I'm satisfied. I'll be like, let's just see if I can get him to eat this, you know, crap I found in an old fly bin somewhere. So, yeah, this is a big time to talk about specific flies, you know, to mimic the different hatches.
Joe
Yeah. So, again, if you're backcountry, always keep a beetle in your box. But my favorite fly that I've always kind of loved using in the park is just a tan parachute caddis. I will use that fly. If you're even in a spot where it's heavily fished, if you put on a parachute caddis, like a larger size, say 10 or 12. And you can drop something behind it if you want to. But that fly is probably my number one fly throughout the park. You could throw that fly anywhere just because there are so many caddis in the national park. That's the fly. And then when you get into some of the other drainages where there's some drakes, always have some large parachute atoms on you. A lot of people have these new fancy flies. And I always say, don't be afraid to use them. They're fun to use. But we really don't, you don't need anything that fancy. I mean, I think, you know, when we're guiding for our shop, we have our fly bin that the guides choose from is tiny compared to if you walk into Taylor Creek Fly Shop in the Frying Pan River. You're like, oh, my gosh, look at all these selections. And we kind of, you know, we're limited to like maybe 30, 40 patterns that we'll use throughout the whole summer. And they work just fine because the fish in the park aren't going to be that picky compared to on the Frying Pan River.
Katie
Well, it's really nice too, because I'm picturing what you're talking about in the frying pan. And I can think of one specific trip where we went and bought, I think, four or five different mice of shrimp patterns from below the dam. And they only wanted one of them. We all put on different ones, but only one of them would work. And I was like, these are essentially the same. I'm looking at them and they look the same to me, but the fish are specifically not eating all but one of these. And it's really nice to know that if you go into Rocky Mountain with, I would say, eight to 10 tried and true patterns, they will eat one of them. At the very least, you'll eat one of them, they'll probably eat more than half of them, you know, and without being too picky. Totally. Yeah. What time of year are you throwing a parachute caddis? Like what month to what month does that work?
Joe
Yeah. So, again, I'm, I'm fishing midges through, you know, end of May. And then once that water temp hits about 52, 54 degrees, the caddis will start popping. Um, it depends on the time of day, but I'm going to start probably mid June, throwing my caddis. Uh, And then obviously throughout the rest of the summer, I'll be doing some sort of caddis. And a lot of times I love the national park because you can do the double dry technique, which you can in a lot of other places. But, you know, throw a big caddis in behind it, drop a little parachute atoms or something like that.
Katie
If you're using a tan caddis, is it able to function as a PMD, you know, with the right size? Or do you, you know, when PMDs are coming off, are you like specifically changing out to a PMD fly?
Joe
So there is, you know, when that PMD hatch starts on the big Thompson, you probably want to zone in more on just the PMD. But because there are so many caddis that come off in the evening, I think having a caddis and a PMD is a smart move.
Katie
We can get as specific as you want with places to fish. I assume you're not going to be too tight-lipped about places to fish, considering you just wrote a book revealing every place in the park to fish. And also, it's Rocky Mountain. It's not a secret. Every lake in this park has someone leading hikes to it and stuff like that. So apart from the little maybe secret feeder streams that you might have to bushwhack your way to, I feel like all of these places are pretty out there. So you're welcome to share specific places to fish. And I also want to hear just about kind of the lakes versus the rivers and maybe how your techniques might differ between those two areas.
Joe
Yeah. So what I'll say first off is most people who come to the park are probably there for the day or they're probably there on a trip with their family from a family reunion of some sort. And we see just a lot of people. So I'll just tell you, when I wrote the book, people were a little thrown back that I said so much about where to fish, how to fish it. And I think the reason for that is because most people who go fish don't have a lot of time. You go to the park, you might drive up from Denver for the day. So I wanted to make sure that people who did go into the park, they had all the information they could have to go have a great experience, you know, and not get to a spot and have it be a cruddy day of fishing. So I'm very open about fishing the park. And I want people when they go there to have as much information about the place they want to fish and the fish they want to catch. So with that being said, I'll say going to spots like Fern Lake, you're going to catch a fish. You will. You will catch a fish. So if your goal is to catch a fish, that's kind of what I want to make people know about in the book. Like, look, you're up in Estes Park with a family reunion and they give you a day to go fish. You want to make sure you go to Fern Lake.
