Trucha Grande: Rare Trout, Rare Beer

Our partners with the Rocky Mountain Flyathlon and Running Rivers have unveiled the first beer in their Rare Fish / Rare Beer Project - Trucha Grande - and it is now available in stores in Denver. The program features limited-run craft beers celebrating unique native trout species. They rolled out the new beer in collaboration with Three Barrel Brewing Co., Laws Whiskey House, and the Colorado Malting Company. Trucha Grande is a super rare beer that celebrates the incredible Rio Grande cutthroat trout.

Past Middle Creek flyathletes will be familiar with one of the base beers in this strong ale, the ever popular coconut-y Thurday Special. Three Barrel Brewing Co. blended it with something dark and mysterious, and then locked it away in Laws Whiskey House barrels for a good while. The result is a super smooth, sneaky boozy beer that raises awareness about and a little money for the Rio Grande cutthroat trout. Proceeds from this beer will run through Running Rivers to fund an on-the-ground project improving the world for the rare Trucha Grande.

Want to know where to find it? Trucha Grande will be offered at Biggie Liquors in Conifer, Total Beverage Westminster, Little's Fine Wines Beer & Spirits in Denver, Super Liquor Mart in Littleton, Tipsy's Liquor World in Littleton, Bottles and Bitters at Sloan's Lake in Edgewater, Applejack Wine & Spirits in Wheat Ridge, Bubbles Liquor World in Castle Rock, Peak Beverage in White Ridge, Light Rail Wine and Ale in Golden, and Mile High Wine Cellars in Arvada.

WARNING: Supplies are extremely limited, so get after it! Drink a rare beer to support a rare fish!

Behind the Fin: Scott Schreiber

How long have you been a TU member? 18 years (I started when I was 15)!

Why did you become a member and what chapter are you involved with?

When I first found TU as a teenager, it was a cool non-profit that paired with my passion for fly fishing. While that's still a priority, I've paired my interest in creating sustainable fishing for generations to come with my professional background as a hydraulic engineer with focus in stream restoration. I am currently president of the Denver Chapter, where we focus on the South Platte River, but we also team with other chapters for projects throughout the state.

What made you want to become involved with TU? I grew up loving to volunteer and help others; during my involvement with the Boy Scouts of America from Cub Scout to Eagle Scout and beyond, I get a great sense of satisfaction from philanthropic endeavors. Oh- and I love to fish, so I should do my part to keep our waters clean, cold and fishable for generations to come. There is nothing better than a day on the river, (besides a day on the river catching fish) so I love being part of an organization where our work benefits my favorite pastime!.

What is your favorite activity or project that you have done with TU? Developing funding and studies to support the Chatfield Reallocation Environmental Pool, which will put additional water into the South Platte during the 70 zero flow days seem along the South Platte, along with developing the future Denver Metro South Platte Fishing Map.

I know you won’t tell me your top spot, so what is your second favorite fishing spot or favorite fishing story? Eagle River Rodeo Lot, Christmas Day, dumping snow...15 trout, all greater than 22 inches in 2 hours. I have no problem giving away my top spot as other anglers shouldn’t, spread the love. When you have that kind of a day, you totally forget about your freezing fingers!

What does being a part of TU mean to you? It means giving back to the community, doing my part to protect the places we love to play and spreading that awareness to others.

What else do you do in your spare time or for work? I am a water resource engineer and I specialize in stream restoration and watershed management. If I am not fishing I am skiing. My entire life from professionally to personally revolves around water. My wife and I love backpacking, hiking to cool spots and exploring our amazing state with our dogs.

Backpacking for Greenbacks

By Dan Omasta(All photos courtesy of Helen H. Richardson/The Denver Post)

It was turning out to be another beautiful July day in Colorado, as over 50 staff and volunteers from Trout Unlimited, Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW) and various other government agencies and NGOs filed into the big dirt parking lot at the trailhead of Herman Gulch, just off I-70 west of Denver near Silver Plume.

Excitement was palpable, and everyone was ready to strap on their boots to help make a big difference for a small native trout—the greenback cutthroat.

