A Lake With No Name

On the first part of the journey, I was looking at all the life. There were plants and birds. and rocks and things. There was sand and hills and rings. The first thing I met, was a fly with a buzz. And the sky, with no clouds. The heat was hot, and the ground was dry, but the air was full of sound...

The entire walk in (the first part of my journey) I had this America song stuck in my head. It was early in the morning and the only other soul on the mountain was a bow hunter making his way back down. The three of us, heads down, kept up the pace. The first miles where to be on trail, but from there our travels took us on our own. Off trail. Bushwhacking up to a high-elevation lake that I had never fished before...and never heard of. I had not heard of any reports from the lake because it had no name. It was on most maps, but just that. There. A dab of blue ink surrounded by lots of thin black contours.

You see I've been through the desert on a horse with no name...

As alluring as it sounds, I don't necessarily trust a lake with no name. Not a high lake that takes the good part of a day to get to and may or may not hold trout. Or even really be there. It could have just been a cartographers typo or fabulous practical joke. I don't mind little ditches in town or warm-water ponds behind barns that are too small and private to warrant a name. They will have a carp or a few bluegill, at least. If not, oh well. Drive on down the road to something familiar. But high lakes. With no names. Like guys with no names. Don't trust them. He goes by Butch. What's his real name? Dunno...just calls himself Butch. Good with an ax, though...

Joe had promised there at least used to be trout up there. Good trout. Big cutthroat. Back in the day. What does that mean, exactly? How long ago? Five years, maybe? Oh...that's not so bad. Now how far off trail is this again? There did turn out to be fish, the same big cuts Joe had seen before. And there was no trail in, and no sign of other fishermen--or climbers, or hikers. Just the one bow hunter. So it ended up being perfect and totally worth it...which, really, doesn't take that much. But the trout did not show themselves at first. It was many hours after we arrived before the first rise was spotted. Later, as we were picking our way down the scree fields on our way back to civilization, Joe admitted to Erin and I that for awhile he was afraid something bad had happened and there truly were no more trout. Winter kill, or something. But Joe (and Erin, too, for that matter) persisted and never gave up hope that it was weather or time of day keeping the trout down deep and that given just the right turn of events a big, red-bellied cutthroat would point its nose at the surface and attack your fly. Which is exactly what did happen and it was fitting that it was Joe's fly being targeted. Because he had been the one keeping on. Not me...I tapped out early in the second round. Poor conditioning? After a few hours of casting into this lake with no name and not trusting it and not seeing hide nor hair of a trout (or should I say skin nor scale?) I got distracted by the the boletus mushrooms and the bouldering possibilities for those of my friends looking for new problems. Like the little boy I once was being distracted by the butterflies and pretty rocks when Dad wanted me paying attention to the end of my catfish pole.

So, I did feel a bit silly and juvinlie when, out of the deep blue, big cutthroat began to rise...

Choking Down A Dud

You can have the best intelligence... delicious rumors of un-pressured trout from the most reliable of sources. You can check the charts...plan the best route in and have a perfect plan. But sometimes you can drop a 60mm mortar round right into the fire ring of the enemy camp and nothing happens. Dud. The fish are there, but they ain't eatin'...no big boom. Just one big dud. So you suck it up, strap on the ruck, tell the dog it ain't his fault and you hike your sorry ass back across the miles of scree and out of the mountains. Back to the cabin for a cold beer, because they do make choking down a dud just a tad bit easier...

Heartbreak Ridge (Or: Thank God for Rodgers Pass)

Joe Novosad, Erin Block and I met at the mouth of Moffat Tunnel at 6:30 in the morning with full rucks and good intentions. It was threatening to be another scorcher down below, so we planned to spend the day above 11,000 feet and maybe harass the cutthroat trout in Heart Lake. But the two hour walk up the side of the continental divide does not make for a guarantee of success, as it should. Heart Lake holds some big fish, some of the cutthroat up in the 18 to 20-inch range. But Heart don't give it up easy. The three of us (oh, and Banjo, too) gave it the old college try, the idiot's attempt, the optimist's whirl and even the fisherman's go. But nope. Just Chuck Testa. Shut down like a clown. Between the three of us we could fool only two fish all day long. Crushing. But there was always that smaller lake right on the other side of this misery and the now-'till-forever Heartbreak Ridge. Rodgers Pass Lake. A small lake that gets bypassed on the way up to glory and the promise of big trout. That lake has a bunch of tiny guys, people say. Heart Lake is where it's at! But we had no choice...if we were to salvage the day and our pride. If we were going to somehow justify the four hours of volunteer labor of carting a ruck and rod up and down a mountain...we we going to have to make it up in small fish. But quantity. What we found, however were hundreds of 12 to 15-inch cutthroat slashing at big midges on the surface of the water. The three of us stayed well past the hour we intended to ruck-up and leave.

