Finished up a three day fishing trip with a buddy and not a lot of relaxing. It started with a call w/ my buddy saying he watched a video from 6-7 years ago, where a couple of guys were catching really nice cutthroats out of a high mountain lake. With some sleuthing my buddy thought he had found the lake. I did some additional digging and found no record of our department stocking this lake, at least in the last 30 years—hmmm.
The hike is 17 miles in, the last 2-ish miles off trail-hmmm. Well the trail miles went by relatively smoothly; some blowdown sections that had us crawling on hands and knees, some sketchy/pushy fords and a pretty steep climb over a pass (luckily snow free).
When we got to the outlet of a lake, it wasn't a stream—it was a series of waterfalls and sadly there wasn't a better way up. It took us a long, tedious time before the falls became a stream. We high fived each other, knowing the hardest part was out of the way. So we thought. The stream meandered through a spruce bog—standing water, mud and lots and lots of blowdown—hmmm. It was also choked with brush. We thought the falls climb took a long time, getting to the lake itself was agonizing long (and hard).
We finally made it to the lake late evening where we setup camp and ate well deserved supper.
We had just enough light to put our rods together and see if with all this effort, there was actually fish in it. There was
We called it a night and were up early the next morning.
We decided to try fishing around the entire lake. Not easy as the lake was choked with blowdown and brush too. We found that just staying in the water where the was a ~ 6' ledge about knee deep was the best bet. You had to be careful staying on the ledge as the lake dropped off steeply once off of it.
We started catching fish right away (I was using a small Kastmaster, Tom a small Cyclone spoon.
The males were really colored up nicely.
We worked our way to the inlet(s), fishing still very good. I saw something in the water I couldn't make out—it was a dead snowshoe hare. Not killed by a predator, my best guess caught in an avalanche and deposited into the lake.
The other side of the lake still had the ledge we used to maneuver, but there were multiple snow slides that went all the way into the lake, forcing us to have to get around them w/o dropping into the deep water.
Not easy stuff to get around.
But the fishing was as good or better than the other side.
I think we figured we had caught 35-40+ fish each; almost every other cast.
Obviously the fish were doing fine spawning on their own w/o any stocking. We saw absolutely no sign of humans old or new at the lake, so safe to say no much fishing pressure.
We decided to eat lunch, pack up and work our way back to the trail. Wasn't going to be easy as I've learned that climbing up is usually easier than climbing down. We decided to try and avoid the spruce bottom and climbed higher up the west side ridge—still a lot of blowdown to negotiate, but not nearly as much brush (or swampy conditions)—a win.
Took us a long time to get back to the trail, but less than it did going up. We took a short break at the trail and discussed past adventures. Tom said he thought this would have been a more relaxing trip, unlike almost all of other trips. He further said that none of our trips were really that enjoyable. I agreed, but said maybe not enjoyable, but definitely memorable
I've already found another lake well off the beaten trail, not going to be easy, but supposedly the fishing is good
The hike is 17 miles in, the last 2-ish miles off trail-hmmm. Well the trail miles went by relatively smoothly; some blowdown sections that had us crawling on hands and knees, some sketchy/pushy fords and a pretty steep climb over a pass (luckily snow free).
When we got to the outlet of a lake, it wasn't a stream—it was a series of waterfalls and sadly there wasn't a better way up. It took us a long, tedious time before the falls became a stream. We high fived each other, knowing the hardest part was out of the way. So we thought. The stream meandered through a spruce bog—standing water, mud and lots and lots of blowdown—hmmm. It was also choked with brush. We thought the falls climb took a long time, getting to the lake itself was agonizing long (and hard).
We finally made it to the lake late evening where we setup camp and ate well deserved supper.
We had just enough light to put our rods together and see if with all this effort, there was actually fish in it. There was
We called it a night and were up early the next morning.
We decided to try fishing around the entire lake. Not easy as the lake was choked with blowdown and brush too. We found that just staying in the water where the was a ~ 6' ledge about knee deep was the best bet. You had to be careful staying on the ledge as the lake dropped off steeply once off of it.
We started catching fish right away (I was using a small Kastmaster, Tom a small Cyclone spoon.
The males were really colored up nicely.
We worked our way to the inlet(s), fishing still very good. I saw something in the water I couldn't make out—it was a dead snowshoe hare. Not killed by a predator, my best guess caught in an avalanche and deposited into the lake.
The other side of the lake still had the ledge we used to maneuver, but there were multiple snow slides that went all the way into the lake, forcing us to have to get around them w/o dropping into the deep water.
Not easy stuff to get around.
But the fishing was as good or better than the other side.
I think we figured we had caught 35-40+ fish each; almost every other cast.
Obviously the fish were doing fine spawning on their own w/o any stocking. We saw absolutely no sign of humans old or new at the lake, so safe to say no much fishing pressure.
We decided to eat lunch, pack up and work our way back to the trail. Wasn't going to be easy as I've learned that climbing up is usually easier than climbing down. We decided to try and avoid the spruce bottom and climbed higher up the west side ridge—still a lot of blowdown to negotiate, but not nearly as much brush (or swampy conditions)—a win.
Took us a long time to get back to the trail, but less than it did going up. We took a short break at the trail and discussed past adventures. Tom said he thought this would have been a more relaxing trip, unlike almost all of other trips. He further said that none of our trips were really that enjoyable. I agreed, but said maybe not enjoyable, but definitely memorable
I've already found another lake well off the beaten trail, not going to be easy, but supposedly the fishing is good
Always nice to find some water that the state hasn't contaminated
