South Park Lakes

iphone_pic, a photo by ...olson family... on Flickr.

In my view, the best trout fishing in the area is found in South Park's lakes. Spinney, and Antero Reservoirs are awesome fisheries where every hook-up could be a trophy. The size limit at Spinney is over 20"!

I had the opportunity to hit both reservoirs on Sunday morning. I started at Spinney fishing a streamer trailed by a damsel nymph from my float tube. This was worth a solid 17" rainbow that fought unbelievably hard. Needing a break from the tube, I loaded up and hit Antero for a couple of hours. I had two lost hook-ups -- one was a genuine monster.

In all, I got what I came for. I just want to land one trout when I hit these lakes --anything you can net will likely be huge. Trout in the 3-5 pound range are consistently caught at Spinney. Antero produces a disproportionate number of 5-10 pound trout. Your chances are always better if you stop in at Angler's Covey or Ghillies and get word on the flies the guides are using. I take a couple hot flies and focus on changing depth until I find the right range. I found that a dropper four feet off the point fly gets the fly down in the zone. I talked to anglers who were going with 20' leaders with an indicator over using a sink tip. Next time I will try a sink tip, but adding droppers and shot to extend the leader seems to work.