Boulder Mountain — the Aquarius Plateau — is one of the great high-lake fisheries in the West, a forested tableland topped with somewhere north of eighty fishable lakes scattered through the spruce and meadow above ten thousand feet, off Highway 12 between Torrey and Boulder. It's a different kind of fly fishing from the canyon rivers: a backpack, a float tube, a box of leeches and chironomids, and a willingness to walk. The lakes grow wild brook trout to genuinely impressive size — this is brookie country as good as any in the Lower 48 — alongside cutthroat, rainbows and, in some waters, tiger trout and splake stocked to add variety and crop the chubs. Fish it like the high stillwater it is: chironomids under an indicator over the drop-offs, leeches and damsels stripped along the weed lines, a dry when the Callibaetis or the flying ants come off on a calm evening. The season is short and weather-ruled — these lakes ice over hard and ice off late, so the open-water months from after thaw into autumn are the whole show, and an afternoon thunderstorm at this altitude is not a thing to argue with.

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