Katie
You want to make sure you go to a spot you're going to catch fish.
Joe
Now, if you're there for the week and you get to explore all these different spots, that's a different. then I'm going to give you a lot more different recommendations. Why don't you hike in the Thunder? You're probably going to catch fish, but it's a haul. So there's places that you want to go for different types of what kind of experience you want. If your goal is to catch fish, like you want to go there, I want to catch a greenback cutthroat. Well, we're going to send you to Fern Lake, Spruce Lake. That valley is loaded with fish. You're going to catch something. Much different than if I send you up to Dream Lake, which is an easier hike. But you might not catch a fish at Dream Lake because it's, you know, a 1.1 mile hike, everybody's there. Those fish are smart as heck. Uh, and if you're not a really expert fisherman, you're probably not going to catch a fish. So, you know, as far as where I, I would tell people to fish, it really comes down to how much time you have. You know, if, if you have the day, go back into a, you know, Ouzel Lake, you're going to catch fish at Ouzel Lake. If you have, you know, lawn Lake, it also requires a lot of effort. So depending on the amount of effort you have and the amount of time you have, that's where I'd recommend that you fish.
Katie
Okay. And how about some of the rivers and how they kind of differ from the lakes? Because some people might be coming to Rocky Mountain having never seen an alpine lake before. I feel like rivers are a little bit more, like they translate a little better, I think, to someone who might be coming from the East Coast, for example. And they also have little mountain streams, but they might not have these alpine lakes. So how do they differ? How are they similar? What can people expect?
Joe
Yeah. Streams are very similar. If you're fishing like a glacier creek, which runs along Bear Lake Road all the way up to the Bear Lake Trailhead, you're going to look at a pretty tight cover, very similar to when I fished in New York. You've got a lot of little tumbling streams, big pools, pretty easy to do a hopper-dropper type style fishing all through Glacier Creek. But you transition that to like Moraine Park. It's a big meandering meadow. The undercut banks are deep and big. So you might be doing a lot more nymphing on a river like that. So assuming that you know how to fish the various types of rivers, you're going to probably have quite a bit of luck if you have a variety of knowledge. If you don't and you're like, oh, I'm really only good at like smaller stream fishing, then you want to hit more of the headwater sections. So get away from the marine parks, the fall rivers, and then do a little walk back upstream and you'll get into more of the forested areas. And that's where we're going to get into that fun fishing that most people like with pocket water.
Katie
With like a fish in every cast to the right spot is going to, you know, elicit some little fish coming at your fly. I think it's also worth mentioning if people haven't been to Rocky Mountain, because some of these places have names like Fall River. It's not like a huge, they're not huge rivers. They're not, you're not going to be seeing drift boats coming down them or things that people might picture. And they're picturing some of the other national parks out west, like Yellowstone and stuff like that. Like they're, you know, the Big Thompson is, is larger than some of the other creeks, but it's not that big.
Joe
Oh, no, no, no, no, no. When you, when you go to other national parks here, you'll say like, oh, I went up to Glacier this summer and I was going to fish this river. It was unbelievable how big these rivers are. You had to have a drift boat to really fish them effectively. Rocky Mountain is like, no way. Everything is wadeable. You're probably going to be able to hop across some of the streams that you're catching fish out of. So you just got to be prepared for, I would say, more stealthy fishing more than anything.
Katie
Sneaking up on fish. And I'll put in my personal plug for hating waders. You could probably get away in the summer without ever putting on a pair of waders. Unless you're trying to wade into a lake, like an alpine lake, and you're just going to freeze. but you could fish any of the creeks in the park with a pair of wading socks and some shorts.
Joe
Yep, that's true.
Katie
How about belly boating? Because that is the one kind of boat that someone might take out there, especially into the lake. So, you know, what are the belly boating opportunities?