The greenback, once believed to be extinct, is making a comeback in Colorado. Thanks to the efforts of state and federal agencies, NGOs and community volunteers, this threatened species is getting the boost it needs to return to its native range in the South Platte basin. In 2012, genetic scientists at the University of Colorado discovered a handful of the once-prolific trout in a small creek just outside of Colorado Springs. Since then, biologists from CPW, the U.S. Forest Service and U.S. Fish and Wildlife, with boots-on-ground assistance from Trout Unlimited, have been collaborating to rebuild critical population strongholds along the Front Range.

Repopulating Herman Gulch with greenbacks is a big step in that effort.

As the hatchery trucks arrived with their big tanks full of eager (and presumably confused) fish, we all gathered behind the tailgate of a CPW truck and received instructions for transporting and releasing our native cargo. Then we separated into five groups that corresponded to certain distances along the trail: group five, for instance, would be hiking the full 3.5 miles above treeline, while group one would begin releasing fish in a particular stretch only a mile into the trek.

Everyone was excited as we lined up to get outfitted with our fish packs. Each TU volunteer and agency staff person would be carrying 15-20 yearlings (4-7 inches long) up the steep rocky trail into the remote, high-alpine headwaters.

The first mile of the hike was brutal--steep switchbacks made up the bulk of the first two hours of climbing. The whole experience felt like a Tough Mudderrace combined with community conservation. The fish only had a few hours of oxygen in the bags, so volunteers slated to reach the highest stretches of stream moved quickly up the rocky, wooded path. Teams of fish packers often leap-frogged one another and received words of encouragement on the steady climb upward: “Almost there,” “It’s just around the corner,” “Sure, that’s what you said an hour ago!”

The hike was full of sweat, laughter and camaraderie as the group worked together to help establish this new population of native fish.

We had received instructions about where to release the fish along the small stream. Once our group reached our ¾ mile reach, we started looking for good habitat to release the fry. Volunteers split off from the group as they followed the sound of riffles and changes in gradient that suggested that on the other side of those willows would be a perfect eddy for these hungry, native trout.

At one bend, I unshouldered the pack and gently opened it along the bank. I set the bag of eager yearlings into the water to help them acclimate to the cold water—a process similar to bringing home that goldfish from the pet shop. About 15 minutes later, the fish were ready. As I poured the precious contents into the stream, the small greenbacks—maybe a dozen of them— swam eagerly out of the bag and into their new home in the clear, deep eddy by the undercut bank.

At first, they clumped together, seemingly unsure about where to go or hide in the cold, clear water. Then, a few of them finned into the current and began rising to the small mayfly hatch coming off the surface. These fish were raised in captivity, but generations of native instinct seemed to kick in almost immediately.

Repopulating a high alpine stream with fish that have never had to survive in such a harsh landscape continues to pose challenges. While these trout have done well in areas such as Zimmerman Lake, they must learn quickly the survival traits necessary to overcome runoff, ice flows and changing food patterns if they are going to stand a chance here. If this introduction is successful and the fish overwinter, Herman Gulch will become one of the first major streams to hold a significant population of pure greenback cutthroats.

This was a major undertaking and could not have been done without the dedication and resources of CPW biologists and hatchery technicians, federal agencies, NGOs and community volunteers. At the end of the day, our group helped to release 960 native greenbacks into Herman Gulch.

For me, the project also provided a shining example of teamwork and collaboration to counter the ongoing bitter partisanship and gridlock that has plagued our nation for years now. There we all were at 10,000 feet—families, retired nurses, young professionals, hunters, anglers, Democrats, Republicans, veterans and CEOs—all strapping on our hiking boots and working together to restore the greenback.

It was a good reminder of what can be accomplished when we work together.

For more information on greenback cutthroat trout recovery efforts, visit www.Coloradotu.org, or contact Dan Omasta, Colorado Trout Unlimited grassroots coordinator, at domasta@tu.org.

