The trout will lock into a 20-foot-wide band on either side of the thermocline. Once you dial into that zone, it’s possible to catch trout after trout.

Sometimes the summer’s hottest daytime temperatures come in September. At other times in the fall, a mild weather pattern takes over, and we get some early storms combined with chilly nighttime temperatures.

The weather, and its corresponding effect on the lake’s surface temperature, will dictate when the trout abandon their deep-water summertime haunts and move back to the surface as husky, hard-charging holdovers.

In general, when surface temperature drops back into the middle 60s, you’ll start to encounter trout feeding in the top 25 feet of water.

This lowering in temperature usually occurs at some point during the month of September, and outstanding fall trout fishing often continues through the end of November.

The period from late winter through early spring -- from the beginning of March to the beginning of June, say -- is a great time for anglers to visit the lake.

Trout plants at Collins Lake begin in March and generally continue through May. This ensures that plenty of unsophisticated trout will be finning about, waiting to be caught. In addition, surface temperatures during this period are generally in the ideal 50- to 65-degree range. This means that most of the lake’s trout will be holding in the top 25 feet of the water column, making them accessible to both boat- and bank-anglers.

During the winter, two limiting factors can have a profound effect on your trout-fishing success: water temperature and water quality.

In December through February, the foothills can get very cold and send water temperatures plummeting at lakes like Collins. When the surface temperature gets down into the lower 40s, getting the trout to bite can be a real challenge, especially if you want to fish with lures.

Collins is at a fairly low elevation, which means that there’s a lot of watershed above the lake. During periods of heavy rain, Dry Creek and Willow Glen Creek, the lake’s primary tributaries, can become raging muddy torrents in a matter of hours.

On the positive side, Collins Lake is a reservoir that fills up quickly and seldom suffers from exceptionally low-water conditions.

On the downside, during and after major winter storms, the lake’s water takes on the hue of creamed coffee, effectively shutting down trout fishing until it has a chance to clear.

WHERE TO FISH?
Catching Collins Lake trout can be as simple or as complicated as you’d like to make it. Collins is one of the few lakes where shore-anglers do every bit as well as boat-anglers.

And fly-anglers aren’t left out when it comes to hooking the lake’s handsome ‘bows.

Trout can be encountered just about anywhere in Collins, but the largest concentrations are in the western half of the lake, in front of the dam and up in the creek arm. This is also where you’ll find the most anglers.

The western shoreline is a tantalizing combination of coves, flats, drop-offs and rock humps. Since the submerged creek channel traverses this section of the lakebed, trout holding in these areas always have easy access to the security of deep water.