Courtesy of John Gierach:

I shudder to think of all the big trout I've spooked out of the shallows of alpine lakes by just charging up to the bank or into the water, eager to fish and elated at having the heavy pack off my back and the long walk over. I can close my eyes and picture their long, dark shapes darting for deep water, never to be seen again.

I've gotten better about that in recent years, but I still do it, especially on lakes that I think I know well. Now, when I top the last ridge or round the last bend in the trail, I tell myself,"Okay, just relax and watch."

Fly Fishing in the High Lakes Towering mountains add drama to the relaxing sport of flyfishing. Wading in and starting to fish too soon is the most common mistake fishermen make on high country lakes, or any other trout water for that matter. There are, naturally, times when you'll want to slog out up to your armpits and work the deep water, but that usually is the last think you should try, not the first. Let's say you've just arrived at an alpine or high country lake. It doesn't matter if you've fished it many times before or if this is the first time-step one is to deposit the pack well back from the bank and, from a good distance, survey the water. It's difficult to describe the typical high country lake because they are all unique. But for the purposes of illustration, let's say this one is fairly small (no more than a few acres), has a rocky bottom, a relatively shallow shelf running at least part of the way around the lake, and a deeper hole more or less in the middle. It may also have a stream inlet and an outlet where the stream gathers itself together and continues downhill. There may or may not be large, exposed rocks, weed beds, deadfall trees, and other structures.

The surface of the lake may be peppered with rises-always a welcome and beautiful sight-but let's say you can't tell just by looking at it where the fish are or even if any are there at all.

The first thing to do is scout the shallow water near the bank. I like to patrol the shoreline for a while, staying, as far back as possible while still being able to see into the water trying to spot cruising fish.

The shallow water of a high lake (what's known as the littoral zone) is where most of the aquatic insects live and where most of the windblown terrestrial bugs are deposited. Therefore, it is logically the most likely place for fish to be feeding. You'll sometimes see single fish (the biggest ones are often solitary), but many high lake fish tend to cruise around in loose schools, making them easier to spot. Cutthroats, rainbows, and grayling are the most likely to school, brookies almost never.

How much of an area a pod of cruising fish will cover depends on any number of variables, not the least of which I like to think of as their current mood, but if insects are concentrated in a certain area (a hatch of caddis flies, a weed bed full of freshwater shrimp, or a fall of flying ants, for instance), the most active fish will probably stay in a single bay or inlet.

Sometimes they'll work erratically, milling around on a shelf for a while and then disappearing into deep water, only to turn up again in a few minutes, sometimes in the same place, sometimes in another. On rare occasions, I've seen loose schools of fish cruise all the way around a lake, taking as long as an hour and a half to make the circuit of a ten-acre body of water. I haven't seen this often enough to make a real judgment, but my guess is that it happens when very little food is in or on the water.

This tactic of spotting fish in the shallows presupposes two things: clear, still water and a good pair of polarized sunglasses to cut the glare. The way some polarized glasses are marketed these days makes them look like gadgets, but they're not-they're among the most valuable pieces of gear a lake fisherman can own. If the light is wrong or the wind has put a chop on the water, you can still spot fish, but it's a lot more difficult.

The point here is, always work the shallow water first. . . Rises, boils, and wakes on the surface will betray the presence of fish, but unless there are a lot of insects on top, cruising fish tend to rise only sporadically to the odd bug. You may also find that it's the smaller fish who rise freely to the surface while cruising in search of food, while the larger ones stay deep, looking for easier prey. Rises are always an encouraging sign, but don't get carried away and go right to the dry fly. That's an excellent way to catch a lot of small fish and no big ones.

Also keep in mind that trout are well camouflaged when seen from above, and just because you don't spot them, even under ideal conditions, doesn't mean that they aren't there. One of those big trout that I remember spooking came from a shallow bay that I'd studied carefully for a good twenty minutes and then waded into after having decided there were no fish close to shore. The fish was about an eighteen-inch brookie, and he'd been there the whole time. He was holding in about a foot and a half of water, and I almost stepped on him. I also never saw him again. Apparently, he'd just been sitting there, and that was the main problem. When you spot a, trout, you see a little movement rather than a whole fish. Once you've seen the first one, others will often materialize in the same area.

