December 30, 2018December 31, 2018 hooknfly

2018 HooknFly Blog High-Water Marks: The Best, the Bummers, and the Blood-Curdling

December 30, 2018

Greetings and my best to all my friends and readers for a great 2019!! It’s been a very fulfilling and fun year writing my blog. As well as providing an admitted excuse to go fishing and explore remote places, my main goal is to help reinforce and build the constituency to preserve and protect these wild and wonderful places. Given the current state of politics in the country and multiple threats to our environment and natural resources, it’s more important than ever to take a stand and do whatever we can to protect Mother Nature.

An added and very satisfying benefit has been connecting with people and making new friends around the USA and the world—readers from over 60 countries. As of Dec. 31, the blog has had over 40,000 views and 16,000 visitors, a 50% increase over 2017.

Now it’s easy to figure out why most of my readers are from English-speaking countries, but who am I to ask why someone from the United Arab Emirates, Vietnam, Brazil, or Turkey would take a look.

As the year comes to a close, I found it enlightening and gratifying to look back on the best, the bummers, and the blood-curdling moments of 2018 from a piscatorial perspective. Here you go….

September 21, 2018January 15, 2021 hooknfly

North Fork Sampler: North Fork Reservoir–An Alpine Movable Feast

“Perhaps the truth depends on a walk around the lake”…Wallace Stevens

Late July 2018

Photography By Jody Bol

CAVEAT: The North Fork Road has reopened, but is still very rough. Call ArkAnglers in Salida, CO for latest information.

For more information on fishing other waters in the North Fork Valley (Island, Arthur, and Hunky Dory Lakes) see my blog articles:

https://hooknfly.com/2016/08/17/north-fork-sampler-island-lake-high-above-salida-colorado/amp/

https://hooknfly.com/2016/07/16/north-fork-sampler-arthur-lake-near-salida-colordo/amp/

https://hooknfly.com/2015/08/17/hunky-dory-lake-near-salida-co/

The rugged North Fork of the South Arkansas River Valley is loaded with a bevy of beautiful lakes and streams. I’ve explored its remote high mountain lakes—Arthur, Island, and Hunky Dory—and was rewarded with some gorgeous cutthroats, but ignored the large North Fork Reservoir at the upper end of the valley. I’m not a big fan of waters where you can drive up to the shoreline, walk a few feet, and settle in a lawn chair to fish. But in this case, boy, I didn’t know what I was missing! I discovered a proverbial movable feast replete with a smorgasbord of big fish and stunning carpets of wildflowers all in the shadow of breathtaking scenery. It’s particularly well-suited for family outings. But the reservoir is a body of water that takes a while to figure out. Here are some tips to connect with its finny denizens

August 17, 2015June 29, 2020 hooknfly

Hunky Dory Lake Near Salida, Colorado

CAVEAT: The North Fork Road has reopened, but is still very rough. Call ArkAnglers in Salida, CO, for latest information.

For my article about fishing nearby Island and Arthur Lakes see:

https://hooknfly.com/2016/08/17/north-fork-sampler-island-lake-high-above-salida-colorado/amp/

https://hooknfly.com/2016/07/16/north-fork-sampler-arthur-lake-near-salida-colordo/amp/

August 8, 2015

More rain this week kept me off the local waters, and with the weekend looming along with the attendant crowds from the Front Range, I decided to head to a high country lake for some tranquility and, hopefully, some hungry trout. I dug out an old 1980s guidebook to lakes in the area, and the name Hunky Dory caught my eye. With a moniker like that, it had to be good. (More about that name later.).

Hunky Dory sits at 12,000 feet, perched high across the rugged North Fork Valley from Mt. Shavano, a 14er. The turnoff of US 50 up County Road 240 is at Maysville, about 10 miles west of Salida. What made it especially intriguing is that the guidebook said there was no trail to the lake. The hike was described as fairly short—just over a mile—but very steep, gaining 1,200 feet in that short distance. A check on the internet revealed a couple of entries describing the fishing for cutthroat trout as good. Who could resist.