National Poll Shows Hunters & Anglers Support Conservation

Our partners at the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership recently released results from a nationwide survey of hunters and anglers on key conservation issues. The results show that sportsmen and women care deeply about habitat quality and public lands, and on a bipartisan basis - a perspective that hopefully will inform the Trump Administration and decision-makers in Congress as they take up issues affecting water quality, public lands, and conservation funding. A few of the key findings in the survey include:

• Four in five sportsmen support Clean Water Act protection for small headwater streams and wetlands - at a time when EPA is looking at whether to keep such waterways under the Act's protection
• 77% of Republican sportsmen and 80% of Democratic sportsmen support keeping the number and size of National Monuments that have protected lands for hunting and fishing - making sportsmen a key voice as the Interior Department reviews those monument designation
• 80% of Republican sportsmen and 77% of Democractic sportsmen want to see fees from offshore drilling used for conservation and access to public lands

You can click below to visit TRCP's interactive page with details from the survey, including downloadable PDF summaries on different survey topics.

http://www.trcp.org/trcp-national-sportsmens-survey/

Revegetation at Lower Creek Site

By Lauren Duncan On June 14^th, Trout Unlimited’s Abandoned Mine Lands team joined up with Colorado Trout Unlimited volunteers and US Forest Service staff and volunteers for a successful revegetation workday at the Lower Creek project site.

The Lower Creek site is located approximately 9 miles northwest of Boulder within the Arapaho and Roosevelt National Forests and Pawnee National Grassland in Boulder County, Colorado. Lower Creek (formerly known as Carnage Creek), is a tributary to Left Hand Creek in Boulder County and drains into the South Platte River is the prior to the 2013 floods, the area was used as an unregulated, undesignated shooting area for several decades. The accumulation of lead and target debris within the site became apparent during the flood event of 2013. In 2015, Trout Unlimited, the US Forest Service and RMC Consultants remediated the site to reduce concentrations of lead in soil, surface water, and streambed sediment.

The project team had the opportunity this year to revisit the site to complete follow up sampling to ensure the success of 2015 construction and to revegetate the site in areas where vegetation was struggling. This year’s efforts were extremely successful! Lefthand Watershed Oversight Group has conducted water quality sampling at the site, and their efforts have revealed greatly reduced lead levels across the site.

The revegetation work day included upwards of 20 staff and volunteers and, in several hours, we incorporated 600 pounds of fertilizer, 1,350 pounds of Biochar and 4,200 pounds of compost across the site. This was a tough day of work, but because of the efforts of everyone involved in the day, it was a great success.

Throughout this summer and early fall, Trout Unlimited and the Lefthand Watershed Oversight Group will continue to monitor revegetation success and perform water quality sampling under different flow conditions. We look forward to the future success of this site and are thankful to all our volunteers, project partners and for our continued programmatic support from Newmont Mining and Freeport-McMoRan.

Lauren Duncan is a projects manager for Trout Unlimited's Abandoned Mine Lands program in Colorado. 

Greenback Spawning at Zimmerman Lake - Success!

FORT COLLINS, CO – It was still dark out when I threw the thermos of coffee into the truck and left Denver for the Zimmerman Lake Trailhead just east of Cameron Pass.  The goal for the day was to join two other fellow TU volunteers and work alongside Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW) biologists to help with Greenback Cutthroat spawning at the pristine high alpine lake. Since 2013, CPW and Colorado Trout Unlimited have worked together to establish a population of Greenback broodstock up at Zimmerman Lake that can be used to help populate other streams throughout the cutthroat’s native range.  The recent spawning project took place over four days and engaged a handful of CPW staff along with eight CTU volunteers from various Front Range Chapters.

The spawning process was pretty straightforward and designed by CPW staff to expand the genetic pool of Greenback Cutthroat Trout.  The pictures below highlight much of the process that took place over the four days.  A big THANK YOU to all the volunteers who came out to support this important recovery effort!

CPW set up at the Zimmerman Lake inlet to capture spawning Greenbacks.

Fish were collected with a large net and put into a pen to be sorted and categorized by CPW staff and volunteers.

Fish were sorted based on their gender and stocking year.

RFID chips in the fish help to identify the stocking year and other critical data.

After the fish were sorted, CPW milked the males and females - making targeted genetic crosses among the various lineages to expand the genetic diversity.  The eggs and sperm were combined in bowls, packed into small coolers, put on ice, and shipped to the local fish hatchery in Leadville, CO for breeding.

