Rainbow Trout Fishing in Silvrethorne, Colorado
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An awesome summertime activity or things to do in Silverthorne and Breckenridge is rainbow trout fishing! These snowmelt fed waters up here are where rainbow trout like to live, and where I like to catch them.
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During the summer while staying in Silverthorne one of our neighbors told us of a great place to catch rainbow trout. This place is located really close to the Ski Silverthorne Lodge. It is water fed by mountain snowmelt, and it is stocked with rainbow trout. In order to fish there you have to have a kid that is 16 years or younger, and the limit is 4 fish per kid. What's really great about the place is that they encourage you to keep the fish, and take them home to eat them! Guests of Ski Silverthorne Lodge may contact me for information about the location. If I posted the exact location I'm sure the site would be all fished out next time we wanted to use it.
Before we left the house we put some ice in an ice chest as if we already knew we were going to be catching rainbow trout. We checked the rods and reels, and we made sure we had both powerbait and spinner lures for the lines.
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Once we got everything loaded up in the van and left for our fishing spot, we started singing this silly little song that closely resembled "99 bottles of beer on the wall", except our song was titled "99 rainbow trout in the water". Watch the video at the bottom you'll hear us singing the song.
Once we got to the fishing spot we started off trying to catch the rainbow trout using orange power bait. We saw some other people there, and that is what that were using to catch fish. The power bait we had was a year old or so, but if got it wet it would become soft and pliable again. We through the hooks in the water and waited for the fish to get on.... nothing.
If you've ever taken a kid fishing you probably already know that fish need to start getting on the line pretty fast, or they are ready to pack up and do something else. So what we decided to do was try one of the spinner baits. At first the spinner baits didn't work either, but we soon discovered that a certain trick needed to be used to interest the fish.
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Shown here is the spinner bait that we switched to after he failed try with the powerbait. Please note the size of the spinner bait. It's small because rainbow trout have small mouths. Likewise, since the bait is so light you can expect only a 20-30 ft cast distance. If you use larger spinner bait I can pretty much assure you that you'll only be practicing your casting skills.
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Finally after our short bought with trial and error we got into some real rainbow trout fishing in Silverthorne, Colorado! The first catch was about 12 inches long and weighed about 1 pound. I would later come to learn that this is pretty much average size for a good-eatin' rainbow trout.
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And then the fun began! We started putting rainbow trout in the cooler and giving meaning to the task of catching dinner. Typically with our size crowd we would have limited out at 16 rainbow trout, but we decided to call it a day at 5 fish. We already had the cedar planks soaking in water just in case we were lucky enough to come home with some rainbow trout.
When we brought the fish home we dressed them out on the plank. For flavor we made a merinade with olive oil, sage, rosemary, thyme, and celery salt. We worked the marinade into a paste and rubbed it all over the fish.
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As you can see in the picture we decided to make fillets out of some of the rainbow trout while leaving the others whole. In hindsight I can tell you it's better to leave them whole because too much meat is wasted when filleting them. Also, believe it or not, leaving them whole will also make it easier to stay away from bones while eating them.
While grilling fish on cedar planks is delicious, it can also be dangerous. Be sure to keep a close eye on the plank and fish. Have water handy in case you need to put out a grill fire. Keeping the grill around 300 degress will be enough to smolder the plank and add that nice smoked flavor to the fish. Also you should soak the plank in water for several hours before cooking. This makes the plank tend to smolder more than want to catch on fire.
So how do you know when your cedar plank rainbow trout are done? Easy. When the skin separates from the meat they are done. Click the play button on the little video to the left for an example of what this looks like. (The video came from Instagram so if you're on Instagram check out the Ski Silverthorne Lodge at Intagram.com/SkiSilverthorne ) Peel the skin off, then slide the fillet off the bone. Then pull the bone off the top of the bottom fillet, and slide the bottom fillet off the bottom skin. This makes you get all of the rainbow trout meat without bones!
So I hope you have enjoyed our litle article about rainbow trout fishing in Silverthorne, CO, and I hope this article has give another example of why vacationing in Summit County, Colorado is so much more than just snow skiing. This place is an outdoor haven in the summer time and is well deserving of anybody's summertime vacation spot.
The video below shows our entire rainbow trout fishing adventure in Silverthorne, and has lots of highlights that I wasn't able to touch on in this article. Check out our song on the video if nothing else!
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