TASK 1: Your greatest day of fishing - South Colony Lakes, July

It started out like any other day Cody and I are going fishing? The alarm goes off I hop out of bed and go wake him up.  I then get dress and go wake him up again. Hit the bathroom ask if he is up yet, get the ?Yeah I?m up?.  Start loading the Jeep and go force him to get out of bed.   I eat some breakfast while he gets dressed and comes down and grabs something to eat on the way.  Living in Colorado Springs all the fishing I enjoy is usually at least an hour drive in any direction, today was no different it was going to be about 3 hours into the Sangre De Cristo Mountains. Traffic seemed pretty decent but we did run into a traffic jam. South Colony Lakes was the destination, the trip would include 4wheeling, hiking, camping, and of course fishing? already having potential to be a great trip.  We started the checklist off with putting the Jeep into 4 wheel drive and heading up Colony Rd. After a long, slow, bumpy ride to the trailhead we unloaded our packs from the Jeep and began the hike into the lakes. The trail is well maintained with a few snow field crossings which was surprising in July but not uncommon in the Rocky Mountains. This being my son?s first backpacking trip his 30lb pack was weighing him down and I think he still swears that mile and a half was 10 miles? so after a slow walk with lots of breaks we made camp not to far from the lower Lake.  There are 3 14ers (mountains above 14,000ft) that can be reached from these trails, so even on a Thursday there were a lot of people up there.  However we still managed to find a great campsite. After a quick lunch we were ready to go check out the lake.  As we came on to the lake there was a group of 3 fishing right at the trail?s end.  The wind was blowing a little bit so we walked around to a cove and from a rock I spotted a cutthroat within a foot of the shore.  I told Cody to kneel down and cast to him but to be sneaky and don?t scare him.  He made a good cast and fish on... boy you know it?s going to be a good trip when that happens.  As he lands the fish he is excited because this was his first cutthroat trout ever and it was on the fly rod.  I take some pictures then I put the fishing bag down and set up the tripod and while I?m fiddling with that Cody shouts "FISH ON" again.  So I take some more pictures and grab my pole and before I can cast I think he even had another one on... then the taunt, "Where you at Rick!"  LOL... I love that. We ended up catching like 10 and the drizzle came in and the fishing slowed so we went exploring and checked a few different spots found a good inlet coming into the lake with at least 20 spawners in there fighting for position, amazing colors too.  We drifted a few flies over them and they weren?t interested in anything so on we went.  Ended up circling the lake, the beaver ponds on the north side of the lake get tricky when you don?t have waders with you so be careful... Fished for a while more and decided to head back to camp for some hot cider and dinner. The next morning we get up with the sun eat some breakfast and he ad off to the upper lake.  I tried to make it before the wind came up to get one of those magical glass water shots but when hiking with a kid it?s at his pace not yours. So I didn?t make it for that shot but got a nice shot of him above the lower lake. We hiked around Upper South Colony Lake on the inlet side.  I asked Cody if he could see the drop off and told him to cast to it.  I was rigging up, when Cody hopes out on a rock and casts once.  Again "FISH ON!"  I had to look up and say "really?!"  Took some pictures and went back to rigging.. Once again I think he had 3 fish before I even had a line in the water.  We were on them too, we caught close to 50 fish some very red and some totally done with the spawn.  It was about even on the fish sizes too about half in the teens to high teens and half in the single digit size range.  I caught one really fat female that was still fat with her eggs.  We were the only ones fishing the lake until we left at 2:30pm to make it back in time for us to pack up camp, drive home, and for me to clean up for work.  This was the greatest day(s) of fishing I?ve had? spent with the kid catching high country cutties in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado.  If you?d like to read more and see more photos from the trip please feel check out the forums on my website, http:// www.ColoradoMountainFishing.com