High Country Fishing Trip

[Glendon Mullins]

awesome pictures, what an adventure!!

 

[Split toe]

Man that is awesome! Keep the pictures coming! The Weminuche is one of my favorite places!

 

[Reburn]

Awesome trip.

I feel ashamed I've never learned to fly fish.

 

[Poser]

I feel ashamed I've never learned to fly fish.

I realize some folks like to make a big deal about it and, it can sometimes appear to look like a bit of sorcery, and, yes, there are some people who are really, really good at it, but fly fishing is hardly rocket science. If you have a DIY bone in your body, you could buy a $99 full setup off Amazon, watch a 10 minute YouTube video and immediately go catch a fish.

 

[Reburn]

I realize some folks like to make a big deal about it and, it can sometimes appear to look like a bit of sorcery, and, yes, there are some people who are really, really good at it, but fly fishing is hardly rocket science. If you have a DIY bone in your body, you could buy a $99 full setup off Amazon, watch a 10 minute YouTube video and immediately go catch a fish.

Very true.
I just always end up with a gun or bow in my hands vs a fishing pole.

 

[7mm-08]

Cool effort and stunning photos. Thanks for taking us along.

 

[Whitefox82]

Very cool adventure. I’m from the Midwest so not familiar with alpine lakes but how do these fish survive? lol! I would think they would die from lack of oxygen over the winter. Are these lakes all spring fed??

 

[MoldedbyNature]

Man, this right here is why I hate being an easterner. Whether the fish are there or not or however you wish to define what fishing is doesn't matter. It's the adventure and the experience. That's what you're really after, fishing is just the excuse. Enjoy spending time with your GF doing awesome things.

 

[Poser]

Very cool adventure. I’m from the Midwest so not familiar with alpine lakes but how do these fish survive? lol! I would think they would die from lack of oxygen over the winter. Are these lakes all spring fed??

It’s impressive that they can survive as these lakes are several feet of ice and many of them are covered with a 10,20,30+ feet of avalanche debris for 7-8 months out of the year. The lakes that can sustain fish are spring fed from the bottom and extremely deep. The fish go semi dormant for long stretches of time and move down into spring. Some of the lakes are suitable for breeding and are self sustaining, but many of them lack the habitat for breeding and must be restocked every so often. CPW does aerial stocking using an airplane. They switch from Northern CO to Southern CO every other year and stock as many lakes as they can given the timeframe and conditions. Some of these lakes are situated in deep, ancient caldrons and must be extremely dangerous to stock. I can only imagine it takes a crop duster mindset to pull it off -low throttle to put over the lake and then pull up at the last second. I haven’t actually seen it done myself but I’ve heard that it’s not so accurate as you might hope that it is and lots of fish end up on the ground due to cross winds.

Given budget cuts and the fact that the fish aren’t native to these lakes, it’s rather surprising that restocking still happens at all. It also seems to be the case that they have abandoned stocking certain lakes that are maybe too dangerous or impractical for aerial stocking. I’ve fished a few unamed, difficult to access lakes that seem to only have a handful of fish left and what fish are there are pretty big by alpine lake standards. I’ve also accessed some lakes that reportedly once had fish in them and are now “dead” lakes. Outside of the more popular lakes, there’s little to no reliable information available. Some lakes may have been stocked once 49 years ago because the pilot had surplus fish that day and the lake happened to be self sustaining in the long run. The fish biologists don’t even have reliable information. I’ve found the only reliable source for information to be climbers as they tend to pass by the lakes more frequently than any other user group and also get vantages from summits and will notice surface strikes.

 

[Whitefox82]

It’s impressive that they can survive as these lakes are several feet of ice and many of them are covered with a 10,20,30+ feet of avalanche debris for 7-8 months out of the year. The lakes that can sustain fish are spring fed from the bottom and extremely deep. The fish go semi dormant for long stretches of time and move down into spring. Some of the lakes are suitable for breeding and are self sustaining, but many of them lack the habitat for breeding and must be restocked every so often. CPW does aerial stocking using an airplane. They switch from Northern CO to Southern CO every other year and stock as many lakes as they can given the timeframe and conditions. Some of these lakes are situated in deep, ancient caldrons and must be extremely dangerous to stock. I can only imagine it takes a crop duster mindset to pull it off -low throttle to put over the lake and then pull up at the last second. I haven’t actually seen it done myself but I’ve heard that it’s not so accurate as you might hope that it is and lots of fish end up on the ground due to cross winds.