Joe
Yeah. So Scott from Scott's Sporting Goods, when I first was fishing around the area, he would always talk about taking his belly boat up to Mills Lake in the lock. So I, you know, when I started doing trips like that with Sasquatch, I was like, well, maybe people want to sign up for a belly boat trip. So we started offering these belly boat trips and they were highly popular. And there's a few lakes that are just perfect for belly boating. Haiyaha is probably the most amazing because to get around Lake Haiyaha, it's just all boulders. It's almost impossible to walk. So if you get a belly boat, you can access that whole lake. So I highly recommend Haiyaha if you're looking to belly boat. The other one is the Lock. The Lock Vale has great spots to launch from. The fishing in the middle of the lake is wonderful. What you do want to keep in mind is don't belly boat until late June, if not even mid-July. That's when you want to look at belly boating because most of the fish in those lakes are going to hang out in the inlets and outlets until they're done spawning. And I remember I took a belly boat trip once with these three guys and we're back there belly boating away. I think we caught like one fish and I was like, what the heck? Like we always catch fish out belly boat. And I noticed it was kind of a colder summer. And so we got out of the belly boats, walked to the outlet, and there was just fish just stacked up. So we ended up catching like dozens of fish. But we caught one fish out of the belly boat. And then we fished the inlet and the outlet and caught dozens of trout.
Katie
And that's not something you want to hike three miles in and three miles out just to then leave it on shore and not use it.
Joe
That's right. That's why I say always push back your belly boating until at least July. I have it marked on my calendar when we offer belly boat trips for our company. And it's always like, belly boat trips start. We don't ever start them until almost July.
Katie
I think belly boating is quite possibly the best way to hit Rocky Mountain. Because it is a surefire way to get away from the crowds. It does not matter how many people are standing around the edge of the lake. If you just get out to the middle and there's no one out there. And you can basically turn any crowded lake at any time of the year. Well, not any time of the year, but the times of the year that you might originally avoid because they're so crowded, you can just bypass all that and just take a boat out there. So I think I remember people not being that jazzed on the bellyboating trips. Like we didn't have as many of them because people want to do these half days waiting. And I was like, you guys are missing out. Like you guys, you have to get out in the middle of the lake. It's so, it's so fun.
Joe
It is. It's the best way to fish in the park. Just be ready to carry the pack.
Katie
Yeah. And blow it up. That's right. One thing I meant to touch on that we didn't cover is the different species in the lake. And I know you gave a, people couldn't see it, but an air quotes around greenback cutthroat. So maybe you can give a quick little summary of that and then just the other species that people can find.
Joe
Yeah. So that's the other reason I think people don't give Rocky enough credit. Like, you know, I've fished a lot of different places in the country and I would say Rocky Mountain National Park is pretty special in the sense that you can catch so many different species of fish. Obviously, brook trout are going to be prevalent all throughout the park. When they introduced them in the early 1900s, they kind of took over. So you'll find a lot of brook trout, but you're going to find various species of cutthroat as well. So the big species that everyone always talks about is the greenback cutthroat. They always come into the National Park to catch the greenback. And for years, I've told everyone, and the National Park even told me, that we're catching greenback cutthroat. I finally got it out of Chris Kennedy, the fisheries biologist for the park, that there are no greenback cutthroat in the national park. They actually were a hybrid that when they started stocking them in the mid-90s and 2000s that they thought they were greenback cutthroat. And after DNA sampling, they found out, oh, darn it, they have some Colorado River cutthroat in them. So they're about 98% pure is what he's told me. So if you catch a designated greenback cutthroat in the park, you're actually not catching a pure strength greenback. They're a hybrid. That being said, they're still the closest thing you'll ever come to catching a greenback. And I always tell clients, be proud that you caught a fish that was essentially a greenback cutthroat. That's a lot on the west side. You're going to find a lot of greenbacks. In Lake Haiyaha, they have the Yellowstone cutthroat. And all throughout that drainage, you'll find some Yellowstone. And then on the west side, you're going to find the Colorado River cutthroat. So that fish is prevalent throughout the west side. Now, one thing I will say is in all of the lower drainages, whether it be the Big Thompson or the Colorado River, you're going to find a lot more brook trout and brown trout than anything. There are no brown trout lakes in the back country of Rocky Mountain National Park.
Katie
I feel like that's pretty common. I just don't feel like brown trout are big alpine lake fish.
Joe
Well, you'll find brown trout in one lake. and that's Sprague Lake. So this is the only lake in the park that has browns and they do get big. That is one cool thing about the brown trout in the park is if you do find an area with brown trout, if it has the wherewithal to hold fish over the winter, they're going to get big. So that's kind of cool. So those are most of your species that you're going to find.
Katie
Yeah, there's not a lot of rainbows.
