Chapter 5: Waterton Canyon

The South Platte River flows into Chatfield Lake nearby. Above the lake, the South Platte winds through Waterton Canyon and upstream to Strontia Springs Reservoir. The stretch between the two is easily accessible along a dirt road that you can hike or bike. The road was once open to cars, but it’s closed to all but ranger vehicles to maintain a better environment for the wild life. It’s common to have deer and big horn sheep share the stream with you. The stretch of the river between the two reservoirs is about 9 miles, so it can be a long walk or peddle if you want to get to the top, where I hear the fishing is best. Me… I’ve always been too lazy to get that far up.

Because it’s close to town, I’ve spent a bunch of time on the lower stretch. Being close to town, it also gets its fair share of anglers.

This water is my nemesis! Over the course of several years, I’ve been there a half dozen times or more. It has never been productive.

I do have my favorite spots. I know there are fish there because I’ve seen them sipping bugs off the water and a fair share of fisherman land some. I’ve had guys share the flies they used successfully, only for me to throw them in for a half-hour and not get a nibble.

Each time I leave the river, I swear that I will never go back. So, being insane, I do it again every year, at least once or twice.

It’s easy to forget how close you are to the city when there’s no sign of development up in the canyon. There may be lots of people in there, but with your back to the dirt road and focused on the stream, it’s as good as being 100 miles up in the mountains. And, as I mentioned earlier, there’s plenty of wild life.

Once, while I was hiking back down the road to my car, an entire herd of Big Horn Sheep was grazing on the hillsides and blocking the road itself. I’ve run into situations where there were a few, and they usually will clear the way to avoid contact. But this time, there were maybe 10 to 20, adults and lambs. These are NOT small animals. The rams can easily top 200 lbs.

The problem was, as the lambs were grazing on the grassy hillsides on both sides of the road, the adults formed a barricade across the road itself. They simply stood their ground and stared me down, as well as an increasing flow of hikers, and brought traffic to a standstill. I’ve been in that situation before, but in a car. I was feeling a little bit exposed with the adults being only 10 feet away.

The adults have eyes that look to be about the size of tennis balls. With their eyes trained on you, it’s creepy. Ram horns pretty much seal the deal. They may not gore you, but you would probably be a bit sore if one of those rams knocked you down.

I tried climbing down the embankment to circumvent the herd. One step off the road, and the adults began moving toward me. This was their spot, for now. Their young were eating, and I was waiting until they finished. Snack time for young lambs is an important time of day. I finally just sat down, enjoyed their company, and managed to get back on my way after about a 20-minute wait. My guess is that when the bottleneck of pedestrians and bicyclists reached a critical mass outnumbering the Big Horn, they decided it was time to go, or felt that they were quickly becoming an exhibit in a zoo.

Waterton Canyon fishing has not been good to me at all. I once found a nice pod of trout feeding along a rock ledge on the far side of the stream. I cast from below and off to the side for 20 minutes, then waded into the stream behind them and cast up above them for at leas a half an hour. I changed out flies a dozen times, my tying skills improving, but they weren’t having whatever I threw at them. What’s up with that! Every fly drifted right by them, and then they surface to pick something else off the water. If only trout treated their food selection more like “cafeteria-style” and weren’t so darn picky.

Waterton Canyon is also the place where I managed to snap off my rod tip. My line got caught in a tree branch, pretty high up, during a back cast. This happens to me a lot. Normally I can work it down with a little time and effort, or break the line off at the leader. Maybe it was because of my level of frustration that day or because I was tired and ready to give up anyway, but I was definitely not being clearheaded. For some reason, my Bad Fisherman persona let me pull the line at an angle instead of keeping the rod straight… or simply cutting the line off (DUH!). Snap! Damn!

Fortunately, the good guys at Charlie’s Fly Box in Arvada put a new tip-top on my now, 3” shorter pole. I could have had the whole top section replaced under warranty (I think) for the small fee of $80 plus $40 shipping. Thanks to the guys at Charlie’s for saving me a bunch of cash.

I’m never going back to Waterton Canyon, ever again! At least until next month.