Stillwater Fishing North Catamount

Tim Hannan spent some time up the Peak  and sent in this report.  

 

“There are only a couple of weeks left to fish North Catamount Reservior.  My good friend, Tom Farrell, and I headed up and had a great time. We drove up early in the morning to Ed Lowe Road on the west side of Woodland Park. There is a short drive to a trail-head that will lead you to the North Slope Recreation area. If you do not mind a short hike, then the Pikes Peak Ring trail is a great place to walk in from. 

 

We hiked down to the Blue Hole first. Most people do not even realize that we have the Blue River being pumped into the North Cat Res. The first thing we noticed is how low the water level was. Tom was there the week previous, and he mentioned that the water level had gone down a few feet.  The North Cat Reservoir is a source for some of our water here in the Springs … so the lowering water level caught my attention.

 

We fished the Blue Hole for a while without much success. Tom was throwing some larger nymphs and streamers. He had some good bites but nothing to brag about. I decided to walk to the runoff inlet to see if I could see any fish. While I did not see any fish rising on the way to the inlet, I was able to see a lot of murky shadows in the flats. I was able to see some really aggressive rises but there was not any rhyme or reason to them. I finally put on an Amy’s Ant with a bead headed Hare’s Ear dropper.

 

First cast and wham! I caught a really nice Lake Trout on the dropper. Then I was able to catch a few more on the dropper as I cast to the anonymous flashing shadows. On one occasion I went into an aggressive back cast and a Lake Trout chased the hopper and took a swipe at it.  I then decided that it would be fun to try stripping in my hoppers. That is when the fun began!  Lots of stripping and lots of aggressive takes. I had a blast.

Go check it out before it closes for the season.”