This process is a critical step in the long-term recovery of the native Greenback Cutthroat Trout.  CTU is proud of the great work that its volunteers provided during these long days up at the lake.  The work undertaken at Zimmerman will help ensure that future fishermen and women are able to chase these rare fish throughout the Front Range for decades to come.

For more information on the project or to get involved with other upcoming Greenback recovery projects, contact Dan Omasta, CTU Grassroots Coordinator (domasta@tu.org).

Corps approves permit for Moffat Project in Colorado headwaters

The Army Corps of Engineers gave its approval to Denver Water's proposal to expand Gross Reservoir in Boulder County in order to firm its Moffat System water supplies from Grand County. While the project will increase total diversions from the Colorado headwaters, Denver Water has incorporated mitigation and enhancement measures to the project that local TU members in Grand County believe can actually improve the Fraser River's health. As part of its commitments under this permit and the associated mitigation and enhancement plans, Denver Water will manage diversions to help provide needed flushing flows on the Fraser and its tributaries, complete habitat and native trout restoration work in the Williams Fork basin, and contribute funds toward ongoing habitat improvement efforts like the Fraser Flats project.

“The Fraser is a river beloved by generations of anglers, boaters and other outdoor enthusiasts —it’s the lifeblood of our community,” said Kirk Klancke, president of TU’s Colorado River Headwaters chapter in Fraser and a longtime advocate for the river. “As an angler and Fraser Valley resident, I’m gratified that this agreement keeps our home waters healthy and flowing.”

Most significantly, Denver Water will participate in an adaptive management program called "Learning by Doing" through which Denver, Grand County, Trout Unlimited, and other local stakeholders are cooperating to apply mitigation and enhancement resources, monitor river and watershed conditions, and make adjustments to achieve the best results over time. "Rather than remaining an adversary, Denver Water has joined us and our west slope partners as a partner working to improve conditions in the Fraser watershed," explained Colorado TU Executive Director David Nickum.

In addition to the Learning by Doing effort, Denver Water has also pledged resources for improvement work on South Boulder Creek and on the North Fork South Platte (which will be impacted by ripple effects from Gross Reservoir expansion on Denver's systemwide operations, including the Roberts Tunnel). 5000 acre-feet in the enlarged reservoir will also be reserved as an environmental pool to be managed to help provide instream flows at key times to downstream reaches of South Boulder Creek.

Behind the Fin: Blake Fanning

How long have you been a TU member?I’ve been a member for 8 years, joining after moving to Colorado.  However, I really only started getting active in the past few years.

Why did you become a member and what chapter are you involved with? My grandfather taught me to fly fish when I was 8, learning on the streams in the Silverton, CO area. And my mother taught me to be in tune with the environment and how harshly man has treated it.  So TU was a natural fit with those passions.  I’m a member of the Collegiate Peaks Chapter in the Arkansas valley.

What made you want to become involved with TU? In addition to my lifelong pursuit of fly fishing for trout, and love of mother nature, it was a selfish reason. I wanted to learn how to fish the Arkansas river and figured the folks at our chapter could show me how to do so.  It’s not the easiest of rivers to catch fish on.

What is your favorite activity or project that you have done with TU? I’m going to the CTU youth conservation and fly fishing camp in June as a volunteer. I think it will be awesome learning from many experts on river ecology, as well as helping excite the next generation on river conservation and fly fishing.

I know you won’t tell me your top spot, so what is your second favorite fishing spot or favorite fishing story? I’ve really started to love high alpine lakes, particularly backpacking into them. The solitude and natural beauty always recharges my batteries.  Plus I have learned enough to usually catch some wild trout for supper.  My favorite river fishing is on a stretch of the Colorado River, where my brother and I catch 18-20+ inch rainbow and brown trout.  I will leave that stretch unidentified per my brother’s request.

What does being a part of TU mean to you? It means being involved in a community of men and women whom share the common goals of conservation and fly fishing. Youth education and teaching kids to fish is a definite plus.

