It was early September when I had a need to fish an alpine lake.
I wasn’t sure how long this nice weather was going to hold, and I have seen places like Rawson Lake half frozen in mid-September before. I had a couple good ones in mind that hold big brookies, but I didn’t want to go in alone.
I called up my friend Geoff, who probably knows every alpine lake in the Canadian Rockies.
Geoff doesn’t fly-fish, but that fact has never bothered me. He is a knowledgeable spin-casting fisherman who has a great love for the outdoors and respect for the land.
I gave a suggestion on one lake that is close to the Lake Louise ski area, and he had one in mind by the Highwood Pass. After chatting for a while, we decided on a totally different lake deep in the Rockies that we have visited several times in the past.
It was an easy decision because we both know that the cutthroat trout grow to extreme sizes in the lake.
Last year we hooked some slabs that were 21 and 22 inches in length. Geoff was there years ago, when a friend of his landed a cutty that topped out at 27 inches. I believe it.
I have seen some large individuals cruising the shorelines in early October that would make your jaw drop.
It’s a long way into the lake, and we were doing it as a day trip. It is close to 30 km round trip, and the saving grace is that you can do part of it on a mountain bike. Apparently, way back in the 1930s, this particular lake was stocked with cutthroat trout. They are self-sustaining now, and the trout spawn in the outlet at the near end of the lake.
That part of the lake is now closed to angling to protect spawning and rearing fish.
Geoff took me around the west side because he wanted to show me a couple of his favourite fishing spots. He mentioned he liked it because you were able to sight the cutthroats in the shallows. That sounded just fine to me because I was in dry-fly mode, and I wanted to get one of these monsters on the surface.
Geoff wanted to see a cutty eat a dry too, and he helped me out by going to higher ground to spot any of the fish.
The plan was to use a clock-face as a reference and Geoff would give me the approximate distance.
Every now and then, Geoff would say one was cruising at one o’clock at maybe 40 feet out.
It was then up to me to get a back-cast through the trees behind me and then feather out a cast close to the trout. I got a good chance, and a plump 16-inch cutthroat came up under my dry fly, eyed it closely, and then slowly ate it from the surface.
I had a couple more takes, and one that crashed my travelling sedge-fly without me expecting it.
Geoff got the fish of the day when he cast his ‘five of diamonds’ into a deep drop off. It was close to 20 inches, and super fat with dark reds along the belly and the trademark red slash of the cutthroat trout.