The point here is, always work the shallow water first, no matter how sterile it looks or how tempting the dark water over the dropoff looks. If conditions permit, that is, if you're not up against a stand of trees or a rock cliff, start casting from a position well back from the bank and work your way out. If you were right and no fish were there, you'll only waste ten or fifteen minutes. If you were wrong, you may be greeted by the wonderful sight of a trout materializing out of the shadows on the bottom, heading for your fly. That only needs to happen a time or two before the lesson is learned.

Of course, the first cast may spook fish that you didn't see, and you'll be greeted with the not-so-wonderful sight of trout fleeing in terror. That's when the wise fisherman laughs at himself and learns the lesson anyway.

When working the shallows for cruising fish, the best results tend to come if you can drop the fly well ahead of the fish, let it sink down to slightly below the level at which the trout is moving, then start a slow retrieve right in front of the trout's nose. Even if he's never seen anything like it before (and if it's a Zug Bug, there's a good chance of that), he may well take it out of curiosity and because it's just too easy. The take can be impressively casual.

Naturally, the ideal conditions required for this tactic to work (excellent visibility, fish that don't veer off at the last minute, and so on) don't always come together on a regular basis, but some variation of this tactic is usually the most consistent way to take cruising fish in shallow water. Since trout and grayling often cruise around the shallows in apparently random patterns, you'll Often find yourself having to drop the fly only a foot or so in front of them,, and this is where I prefer a smaller fly that makes less of a splash when it hits the water. At times the fish don't seem to mind a fly plopping onto the surface-sometimes they'll even be attracted by it-but it's usually fair to assume they won't like it very much, and you should try to cast as far ahead as possible. When the visibility is poor, you're reduced to using the same tactic blind. You won't know if you" re casting to a spot where there are no fish at the moment or are dropping the fly right on top of them.

A refreshing mountain lake. Happily, the conditions that will most often limit visibility in shallow water-a breeze, a cloudy day, or a light spatter of rain-will tend to make the fish a bit less spooky. It sounds like it might even out but, in my book at least, it doesn't. I'll take clouds and wind over excellent visibility anytime. The speed and style of your retrieve will have as much to do with your success as any other factor, including pattern. The answer may be a slow, crawling hand twist retrieve, a fast swimming strip, or something in between. As a general rule, trout that are cruising, lazily seem to be more interested in the slow crawl, while those that are darting around chasing bugs want a faster strip. The fly should act more or less like the trout because the trout are probably acting like the real bugs. When in doubt, start off slowly and gently-you'll be less likely to spook the fish.

If no fish are working the shallows, try at any stream inlet or outlet-anywhere there's a current. The inlet of a healthy stream will usually be pumping in a small but steady supply of aquatic bugs, and it's always possible there will be a full-blown hatch going on, in which case the insects will be concentrated on the area of the lake right at the inlet. If the bugs are just filtering in a few at a time, you may find only small fish working the inlet, but if there are good numbers of bugs, then the larger fish may well move in. Also, a little hatch that doesn't amount to much on the stream can really turn into something when the bugs start to collect at the lake inlet.

A good strong outlet can serve almost the same purpose, collecting the floating insects from the surface of the lake and delivering them, in a gentle current, to the waiting fish.

I got into an interesting situation like that a few years ago on a cutthroat lake. The only place fish were working was at the outlet, and only in a little twenty-by-thirty-foot piece of water where the current really started to pick up. The water was glass-smooth until the last second when it went over a little shoulder-high falls into the creek. My partner and I couldn't see a thing on the water, not even a speck, but the trout-maybe twenty fish altogether-were rising steadily. We could see the fish pretty clearly in the smooth water, and they were darting around some, not just holding in one spot. We took that to mean they were very interested in what was on the surface but there weren't a lot of bugs, whatever they were. The fact that we could see absolutely nothing on the surface from a good vantage point under almost perfect conditions meant the bugs were either flush floating (like a mayfly spinner) or very small (like midges) or both.

It was a one-man spot, so we flipped a coin and my friend took his turn. He also took a fish on the third cast with a #18 black deer hair beetle. I don't carry that pattern, so when my turn came I tried a #18 spinner and took a fish.

Between us we took a dozen fish from that spot (resting it for a few minutes now and then), and we were successful with five different patterns. I don't think that's too unusual, and I've seen it a number of times. It's rare to find a concentration of a single kind of insect at an outlet. I almost always use a small, low-floating fly in a situation like that with the smooth, clear water and all, but someday I'll get up the nerve to try a #10 Royal Humpy, just to see if it works.

