Fishing Remote Colorado Reservoirs: Gear, Access, and Success

Written By Paul Young

Remote hunting and fishing locations are often overlooked due to their distance from home, a clean bathroom, or even a decent meal. We should pay more attention to these remote locations due to their limited access and distance because they often host a bountiful quantity of trophy quality fish.

We recently visited Smith Reservoir in Blanca, Colorado. This reservoir boasts 83 acres of surface area and has beautiful landscapes surrounding the lake as it sits at the base of Blanca Mountain. Due to the recent drought in this portion of the state, the reservoir has not had much water in it during the fall and has even dried up in recent years. The winter of 2016-2017 was a drought killing year, which provided record snowfall in the southern portion of Colorado. This made new habitat available for the lake trout within the reservoir.

With new habitat and the lake’s plentiful number of leeches for food, lake trout can grow in excess of a half inch a month, according to Colorado Parks and Wildlife, fish biologist. When fish are stocked in the lake at 10 inches in length in late fall, come early spring, those 10-inch lakers can be upwards of 13-14 inches already, making even a small catch a big catch!

So why make the drive to these remote places? With the remote nature of this lake, we only saw a handful of people and boats on the lake all weekend. Being that it was the 4^th of July, we expected large crowds and congestion on the lake. Neither of which happened. Being as it was a haul for us, we only took our kayaks and the camper, rather than hauling the boat down there.

I was unsure of my decision at first, but once I got to know the subsurface structure my approach to catching big lakers changed quickly. I started off fishing close to weed patches that are normally shallow water. With the heavy snowfall this winter, these areas of the lake were nearly 6-8 feet deep. I figured the trout would take sanctuary in the weed patches since the leeches would likely do the same. I started with some rooster tail variations and had no luck.

As the day got warmer, I knew I needed to head to deeper water. Not having the boat was turning out to be a detriment at this point, but I was determined to be successful. Using an old-fashioned trolling technique, I rigged up a bottom bouncer, equipped with a spoon, deathroll hook and a live night crawler. I let out about 30 feet of line and paddled my way across the shelf where I figured the trout would be. Within minutes I had my first fish. Although small to some, this was a nice trout in my opinion, considering the size of the lake and my technique. I continued to work the shelf and caught a few more.

Weather was rolling in, so I headed to camp for sanctuary, as the winds in this area could leave a motor less paddler, stranded indefinitely. Soon after the storm passed, I rigged back up and decided to hit close to the weed patches I was fishing earlier. I knew the big ones had to be around. I used the same setup, and it didn’t take long before I caught a nice 4.5lb lake trout.

I paddled out to the far end of the lake and decided to troll the entire shelf. It wasn’t long before I had another monster lake trout on the line. This was a 5lb tout that put on a fight like a deep lake muskie. It took me about 10 minutes to reel this big boy in. He weighed in at 5lbs and measured 26 inches long. He barely fit into the net that I had on my kayak (see picture).

Overall I had a blast of a day, fished about 4 hours and caught half a dozen really nice lake trout. We kept one of the big ones to eat. See our recipe section for lake trout recipes on the smoker. We can’t wait to reap the benefits of the outdoors.

The gear we used on this trip is as follows:

• Cabelas Bulk Bottom Bouncers ($14.99)
• Cabelas #3 Colorado spoon with deathroll hook, perch color variation ($1.99)
• Pflueger Reel with 12lb test Stren Magnathin line (reel $49.99 line $13.99)
• 6’ Eagle Claw rod ($19.99)
• 10’ Sundolphin Kayak ($188.00)
• Worms 12 count ($4.88)

Don’t get discouraged if you’re just starting or can only afford a small set up. The day I fished; I was the only person that I talked to on the lake that caught anything! All in, this set up was a little over $250 and I caught some amazing fish. This just proves that you don’t need a $10k boat and $300 plus rod and reel combos or down riggers to get the job done trolling for fish. Although we use more expensive set ups on other excursions, I want to show that catching big fish on a budget can happen. You may have to drive a little further and work a little harder, but it can be done.

That’s all for this time, and remember, keep your tip up, shoot straight, and never forget to Salute the Outdoors on your way home!