Lake City – They decline in number each year, those venerable anglers who remember with grave lament the drowning of a prime part of the Gunnison River beneath Blue Mesa Reservoir.
Those graybeards who remain never can forget the richness of the river, particularly the loss of one of the West’s great stonefly hatches. Nor can they forgive its sacrifice to the great twin gods of irrigation and power.
It’s a loss that cannot be recovered or, apparently, effectively replaced with equal parcels of public access. More than 40 years later, the Bureau of Reclamation has managed to obtain barely more than half the 23 miles of equal-value streams required in the agreement to mitigate the dam building.
This acquisition process of late has slowed to a trickle amid what is termed a disadvantageous political climate in Washington. Put simply, the Bush administration shows little interest in pressing a course of action that becomes more difficult with each passing year.
Prime riparian property grows in equal measure more scarce and more expensive while the wheels of bureaucracy progressively lose speed.
All of which makes a particular parcel on a Gunnison tributary, the Lake Fork, sparkle like a new Colorado quarter. Open to the public under management of the Bureau of Land Management, this 3-mile reach where Colorado 149 curves down to join the river, well may be the most striking parcel of a stream that surely ranks among the loveliest in the state.
Should that old Gunnison guard wish to soften their perspective, or maybe just get revenge, Gate View on the Lake Fork might be a good place to start.
No one should suggest that any part of this smaller tributary can make amends for that inundation of the Gunnison. But for sheer beauty, abundant access and, ah, yes, good fishing, those public parts of the Lake Fork are hard to beat.
On a day in late June when a high sun cast mirror reflections on shining water, the quality of the fishing for a time seemed in doubt. Not a trout stirred while two visitors from the Front Range pounded what appeared to be prime holding areas with the contents of a large nymph box.
That’s when the redwing appeared, darting and chattering excitedly along the shore. The dullest member of the duo noted the activity, but saw no fish rising to whatever insect the bird might be chasing.
The shout from downstream echoed over the rush of the water and woke him from his stupor.
“Put on a dry fly. I’m catching fish like crazy,” Kent Ingram declared.
Then the feeding frenzy began in earnest, punctuating a lesson every angler from spring seep to salt never should forget: believe the birds. Feathered friends often tell us what’s happening well before the message is delivered by the trout.
In a place that minutes earlier seemed to hold no fish now came alive with rises to a small, dark caddisfly. In their frenzy, these trout – mostly browns about a foot long – snapped at any reasonable dry-fly imitation.
A place that earlier had been merely good to look at now dazzled with a greater attraction.
How this former ranch property came into the public domain is tangled in the continuing, yet halting, effort by the federal government toward mitigation. By various means, BLM has gained access over the past 15 years to three Lake Fork parcels spanning 5 miles.
Gate View, named for its view of the sheer rock buttresses that frame the stream farther upstream, ranks as the best. To help restore a segment trampled by cattle, the agency in 1997 spent $250,000 on a Division of Wildlife-supervised improvement project that includes drop dams, boulders and revegetation.
The result has been encouraging.
“I’ve seen some really nice browns, fish that rival those in the Gunnison,” said Dan Brauch, area biologist with the Colorado Division of Wildlife. Brauch tallied 113 pounds of trout per acre, 100 of this brown trout, in a survey taken three years ago. The count included 18 browns and four rainbows 14 inches or longer. Before the project, only 41 pounds were captured.
At a time when the era of dam building that doomed so many key segments of western rivers is finished, the drowning of the Gunnison seems difficult to comprehend. But when an angler emerses himself into the beauty of those public reaches of the Lake Fork, with fish rising all around, he at least can imagine some partial benefit from it all.
Charlie Meyers can be reached at 303-820-1609 or cmeyers@denverpost.com.