Left Hand Turns (Or: Thoughts on Dad, Daniel Boone, The Army, Organized Religion, Politics, Finding One's Way and Brook Trout in Left Hand Reservoir)

I learned from my father how to find my way in the woods. Said another way; my dad showed me how to be lost comfortably. We would spend weeks deep in untraveled National Forests every deer season with bows in hand like a small family band of Merry Men...and mom. "How can you ever be lost," my father would say, "When you want to be right where you are?" I have taken his reasoning and adapted it into a life's mantra of sorts. The lesson being something along the lines of home is were you hang your hat...or better yet, your back yard is the bottom of your boots. Because of these influences of my father I have been able to pick up and move or completely dismantle my existing life and take great gambles on something new. Or somewhere. Or someone. But, in hindsight (as my father has firm roots and has always been there for his family) I believe he may have just been misquoting Daniel Boone. I have never been lost, but I will admit to being confused for several weeks.

It wasn't until I was older and in the Army that I learned to navigate the land properly. An infantry soldier walking point has a platoon or even a company spread out behind him relying on his skills and compass function. (This was before any reliable GPS units found their way into the military.) And he has to know on a map where he is...sometimes just to avoid lying to a battalion commander over the radio, but other times to act as the forward observer for an A-10 pilot with an itchy trigger finger.

The most difficult part of always knowing where you are is the ability to walk in a straight line. You may plot a straight route and you may never look away from the fine needle hovering over that moment's magic number. 144 degrees...for 400 meters. But you still have to walk that straight line. Just as it is easy to be moral and riotous standing behind a lectern with a clean robe and full belly before a flock happily marinating in ideals and air conditioning, it is easy to have an unwavering stride on a sidewalk. Add rocks and trees and mountains and your straight line becomes crooked. Blend reality into the recipe and watch the fairytale curdle. Choose one from the flock and follow them out past the big wooden doors...back out into the heat and the real world. Throw that honey badger into the happy nest of bees. Like hunger in The Heart of Darkness which fear can not stand up to...and which turns principles into 
less 
than 
chaff 
in
 a
 breeze. Introduce adversity and obstacle and watch things get interesting--because every protagonist must have the conflict or the story falls flat. And remember...that honey badger just doesn't give a shit!

So, it was somewhere in Georgia or North Carolina on an Army land navigation coarse that I learned to maintain direction despite rocks and trees and unexploded ordnance. It came down to left hand turns. It is instinctual for a right-handed soldier to always veer right to avoid an obstacle, be it a tree or large hunk of metal with fins protruding ominously from the red mud and poison oak. Choosing a path around something and then immediately maintaining the course is how we get though our lives as well our enlistments. The problem is we rarely return fully. Every argument alters a marriage. Every heavy-weight punch to the temple makes you more likely to think a face tattoo is a good idea. Just as every right button hook around a Georgia pine puts you another degree or two off asthmus and away from the way point. And these way points, like truth or salvation or happiness or even just cash money, are very thin metal pickets placed in really thick parts of the forest. So, go right a few times the camouflaged instructors instructed...and then go the other way a few times around. It will most likely even out in the end.

We met our friend on the fisherman's trail

We were headed to where he had been

He was coming from where we where headed

He had the stories and we had the dreams

Our faces where bright and his very nearly blue

Any luck up high? Brookies abound? 

Nope...just iced up guides

Then with peppered chips, cheese and elk exchanged

Our forces bound and like when the major asked the last Mohican

There is a war on. How is it you are heading west?

We and our fishing friend faced north and, real sudden-like

Turned left.

Brainard Lake (Brookies & Moose)

Brainard lake has finally become a fun lake to fish again. Today we discovered that the road in past the pay gates is still closed until sometime about mid-June, so there are just hikers maybe and a token other fly fisherman around...even on a Sunday. (And one poor tenkara dude who stood on the bank dangling with his stick and watched us casting and catching trout.) A dark cloud would roll over every ten minutes and drizzle all over the lake, but then the sun would immediately pop around a soft corner and the lake would come alive with midges, caddis and rise forms. Once every hour or so the lighting and rain would chase us back up onto the bank amongst the shelter of trees. We would wait it out and be right back at it.

The state has apparently not stocked the usual doses of pale-sided cuts in Brainard for a couple of years in a row, so the wild brook trout have no more competition...and they have begun to take advantage of the situation. The average fish we caught was a very solid 12 to 13 inches and fat.

Woodland Lake Debacle

Report Contributed by Joshua Fortenbaugh

We hiked in Saturday the 19th and eventually found ourselves on a less than established path through snow, runoff, and scree. The normally 4-5 mile, 2-3 hour hike turned into a 6+ mile, 5 hour slog uphill into increasingly brutal weather. We stopped and set up my trusty 12x12 behemoth of a tarp in the shelter of some pines and drank a few beers. Set up our 3 season tents in some decidedly 4 season weather and got out the topo map. Determined that we were on a little ridge just above 11,000 feet between Skyscraper and Woodland. Both lakes were frozen, and I was less than motivated. I peeked at the turnoff to Lost Lake on the way back, but decided that a beer and a slice of pizza at Backcountry were what we really needed.

But...

Last weekend, took my girl out fishing. Her first time with a fly rod. Up to Crater Lakes. Eager little brookies. Lots of wind. Beer in the snow. We're going back for more.

(Send in your fishing reports! jayzimangler@yahoo.com)