Fishing Ouzel Creek

story and photos by Rebecca Detterline

Fly rod in hand and sandals on my feet, I cannot help but notice how forty-two-year-old aspen trees and a multitude of wildflowers attempt to crowd out the charred pillars left behind by the 1978 Ouzel Burn.

Ouzel Creek, with Mount Meeker towering above, is one of my favorite places on Earth.

The blackened tree trunks stand as a reminder of the dense forest that once populated the hillsides flanking Ouzel Creek as it makes its way from Bluebird Lake to Ouzel Falls. Eventually, it merges with the North Saint Vrain Creek as it parallels the Wild Basin Road and crosses Highway 7. These ankle-deep waters fed by rocky mountain snowmelt will eventually make their way to the Gulf of Mexico via the South Platte, Missouri and Mississippi Rivers.

My favorite place to fish (and probably one of my favorite places on earth) is Ouzel Creek between Ouzel Lake and Ouzel Falls. There is something utterly magical about this place and although the brook trout that populate this shallow mountain stream are not particularly large, I just love spending an afternoon in this little valley tucked below the shadows of Mount Meeker, Mount Alice and Tanima Peak.

Cooling off under Ouzel Falls

It is certainly a favorite spot to teach friends to fly fish, but I am just as happy to hike here alone, making quick me on the 2.7 miles to Ouzel Falls and scrambling up the left side of the falls to spend an hour or two fishing for modest brook trout.

An alternative to scrambling up the rock face (definitely a no-fall zone) is to take the social trail that climbs steeply away from the falls. This trail gained popularity in the summer of 2014, as it gave access to areas unreachable due to the bridge at Ouzel Falls being washed away in the flood of 2013. In late summer the raspberry bushes in this gully hang heavy with fruit, ripe and ready for picking. Once this short trail tops out, a quick walk north will take hikers to another social trail that parallels the creek. Although marshy at times, the trail is easy to follow and eventually ends up at a large fallen tree that serves as the best way to cross the stream. After crossing the stream, anglers may continue along the valley bottom, fishing their way to Ouzel Lake or amble north up to the shade-less trail atop the ridge that overlooks this quiet valley.

Fishing from the downed log over Ouzel Creek on a beautiful Fall day

The aspen trees in this burn scar provide just enough shade for an afternoon nap, while the absence of large lodgepole and ponderosa pines makes the risk of catching a tree branch on one's back cast almost nonexistent. The trout are not particular about fly selection, nor do they seem to mind if the angler throws a sloppy cast or two. However, the lack of shade on the creek requires that the fisherperson takes care to crouch low and stand back several feet from the pool they are attempting to fish.

Colorado Greenback Cutthroat Trout

When I first fished this secluded stretch of stream in 2006, it was not uncommon to catch just as many greenback cutthroat as brook trout. On my last trip to this stream I chatted with a tourist who had hiked to Ouzel Lake in hopes of catching a cutthroat, only to be greeted with several brook trout on the end of his line. I realized that while the cutthroat still seem to be thriving in the Cony Creek drainage (the one that feeds Calypso Cascades), I hadn't caught one in Ouzel Creek in years.

Brook trout from Ouzel Creek

This drainage was part of the United States Fish and Wildlife Service's (USFWS) greenback cutthroat restocking program which attempted to replace the non-native trout species in RMNP and other places with the more fragile native cutthroat. This long-term project that spanned several decades and cost millions of dollars was further complicated in 2013 when geneticists discovered that the reintroduced trout were in fact not the native greenback cutthroat, but rather a hybrid of the Colorado river cutthroat.

A very small population of the 'true' greenback cutthroat was found in Bear Creek, near Colorado Springs. Despite concerns of inbreeding with such a small population, breeding efforts have been successful and the first reintroduction in the wild took place during August 2014 in Zimmerman Lake, northeast of RMNP.

Crossing Ouzel Creek

Luckily for the greenback cutthroat trout, Ouzel Falls provides a natural barrier to keep the brook trout out of the waters above the falls and the USFWS has plans to begin the removal of brook trout from these waters in August of 2021.

Barriers (natural or manmade) are necessary when stocking native fish in order to keep the non-native species from making their way into the stocked trout's habitat. Unlike rainbow trout that tend to hybridize with native cutthroat, brook trout will simply out compete cutthroat for food and habitat. It seems to me that the brook trout must not have been completely eradicated during the restocking efforts and eventually reclaimed the drainage.

Colorado River Cutthroat hybrid

Volunteer opportunities are available through the Rocky Mountain Flycasters Chapter of Trout Unlimited. I am certainly not a fish biologist and I don't know what a typical timeline looks like for the eradication of one trout species and the reintroduction of another, but it is likely this fishery may be closed or temporarily fishless at some point during this process. While I am overjoyed at the prospect of fishing for this native species in beautiful Wild Basin, I am attempting to soak up the last opportunities to catch some small but aggressive brook trout while eating raspberries and enjoying the beauty of this peaceful stream running through a now-thriving burn scar that serves as reminder that nature will always rejuvenate itself and that death is simply an opportunity for new life.

Rebecca Detterline is a lover all things RMNP. She is a wildflower aficionado whose favorite hiking destinations are alpine lakes and waterfalls. Her name can be found in remote summit registers in Wild Basin and beyond. Originally from Minnesota, she has lived in Allenspark since 2011.