Rainbow Trout Fishing Report at Waneka Lake

Waneka Lake is a heavy-use urban reservoir of about 55 acres in Lafayette, Colorado. The official website says the lake is stocked with bluegill, carp, crappie, large and smallmouth bass, pumpkinseed sunfish and yellow perch, but a co-worker of mine recently mentioned that trout are occasionally stocked. He pointed me to the Colorado Parks and Wildlife Stocking Report which details where in Colorado “catchable” trout were recently stocked, a great resource I didn’t know existed.

The stocking report indicated Waneka Lake had been stocked on May 2nd of this year, so with my new found trout information I visited Waneka after work one day in mid-May. My co-worker said he had no luck with Power Bait, but good luck with a little Rooster Tail. I decided to try a little gold Kastmaster spoon and within a couple minutes I landed a nice Rainbow Trout. Within 15 minutes I had a couple more Rainbow. After that the action slowed down and I only caught one more in the next 30 minutes, but that was enough to call the evening a success. I went a week later and caught a couple more nice Rainbow Trout.

It looks like Waneka only gets stocked every couple of years so if you’re looking for Rainbow it might be best to get over there sooner rather than later. I’ve done some bass fishing at Waneka without any luck, but I see lots of fisherman at Waneka Lake throughout the year. With a running trail, a park, a boathouse and disc golf course, the lake sees a lot of traffic, but at least for now, the fishing seems pretty good.