Joe
Rainbows. I always forget about rainbows.
Katie
But there's not a lot.
Joe
Yeah, considering how much they stock rainbows down in Lake Estes and all these private property just outside the park, they stock a load of bows. You don't catch a lot of rainbows. You will find some wild rainbows though in Moraine Park.
Katie
Oh, really? Okay.
Joe
In Glacier Creek. Yeah. Glacier Creek is more common, but we've caught a few wild rainbows in Moraine Park as well. But if you do run into a 18 to 20 inch rainbow in the park, it's because it was stocked down at a private property and it swam its way up into the park.
Katie
And I wanted to comment on the Yellowstone cutthroats briefly, just because a lot of the cutthroats I see, like I can't, I can't visually differentiate them. You know, I have to like look up what kind of cutthroats found where I'm fishing. That's the one exception I found that the ones in at least Haiyaha, which is where I know I've caught them. They were like actually visibly different than some of the other ones. Just a very beefy and very silvery kind of cutthroat.
Joe
Yeah, they're a whole different looking fish. And they were stocked, according to Chris Kennedy, they were stocked in the, in the early 1900s as well, mainly to have people catch more fish. Along with those Yellowstone cutthroat that you can see are much different than the greenback is the Yampa Valley cutthroat. So there's another form of cutthroat they put in, the drainage of the lock and Lake of Glass. They're called the Blue Lineage Yampa Valley cutthroat.
Katie
Oh, I didn't know that.
Joe
Yeah. And so a lot of people assume that they're catching greenback cutthroat up in that valley. And that's actually, it's called the Yampa Valley cutthroat. And what I love about those fish is they have the blue, they're the blue lineage. So if you look at their fins, they have like a really bluish hue on them. And the difference between the fish in the lake and the stream is just dramatic. Like you'll catch a fish and not even realize that it's all the same species.
Katie
Huh. That's really interesting. Last thing I wanted to cover was like backcountry opportunities. I know we've kind of been touching on that throughout. I'm talking about like the different hikes to lakes. But if someone wants to go camp in the backcountry, there's a process. It's not just show up in the backcountry and throw a tent down. So if someone wants to do an overnight or a couple nights, what's a high-level overview of the process they would need to take and maybe some of the recommended gear and things like that to have a good trip in the park?
Joe
Yeah, well, just remember March 1st. That's a big date because March 1st is when they open up the lottery for getting your permits. So if you're planning on trying to do a fishing, a spot that's going to be good for fly fishing, you definitely want to be on that website ready to book your site. There's always opportunities to camp farther away, but if you're looking for a good campsite, you know, get on that website and be ready to book your spot. Some of the spots I'd be looking for, if I was spending a day or a couple of days in the park, people kind of shy away from the wild basin area. And I think that is mistake. I think going to Wild Basin and fishing the Thunder Lake area, fishing the Ouzel Lake, even better yet if you can get a site up by Pear Lake and then make your way back into the Hutchison Lake Valley. That is where I would be trying to go. Less crowds down in Wild Basin and the fishing is phenomenal. And the backcountry, like the wildflowers and all that is just great. Most people are going to be looking for their sites around the Fern Lake That's just a heavily traveled, heavily popular area. So, of course, the fishing is great back there with Fern Lake, Spruce, Loomis. You're just going to have trouble getting a campsite. And the crowds are going to be there even when you're there camping for the day. There'll be a lot of other campsites that are taken. So a good spot to go, but not one I'd... If I was going to go out for the more remote type trip, I would kind of stay away from that area. The Lawn Lake Trailhead has some good opportunities. If you're looking for a quick and easy campsite to hit the Golden Banner site up the Roaring Rivers, a great site. Then you could do a day trip back into Lawn Lake or Big Crystal if you want to catch some big fish.
Katie
And these are backcountry sites. Just to clarify, these aren't an established campsite that you're going to drive to. You have to book even the backcountry sites that you're going to camp in.
Joe
Right. Yeah, you have to go really, again, you can find campgrounds. That's different. These are backcountry campsites where you're going to hike in full packs. My recommendation, again, would be try to stay two nights if you can, if you're going to do some fishing, or make it in early and then set up your tent and fish for the day.
Katie
And how about gear and things to expect, weather, stuff like that, if you're going to be out there for a couple of days?
