Everyone always asks us what we do in the winter, and frankly we're so busy with local activities, family fun, and business preparations that winter speeds by even faster than summer! Take for instance this past February. Lake Citeans hosted three major annual events, including the Ice Fishing Derby, Ice Climbing Festival, and Balloon Festival. All of these events involve many of our townfolk, as we do all of the preparation and a heck of a lot of the participation! Fortunately, all events went off without a hitch and earned some very needed extra cash for local organizations, such as the Hinsdale County Search & Rescue team and Lake City Area Recreation Department.

 

Now as we slide into March, we're looking forward to the last month of competitive skiing. Our local Hinsdale County Ski team has gone to five nationally rated ski races and two fun races (one hosted at our Lake City Ski Hill). Our youth team is pretty inexperienced, but they had some great results competing against the larger ski resorts. More importantly, they learned some invaluable lessons and had lots of fun! For more information about the team, see http://www.hinsdaleskiteam.com/
 

 

We help people with all types of issues, from anglers asking fly fishing questions to visitors wanting to know where to find a good shower. Send us your questions, and we'll post some of them so we that we can share the knowledge.

 

 

 

 

 

Question: How do you decide where to go fishing or take a guide trip?
We make a joint decision with the angler on where to go. The final decision depends on many factors that include everything from the weather to the needs and wants of the angler.

 

Some anglers desire a backcountry experience and don't mind a rigorous hike or drop into a canyon or isolated area. Others are simply not able to make that type of a trip, and desire a more leisurely day, perhaps even fishing right off a highway. We're fortunate because we have so much wonderful water in Lake City, we can fish within 2 blocks from the store or an hour away. Generally, we're fishing within 20 minutes of leaving the store. It's rare for us to take long to get anglers on the water unless they have a specific goal of fishing someplace farther from Lake City, like on the Cochetopa or the Gunnison River.

 

Other anglers have specific goals in terms of the type of fish they want, or quantity and size. That influences where we would fish. Also, we have to consider the time of year and the hatches. During ice-out in March and April, we're fishing the large streams and the Lake Fork, where the big trout are hungry and the chances of getting into the large hogs are excellent. As run-off starts, say in May, we're moving up to the smaller streams where the water isn't as high and dangerous. Once run-off is over, generally by mid-June, our water selection is wide open and we can hit large waters on the Lake Fork and Gunnison or move into the high county on Henson and other high streams. Fortunately, we have a lot of water to choose from.