If it's spawning time, the fish may be concentrated at the inlets, the outlets, or both. It's hard to resist trying to hook one or two fish at a time like this, if only to have a look at their bright, spawning colors. But for obvious reasons, it's best to leave spawning fish alone or, at the very least, to release any you may catch.

Another good place to try is around any structures that provide cover. Even when trout aren't feeding, they will often hang out around jumbles of rock, sunken brush, weed beds and the like, and they generally won't be too lazy to grab the odd nymph that happens by. Trout may also be cruising lazily in the neighborhood of structures, giving the angler the advantage of having his fish confined to a relatively small area. Always keep an eye on offshore structures for the quiet, solitary riser.

But let's assume you've scouted the shallows, worked the stream inlets and outlets, and cast to the offshore structures with no success. An hour or two has gone by and it's possible that things have changed-things do change on high lakes, often and quickly-but chances are you're finally ready to work the deep water over the dropoff shelf.

You're looking for fish that are either cruising the deeper water or who are just suspended, waiting for the proper weather, time of day, a bug hatch, or whatever it is that trout wait for at such times. In any case, the best tactic is to wade out until you can reach the deep water with an easy cast and start searching with a weighted nymph. It's best to start relatively shallow and work deeper, using a slow retrieve first and then a faster one. The sharpest dropoffs are often the best, but the gentle slopes can be good too. If there are different kinds of habitat, work one for a reasonable amount of time-until you're satisfied that if fish are there, they've seen your fly-then try the other. If there's a weed bed on an otherwise rocky bottom, try that first. A steep dropoff near a stream inlet is also a good shot.

So far, we've been fishing with a floating line and a weighted nymph on a long leader. For deeper water you can add a split shot or two to your leader for greater depth, but a rig like that is horrible to try and cast any distance. Better yet, go to a sink-tip line. A sink-tip will go down faster than even a weighted nymph, so it's best to use a short leader to keep the fly as deep as the line-maybe even as short as two feet.

There are always exceptions in trout fishing  that's why we stay interested. I like a fairly large nymph for this kind Of work, a size 10 or 12, and I try not to change patterns or sizes until I've given the fly I'm using every chance to produce. I'm convinced that in most high lake situations it's not the specific fly pattern that makes the difference, but where and how it's fished.

This kind of fishing is slow, even tedious, if you're not in the mood for it, but it can sometimes yield big fish (though seldom on a regular basis). If you decide to take a pass on this, take a nap, or a lunch break and wait for something more exciting to happen, I'll forgive you.

Now, having made a case for fishing nondescript wet flies over nonselective trout in the high lakes, I'll devote some space to the exceptions. There are always exceptions in trout fishing  that's why

Selectivity usually happens when a lot of one kind of insect is available and, though this is the exception on most high country lakes, it's far from unheard of. What insects and other food forms you find in a mountain lake will depend on dozens of factors including water chemistry, bottom composition, elevation, mean summer water temperatures, vegetation, and so on. Midges are common, as are mayflies, caddis flies, and freshwater shrimp (scuds), and you may even find damsel and dragonflies, aquatic beetles, water fleas, and leeches.

I know of a lake (a small pond, really) in Colorado's Roosevelt National Forest that gives up good hatches of various species of midges, mayflies, and caddis which are backed up by large numbers of dragonfly and damselfly nymphs and aquatic beetles. It seems more like a bass pond than a trout lake-it's that rich-but it's above 10,000 feet. The trout are typically opportunistic when the insect activity is slow, but during heavy hatches and spinner falls (which are common through midsummer and into the fall), they can become maddeningly selective. The brook trout, as you'd expect, are quite large. I think I know of a five-pounder that came out of that lake, but the man who caught it has never really admitted that was the place. Fair enough.

When you come on selectively rising fish in a high lake, regardless of the hatch or the pattern you're using, you'll be faced with the same problem you had with visible cruisers in shallow water: you have to put the fly where the fish is going to be, not where he just was. Leading fish can be difficult when you can see them, but when you're dealing only with rise forms, it can be downright frustrating. However, if you spot the rise of a big fish you think is worth singling out from the crowd, give a little time to figuring out what his pattern is, then lead him with your cast and an educated guess. If all else fails, cast two feet to one side or the other of a good rise and hope he's going in that direction.

If you're like me, you'll guess wrong better than 50 percent of the time.