Joe
Yeah, so I usually don't start my backcountry camping until kind of about the same as the belly boating. Maybe mid-June would be an okay time to start camping, but you're going to find snow throughout the backcountry. People from Texas will come up and they'll do a guided trip with me and we'll hike to Fern Lake June 15th. There'll be snow everywhere and they're in disbelief. They'll even be partially frozen lake. Like, what's going on? I'm like, yeah, well, we're still melting.
Katie
11,000 feet.
Joe
Yeah, we're not. So I think it kind of shocks people at how late the season is up there compared to like, oh, in Texas, it's already 100 degrees. Yeah, well, you know, up here it still snowed like two weeks ago, like hard. So if you're going to plan a trip, I always tell people like start planning your trip for end of June. And again, if you can make it into a September time, September is an awesome time because a lot of the crowds are gone. Yeah, that's what I would recommend. And then as far as what you're going to bring and weather, I mean, you're always going to have afternoon showers. know this. So first thing I do when I get to the site is I set up my tent because I'm prepared for that afternoon shower that's going to come in and have everything packed away so when I can go fish and not have to worry about my campsite. And then just hopefully you're good at packing. Like, you know, you got to have bear canisters. That's something new in the past 10 years. You got to pack your food in, keep in a bear canister. And I highly recommend you don't overlook that. You'll get a ticket if you don't. And we've had quite a few black bears that will come in and destroy some tents if you're not cautious.
Katie
And I guess one other thing for gear that's not necessarily related to backcountry, but what weight rods and things like that should people bring? I mean, it's pretty standard, but just some people want it to be laid out for them. So what kind of fishing gear should people bring?
Joe
Yeah. So everyone's going to, you know, their first rod. I think you too. Everyone buys their traditional first rod. Oh, I got a nine foot five weight. And you're like, oh, cool. And my first time I was fishing, I was like, yeah, this is great. And you realize after fishing the park for a little bit like oh god this rod is just it's too big it's too heavy so you know I i push people to four weights and three weights quite a bit if you're really proficient at casting a light through a rod I think that's a great rod to use only thing I'll say is it's it can get a little bit worked over with wind you know if you ever have a windy day so I'm I'm just a big proponent of four weights even you know shorter four weights eight foot four weights one of my favorite rods is eight foot four. If you want just, if you only have the option of one rod, I'm going to tell people grab your eight and a half foot four weight rod. That's like the all around rod that'll work great throughout the park for river streams, lakes. So that's kind of the rod I like the best.
Katie
And there are some, some big fish in the lake, but I feel like most people aren't going to accidentally run into a giant fish without kind of going out of their way to get to them. You know, they're not in the, you're not going to pull off the side of the road, go, you know, cast your line to a little glacier creek and accidentally catch a monster. So there big fish that might benefit from having like a five weight, but they're probably going to be up at the kind of a more remote higher lakes or you're out in Moraine Park at night, like looking for a big brown trout, like you're not going to stumble your way into a fish that's going to break your four weight.
Joe
Right. No, if I'm fishing a Moraine Park and I'm purposely going after some big brown trout, I'm going to obviously use a different rod for that. But if I'm packing into a high mountain lake, even if I'm going back to catch some bigger fish at like Arrowhead Lake or something, I'm still going to bring my four weight. Like I'm not going to break a rod on that.
Katie
Right. I was just thinking when you were talking about how the backcountry season kind of overlaps with the belly boating season. Did I ever show you the picture of when I backpacked, but with a belly boat and it was the biggest pack I've ever carried in my life. The belly boats like strapped to the outside of it. I'll just show you after, after we get off, but I wish you could combine the two more easily because it'd be so fun to like backpack in somewhere, set up camp and then belly boat a lake while you're out there. Unfortunately, that's not highly advisable, but I did it once and it was not fun.
Joe
Well, there's some lakes that I have never belly boated that I think, man, if you could, because they're just so remote. So most of the times you're bellyboating, you're hiking in, you know, two to three miles. If you're going to do a six mile hike with a bellyboat, you've got some gusto. You know, if you could do a big crystal with a bellyboat, could you imagine? That would be epic.
Katie
Yeah. Well, if there's anything else that you think we should cover that we didn't, feel free to bring that up now. Otherwise, we can also plug your book and just talk about kind of how it's set up and kind of end with that. Like if someone buys your book, what are they going to find? What information do you have about each of the spots and all that?
