I take a fishing trip every year to southern Colorado in late May or early June. One of the best parts of the trip is the getting there.
The drive through northern Rio Arriba County in late spring takes me past bright green mountain pastures filled with healthy looking cattle. The grass has grown vigorously, fueled by moisture from the recently melted snowpack. Ranchers move their cattle from lower elevations onto the pasture to take advantage of the new growth.
As of May 25, the peaks of the rugged southern San Juan Mountains still had snow. The serviceberry and chokecherry trees were starting to bloom. Lakes that until just recently had been locked under a sheet of ice were now open, and I was hoping the trout would be hungry.
I have a routine and the first lake I tried, as usual, was Echo Canyon Reservoir, which is just outside of Pagosa Springs, Colo. It has stocked rainbow trout, bass, panfish and catfish.
Normally I would expect to catch a few bass and catfish along with a limit of trout, but that first evening trout were all I caught. This spring seemed to be colder than usual and the water probably was not warm enough yet for the bass and catfish to be active.
My guess is that the lake had been recently stocked, as several of the trout I caught were smaller than those I had caught in previous years. I released several and caught a few that were bigger holdovers from the previous year. The holdover fish have orange flesh from eating natural foods and taste better than the recently stocked trout.
The following afternoon I went to Shaw Lake, a place where I’ve been fishing for 40 years. I’ve caught the biggest rainbow trout, cutthroat trout and brook trout in my life from that lake. Shaw Lake holds cutthroat and brook trout but no longer has rainbow trout.
For several hours I had nary a nibble, but as the sun sank below the mountains, I started catching cutthroats. With three on the stringer, I was hoping for a brook trout to fill out my four-fish limit. The next trout I hooked shook its head vigorously and felt like a brookie, which it turned out to be. The fish from this lake feed on a rich diet of scuds and freshwater shrimp. Their meat resembles that of salmon and they are some of the best tasting fish I’ll catch all year.
The last lake I fished was Road Canyon Reservoir above the old mining town of Creede, Colo. It proved to be disappointing.
On two trips to Road Canyon last year I caught some beautiful rainbow trout of good size that were among the best tasting trout I’d ever caught. This year, however, I barely got a nibble. Several days later I was looking at the Colorado Division of Wildlife website and noticed Road Canyon had lost all of its trout in a winter kill. No wonder I didn’t catch anything.
Winter kills occur in shallow lakes. The lakes produce a lot of weed growth and that in turn produces healthy aquatic insect populations for the trout to feed on, which is why the trout grow so well. When a shallow lake freezes over and is covered with snow, however, it cuts off the supply of sunlight and carbon dioxide that the plants need to produce oxygen. The aquatic plants start dying, which uses up still more oxygen. Eventually, the oxygen content of the water drops to a point below what the fish need to survive and they suffocate. Deeper lakes seldom suffer from winter kills because they have a greater volume of water to store oxygen in.
Embon Lake and Horse Lake on the Jicarilla Apache reservation are two lakes that suffer from winter kills here in New Mexico.
A nonresident fishing license in Colorado is not cheap, especially after buying a New Mexico license. It will easily cost you $100 for season passes and the necessary habitat stamps for both states. But it is a worthwhile investment.
For us in Northern New Mexico, both licenses can provide some of the best fishing either states has to offer. One border-crossing trip I recommend is fishing the Rio de Los Pinos north of Tres Piedras in New Mexico and then go north to fish the Conejos River west and north of Antonito, Colo.
Remember that by buying a fishing license, you are helping provide funds that allow Game and Fish departments to stock fish and maintain the habitat you and your family enjoy.