A number of very competent high lake anglers will tell you that streamers don't work in these waters because the trout aren't likely to eat other fish and because there are no forage fish anyway. But I've caught too many high lake fish on streamers to leave them out of this discussion. Most were brookies, some were rainbows, and a few were even cutthroats. In fact, fishing a streamer is sometimes a good way to eliminate the little fish and hook some of the big ones.

Last summer I was on a small lake, the smaller of two, up in the Indian Peaks Wilderness Area. It was a perfect cutthroat day-overcast, cold, with a fitful breeze - and trout were rising all over the lake. My two partners and I were connecting well, using a variety of smallish wet flies, but all we were getting were little cutthroats, from seven inches on down. I knew there were good fish in the lake and the weather was ideal, so I kept working that wet fly and getting little trout.

Finally I waded out near the dropoff, replaced my wet fly with about a #8 Squirrel Tail Streamer, and started working the edge of the dark water. After only a few casts I felt a good strike, the kind where you can really feel the weight of the fish. He started into a strong, steady run, and all of a sudden the weight got very heavy and very dead: a rock.

The weather in the high country can change at a moment's notice. . . Since I'd lost my fly anyway, I went ahead and put on a heavier leader and another streamer, and within the next half hour I landed a sixteen-inch brookie and a fifteen-inch cutt. Those were the only good fish I landed that afternoon, but they were enough to make the day a success, and I'm convinced I'd never have hooked them except on the streamer.

I typically try a streamer in one of two situations: when I'm taking fish with such regularity that I feel confident to experiment or try to single out the larger ones, or when I'm doing so badly that desperation has set in. They have often worked at both times.

Streamers seem to be most effective out near the dropoff or in deep water, and medium to small flies-sizes 6 or 8, sometimes as small as a #12-seem best. I fish them pretty much the same way I fish wet flies and nymphs except that I usually start with a little faster retrieve.

The weather in the high country can change at a moment's notice, and these changes exert a strong influence on insect and fish behavior. Everyone, myself included, likes to be up in the mountains on a bright, warm, sunny day, and the fish will certainly feed at these times. I've found, however (and many good fishermen concur), that the best days are overcast and cool, and a breeze or even a drizzling rain or snowfall can make for excellent conditions. As a friend of mine puts it,"hypothermia and cutthroats go together." I don't keep a detailed fishing log, but I'd guess that I've taken a good 80 percent of my larger high lake fish under conditions that, in another context, I'd call "bad weather." I believe this is because the low light and the cover of a ruffled surface make the fish, especially the larger ones, more confident about exposing themselves. You will, naturally, have to find your own happy medium between getting soaked and frozen-something that can be dangerous, even fatal when you're far out in the backcountry-and fishing at what is often the best time.

Wind can be both a blessing and a curse on a mountain lake. A stiff breeze can make casting a chore, and long casts can be almost impossible if you're facing into the wind. At the same time, a wind can ruffle the water nicely, trap hatching insects on the surface, and even deposit terrestrials that wouldn't be there otherwise.

Trout and grayling will sometimes decline to feed right on the surface when it's windy, probably because the bugs are hard to see on the choppy surface. But they will often begin to rise well when, and if, the wind dies down. In some cases, especially when Cutts are involved, they'll keep rising to a choppy surface, but you just won't be able to see them.

Like fishing in a drizzle, fishing on a windy day will require you to put yourself in the most uncomfortable position. If the wind is blowing out of the northwest, then the leeward side of the lake (the northwest side) is where the casting is easiest. Unfortunately, most of the insects and fish will collect on the windward side (the southeast in this case), and that's where you should be fishing-right into the wind.

The high mountain lakes are best described as unpredictable and paradoxical. You can come on a high lake at mid-morning and find no indication whatever that there's a single bug or fish in it and then, an hour later, be fishing to hundreds of trout rising to a multiple hatch of midges, caddis, and mayflies. You may fish a lake four times and come to believe that it holds nothing but six-inch cutts and then, on the fifth trip, hook a five-pound brookie, or, just as likely, spook him in the shallows because you've gotten too casual, thinking you know all there is to know about the place. You'll never know it all, and that's where the fascination comes from.

Note: This article was copy and pasted from GORP.com, a few alterations were made, GORP.com got this article from the book Fly Fishing the High Country by John Gierach.

Article Copyright by Pruett Publishing