Joe
Well, I'll just reiterate that if you're going to the park and you're like with your family or with your group and you don't have a lot of time to be very smart about where you're going to fit. fish, like be picky. There's so many spots to fish in the park. You don't want to hike into a lake that fishes so-so or might even be barren because you didn't do your research. So, you know, before you go to the park, I just recommend you do a little research on where you want to fish, how much time you have, and if it's limited time, not to plug the book, but I'll say, you know, Well, I'll just say like, I made sure when I wrote the book that it gives you as much information as it can because I don't want people to go, oh, I'll hike into Mills Lake. It'll be a great day fishing. If it was me and you only had one day, I would not be fishing Mills Lake. I might hike on further and fish Jewel, but that's kind of the information that I wanted people to have in the book as well. It's like, be picky about where you're going to fish and how much time you have.
Katie
And there's kind of something for everybody. You could pull your car off the side of the road and be fishing within five minutes. You could hike 12 miles back in and find some super room remote place that you're not going to see another soul. And there's everything in between. So you can basically cater it exactly how far you're willing to hike, exactly how much time you have. You can find something that fits the bill. 100%.
Joe
And there's no other national park like this. I mean, I'll say it one more time. It's crazy how much opportunity for fly fishing there is in Rocky Mountain National Park in that small little area. Like we have two valleys packed with lakes. Both of them have drainages that are fish amazing. And you'll go explore Yellowstone, go explore Yosemite, go explore Glacier. You're not going to find another park that has this many opportunities to fish, which is why, yeah, you might run into crowds, but if you're smart about it and you don't mind hiking a little bit, you're going to get away from a lot of people.
Katie
Well, one more time. What's the name of your book?
Joe
Yeah, it's Fly Fishing and Guiding in Rocky Mountain National Park. And there's two other books I was going to mention out there as well, not just mine. But the first book I ever read was Schweitzer's book. And it's just Fly Fishing and Rocky Mountain National Park. Cool book. It has a lot of cool illustrations. It's a little outdated, just because he hasn't done an update on it. So he released that in the mid-90s. And it's kind of a great, fun read. Probably the more in-depth book would be Haasman's book. He wrote a really good book, which I've gone through. And he's talked about every spot in the park where you can fish it. The only issue I have is, you know, it's a lot about where to go fish, not exactly how good the fishing is or how to fish it. So when I decided to take this project on, I wanted to make sure people had not just like where to fish, but how good the fishing is going to be, exactly what to use. So people aren't left out to dry. If you hike all the way back into a spot, you're like, wait a second. He said there's fish here. It's like I've been to spots where they say there's fish all throughout Colorado. You'll hike into a lake. Oh, they say there's fish here. You get there. You're like, I didn't catch anything. So I didn't want people to be surprised.
Katie
Yeah.
Joe
Which is why I put so much detail into the book. I wanted to make sure people knew exactly what to expect when they got to every spot to fish.
Katie
And if people wanted to book a trip and have you or somebody you know take them to one of these spots, where can they find that?
Joe
Yeah. So, you know, the shop is called Sasquatch Fly Fishing. We've been around since 96. They can shoot us an email at SasquatchFlyFishing at Gmail or, you know, go online, find our website. but if you're a pretty proficient fisherman you could pretty much go explore the park on your own you don't have to have a guide now if you want to know some secret spots that I don't hold back but I'm happy to take people to some spots just depending on what they want so just give me a shout shoot me an email and I'll touch base with you I could even give you some pretty good insights on where to go
Katie
sounds good well thanks Joe thanks for making the drive up here and cheers your morning Coke here
Joe
yeah Katie and I, I hope you know like how proud I am of you for doing all this. This is so great.
Katie
Thanks, Joe. I appreciate it. All right. That's a wrap. Thank you all for listening. If you want to find all the other episodes as well as show notes, you can find those on fishuntamed.com. You'll also find the contact link there if you want to reach out to me. And you can also find me on Instagram at fishuntamed. If you want to support the show, you can give it a follow on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcasting app. And if you'd like to leave a review, it would be greatly appreciated. But otherwise, thank you all again for listening. I'll be back here in two weeks with another episode. Take care, everybody.
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