RMNP Trip Report!!! Pic Heavy.
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On Friday the 17th along with a few friends, Matt and Jake, I departed for RMNP. We left after I got off work, around 6pm and arrived in RMNP about 3:30am. That night we camped in a “KOA” style campground under the stars.
Now I am no professional photographer, I tried my hand at editing some of these pictures to make them look what I thought was better. Any feedback on the composition and nature of the pictures is appreciated.
The next morning we headed to the Big Thompson below Estes Park and caught a few rainbows and browns, no pictures as I left the camera in the truck. All in all the Big T below Estes is fairly normal for Colorado trout stream. Most fish were caught on a red midge larvae.
That evening we drove into the park and got our rears handed to us on the Fall river, heavily pressured, but saw a lot of fish.
We did however get a good view of some local Elk
That night we made camp at the Aspen Glen campground inside the park.
The Next morning we hiked up the Lawn Lake Trail to meet up with the Roaring River. This river mainly has Greenback Cutts, our primary target for the trip.
That is Jake on the left and Matt on the right with the river down below.
After a few hook ups and losses I finally landed my first Greenback of the trip.
And with some coaching Jake was next with his first Greenback and only his second trout ever!
They are beautiful fish!
Matt landed a few but he is in Nantucket Striper fishing and I don’t have access to his pictures.
We hiked back to the truck had lunch and headed the Southern end of the park to fish Glacier Creek. Non of us had ever caught a brookie and a local told us we would have a good chance there.
We all caught a few browns and Greenbacks but the brookies were eluding us. Until we found some beaver ponds and the fish gods smiled!
This was my first Brookie, taken on a flying ant.
Matt ended up catching one as well but Jake would have to wait for the following day to get his.In the morning we headed up the Big Thompson again, this time above Moraine Park. It wasn’t too long before we figured them out. Mostly browns were landed here, nothing big but they were a lot of fun.
The water:
The results:
Farther up stream we found another set of beaver ponds filled with eager brookies, and Jake finally landed his first. The lighting was terrible and I did not get any good pictures from that section of water. However slightly up stream I landed another brookie from a large eddy.
That brought an end to a great day. We had all landed every species in the east side of the park!
Tuesday Morning we got up early and began our back country portion of the trip. We made the 6mile hike up to Pear Lake, stopping at Finch Lake (fish less) for lunch.
We rolled into camp about 11:30am and set up and took a nap.
Then made the .3mile trek up to Pear Lake. This is a beautiful mountain lake.
The fishing was difficult but they were bigger and more colorful than any of the cutts we had seen so far.
After a good nights rest we took a bearing on the compass and began our way up the Hutcheson Lakes. The lower lake sits at 10,582ft.
And had a bounty of big healthy Greenbacks.
The stream between the lower and middle lakes:
We fished for a few hours before making our way up to the middle lakes at 11,096ft. We stopped for lunch just below the middle lake:
Looking down the valley:
Looking up towards the middle lakes:
The fish in the middle lakes were smaller and appeared to be at the tail end of the spawn. We only fished for cruisers and left spawning fish on the beds for the next trip.
Our goal was to make it to the high lake however mother nature had a different plan. A thunderstorm rolled in and we had to retreat below the tree line. That afternoon we rested up by the lower lake before heading back to camp.
All in all this was a phenomenal trip, the greenback cutts are one of the most beautiful fish I have ever caught, and I am sure there will be many more trips to get better acquainted.
Jake
Looks like a fantastic trip! Thanks for sharing… Doesnt look like it will happen for me this year, but I will make it to RMNP next year.
Jake,
Glad you could make it out this way! Great trip report and even better Greenback pictures, love those colors and we’ve been up there quite a bit lately ourselves and can’t wait to get on a few more if lucky~
Enjoyed your report and pics. Beautiful fish. I think those Green Back Cutthroat colors are my favorite of them all! Takes me back to when we summited Long’s Peak. Unfortunately, I wasn’t fly fishing then, so have been itching to go back and fly fish this time.
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