What else do you do in your spare time or for work? Since moving into the mountains, I have started a new career in elder care, trying to keep folks in their homes.  A new focus of my fishing is the 9 wt rod I recently purchased.  I’m getting into kayak fly fishing for larger fish in the Florida flats and will be fishing for some pike this summer on the Rio Grande.  Love new adventures.

A rancher’s vision of home waters

Home waters.

For Colorado rancher Paul Bruchez, the phrase means more than a favorite local fishing stretch, although that’s part of it.

His home waters encompass a larger vision of waters that bind a community, and a way of life.

He’s spent much of his life along the Upper Colorado River, which winds through his family’s ranch near Kremmling and waters the pasture that supports the family’s cattle operation.

Paul also is a part-time fishing guide in the valley. “Only a rancher would be smart enough to supplement their income by being a fly-fishing guide,” he deadpans.

He loves ranching and fishing, and grew up immersed in both, but he knows this way of life depends on the river—and for decades, the Colorado River here has been in decline. Because of transmountain diversions to Front Range cities, drought, and other factors, he watched as the river dropped, leaving local ranchers’ irrigation pumps high and dry.

To his credit, Bruchez quickly realized that this was more than an irrigation problem. He found a study by a Colorado parks biologist that described seriously degraded river habitat in this stretch, including the loss of key health indicators such as riffle structures and stoneflies. In recent decades, the riffles and bugs had disappeared and been replaced with silt, steep eroded banks and what Bruchez calls “frog water”—slow, murky and mossy.

Looking at the degraded stretch left Bruchez wondering, “What happened to our river?”

So, a few years ago, he decided to do something about it. He talked with his neighbors about not just fixing their irrigation systems but actually fixing the river. Instead of replumbing the irrigation down to reach the river, he had the audacious idea of bringing the river levels back up. He wanted to restore flows and habitat for miles in the valley. He wanted a healthy river.

He began talking with Trout Unlimited and American Rivers. They put their heads together and came up with some innovative ideas. They launched a pilot project: on a neighbor’s ranch just outside of Kremmling, the partners brought in gravel and rocks to rebuild a point bar and reconstruct a riffle: the idea was to boost the oxygen in the water and provide cooler refuge for trout in the pool. Upstream of the riffle V, the narrower channel would back up the water, raising levels and making it more available for irrigation intakes.

At least that was the idea. Then they built it, and surprise—it worked.

The new riffle. 

Bruchez likes to look at the riffle, which froths and rattles over gravel and then slides into a deep long run and is a thing of beauty. “It looks fishy now,” he says.

Almost immediately, the bugs came back. In fact, he recently scooped up a Mason jar of the big stoneflies and other bugs—like some homegrown canned goods—and took them to a meeting of the Colorado Basin Roundtable, a local water planning group for the state. Paul held up the jar and said: This is what river conservation success looks like. With a little help, he told them, the bugs will return, and with them, the foundation of the entire food chain in the river.

He and his neighbors now have funding to improve 10 miles of the river with riffle-pool structures and other habitat projects.

“These bugs will replenish themselves fairly quickly once the river is restored,” he says. And the trout will follow.

It’s working—in fact, it’s astonished him how quickly nature has responded to their efforts. A few weeks back, he took a Colorado senator to the original riffle project. As they looked at the rippling water and tailout, trout began popping everywhere on the surface, rising to a prolific bug hatch.

It was incredible timing. The senator was impressed.

Those rising trout were a vision of the future.

He holds on to those moments, because restoring home waters isn’t always glamorous work. He’s put in countless hours in recent years attending godawfully long planning meetings and crunching the mind-numbing details of construction budgets. He credits his family for covering for him on some of the ranching duties, allowing him to pursue his river work. His wife has been patient.

They understand it’s about keeping their family in this valley. Home waters.

Paul knows that their life here always comes back to the river. He wants to keep it flowing. He wants to keep it fishing. He wants to turn over rocks at the riffle’s edge and find crawling signs of life. That’s what victory looks like.

For more pictures and story on the Bruchez ranch project, read the upcoming issue of This is Fly Magazine.

The author of this piece, Randy Scholfield, is TU's director of communications for the Southwest.