Given budget cuts and the fact that the fish aren’t native to these lakes, it’s rather surprising that restocking still happens at all. It also seems to be the case that they have abandoned stocking certain lakes that are maybe too dangerous or impractical for aerial stocking. I’ve fished a few unamed, difficult to access lakes that seem to only have a handful of fish left and what fish are there are pretty big by alpine lake standards. I’ve also accessed some lakes that reportedly once had fish in them and are now “dead” lakes. Outside of the more popular lakes, there’s little to no reliable information available. Some lakes may have been stocked once 49 years ago because the pilot had surplus fish that day and the lake happened to be self sustaining in the long run. The fish biologists don’t even have reliable information. I’ve found the only reliable source for information to be climbers as they tend to pass by the lakes more frequently than any other user group and also get vantages from summits and will notice surface strikes.

Thank you! I would have never thought CPW would budget yet alone make that kind of effort to stock those lakes! Great that they do!

 

[Poser]

In Rich Osthoffs backcountry fishing book there is a chapter called "speed scouting lakes", maybe you've read it already but there are some good tips for the particular mission you have.

I finally got around to reading this book, FYI. I did find it helpful and it enjoyed it much more than I thought I would every enjoy a book about fishing. Like you said, there's definitely some filler chapters to skip over (camping, lightning, snakes, bears etc) as well as some outdated relevancy in some chapters (how to take a trophy fish pic) given that it is a book from 1998, but the meat of it is super insightful. That guy definitely knows the Wind River Range well.

Anyway, the book confirms that some lakes can easily appear to be barren more often than not or even the vasy majority of the time. It had me going back and reanalysizing some lakes on the map that I thought I could get away with dismissing: despite a milky, glacial flour water content where fish struggle, very little to maybe no spawning habitat, and in the shade most of the day due to peaks on 3 sides resulting in little to no surface insect activity, the only way to be sure is to hike miles/thousnds of feet out of the way, decend 400 feet of scree, cast a streamer way out into the deep and see if there is maybe an old trout or 2 hanging out at 30-40 feet living off scuds.

 

[Nickofthewoods]

I finally got around to reading this book, FYI. I did find it helpful and it enjoyed it much more than I thought I would every enjoy a book about fishing. Like you said, there's definitely some filler chapters to skip over (camping, lightning, snakes, bears etc) as well as some outdated relevancy in some chapters (how to take a trophy fish pic) given that it is a book from 1998, but the meat of it is super insightful. That guy definitely knows the Wind River Range well.

Anyway, the book confirms that some lakes can easily appear to be barren more often than not or even the vasy majority of the time. It had me going back and reanalysizing some lakes on the map that I thought I could get away with dismissing: despite a milky, glacial flour water content where fish struggle, very little to maybe no spawning habitat, and in the shade most of the day due to peaks on 3 sides resulting in little to no surface insect activity, the only way to be sure is to hike miles/thousnds of feet out of the way, decend 400 feet of scree, cast a streamer way out into the deep and see if there is maybe an old trout or 2 hanging out at 30-40 feet living off scuds.

Nice, glad you found it helpful. I still flip that book open occassionally. Last summer I re-read chapter 14 after being humbled at a high mountain lake with tremendous potential.

 

[Poser]

Nice, glad you found it helpful. I still flip that book open occassionally. Last summer I re-read chapter 14 after being humbled at a high mountain lake with tremendous potential.

It also made me realize I need to up my scud game.

 

[Nickofthewoods]

It also made me realize I need to up my scud game.

The thing with scuds is they swim and dart around in the shallows and bottoms and the way Osthoff describes fishing them is chucking them out into the drop-offs and letting them sink which isn't how scuds really behave. But it works for him obviously. I usually trail one behind a leach and strip slowly as close to the bottom as I can get without hanging up.