Shadow Mountain Lake: Colorado fishing haven or science experiment?

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SHADOW MOUNTAIN LAKE — The mountain views from the crisp blue water — of subalpine fir shot through with canary-yellow aspen below the sugar-dusted Continental Divide — are sublime. In still coves, all is mirrored perfection. In breeze-rippled open water, waves play an angler’s tune against an aluminum hull.

And a storied river runs through it.

But Shadow Mountain Lake is less a pristine pool at the foot of wilderness than it is a manipulated fish bowl for the experimental gods of aquatic science.

As biologist Jon Ewert stands on the dock on a misty late September afternoon, impressive specimens of the brown trout anglers vie to pull from Shadow Mountain keep roiling the surface. Ewert’s thousand-yard stare is not for them.

“When I look at this lake, in my mi