A Quest for Golden Trout in Colorado

The backstory

Last summer, while my friend Ali and I were fishing for tiger trout, she asked me a seemingly insignificant question: "have you ever caught a golden trout?"

The answer was no, and I had never really put much more thought into it than that. But, that simple question led me down a rabbit hole that ended up being one of the most grueling and rewarding trips of my life, almost exactly a year later.

That night when I got home, I started digging around online to see if there were any mentions of golden trout in Colorado. There were lots of suggestions here and there of places that occasionally get a load of stocked golden trout, but none seemed that reliable or even that interesting in the first place.

Eventually, I stumbled across an article that piqued my interest. A group of guys had found a small (I mean very small) pocket of reproducing goldens that had been stocked in the 70s and 80s high in the backcountry of Colorado. This kind of adventure sounded more interesting.

After trying unsuccessfully to get the location of these golden trout, I decided to scour everything I could to try to find backcountry goldens the way this group had done. I checked blogs, stocking reports, books, and anything else I could get my hands on to try to pinpoint a place to go. After hours of digging, I had a place to go. And, it turned out to be the place I had been looking for from the beginning. The problem was, I had no idea if anything would still be there decades later. So, we decided to check.

The prep

The spot we found was deep in the backcountry. The closest trailhead I could find was 10 miles from our destination, with at least two of those miles off-trail on steep terrain. It would have to do.

I recruited Ali into this adventure, since she was the one who had originally asked the question. Our plan was to start the hike late Friday night, camp somewhere along the way, and finish the hike on Saturday. Then we'd have all of Sunday to fish, and Monday to get us back home.

Although we wanted to be optimistic, we knew the odds of finding luck with golden trout in the Colorado backcountry were pretty slim. We knew there was even a possibility that we wouldn't even make it the whole way up there considering the difficulty of the hike. Of course, we were still gung-ho.

Day 1: Unwelcome visitor

We started the hike at midnight on Friday after a late start and a long drive. Pumped up on caffeine and sporting a bottle of whiskey, we started our journey with heavy packs and a steep incline. We planned to skip the tent on the first night to give us a quick start the next day, and we hoped to make it about three miles in.

After a mile or so of hiking, we crested a hill in the middle of an open meadow. As soon as we looked over, my headlamp caught the distinct glow of a pair of eyes staring at us from the edge of the trees.

Thinking it was a bear, we started to yell, wave our lights, and throw our hands in the air as we had done in the past. Unlike the past, however, these eyes didn't turn and run. They started moving toward us.

In full-blown panic mode, we fumbled around my pack for mace while keeping our eyes on its eyes and continuing to yell. Eventually, it stopped approaching and starting circling around onto the trail ahead of us, still watching. After another minute, it disappeared. Unsure how to proceed, we decided the best thing to do was just pitch our tent and hope for the best. Obviously we lived, so I guess it worked.

Day 2: Death Hike

The next day was solely comprised of what I can only refer to as possibly the hardest hike I've ever put myself through. With many miles to go, we were ready to go and excited to get fishing. The first few miles, although hot, were nothing crazy and we made decent time.

Things started to slow down at the last fork in the trail we were supposed to hit. After passing it by about a half mile before realizing we missed it (side note, we found out later that we missed it because it was basically non-existent), we decided it would be better to bushwhack our way over to where we needed to be rather than backtrack. Looking back, this was still the right call considering the "trail" would have been a bushwhack too.

Once we got back on track, it was time to start the previously-scheduled bushwhacking portion of the hike. The quick progress we made at the start was severely offset by the sub-1 mph pace we set through this stretch.

Needless to say, we got in late. Too late to find fish, and far too late to do anything but pump water and promptly fall asleep to the sound of nearby coyotes and a vicious storm that pounded our tent all night.

Day 3: Searching for Gold

The next morning, we were up bright and early for a hot chocolate oatmeal breakfast and eager talk about what we may find that day. We set out, armed with the only fly one usually needs at altitude, a Parachute Adams. About a half-mile from camp, we started looking for any signs of fish. We knew that there weren't supposed to be any other species in the area, so if we saw even a single fish, we could assume it was one of the goldens stocked back in the day.

We kept going and kept casting in any spot that looked like it should hold fish, with no luck. Then suddenly, we saw a trout spook as we walked past and both immediately screamed. We kept walking to let the area settle and see what else we could find.

After seeing nothing else for the next 15 minutes, we returned to the spot with the fish. As I crept up, I could see him back in the same spot, slowly cruising. I took a single cast, and in what seemed like slow motion, the fish immediately turned and calmly rose to sip my fly. I set the hook and Ali promptly threw all her gear to the ground and came running.

Sure enough, after many grueling miles and thinking we had struck out after not seeing any fish upon arriving, we had found them. The fish I landed turned out to be a beautiful and healthy golden trout. This was far and away the most rewarding and memorable fish of my life. Never have I put more effort into a single fish that most people wouldn't bat an eyelash at.

Ali caught one shortly after, and I landed one more before breaking a fly off on a big one. We called it a day in light of an approaching storm and spent the rest of the day reeling from what had just happened.

Day 4: Wrap Up

We wanted to hit the golden spot one more time before making the death hike back to the car. We altered our exit route to pass by the fish and rigged our rods. After a few minutes of seemingly barren waters, I spotted a nice fish. I took a single cast, hooked, and landed it. As though it were meant to be, it was the same big one that had escaped with my fly the day before.

It was satisfying to get my fly back, and to set that beast free without a hook in its mouth. And just like that, all the fish disappeared. Just as quickly as they had all shown up before, they were gone, as though it was time for us to leave. Feeling more than satisfied, we set off for home.

We tried to make it to the trail we had missed on the way in, but it turned out to be just as much of a bushwhack as having no trail at all. Eventually, we made it back, still on a high from everything that had happened the past two days. It was one of the hardest, most trying, and awesome experiences of my life.

Note: Please do not ask me where this was. While a now-buddy of mine wrote the blog post that inspired me to go, I did not know him at the time and he did not share a lick of info with me on how to get there. Not even a general area. A full 100% of the info I used to find this spot is publicly available, and I encourage you to dive into the resources. I don't say this out of malice or pride, but because this is a very special area that would be destroyed if more than just those willing to research made it there.