High Country Fishing Trip

[thinhorn_AK]

Make sure he never takes up Muskie fishing then! Catching panfish and predatory fish are two different things.

100%, he was saying he wants to go to the Olympic peninsula for steelhead, I was like “find somebody else to go with bro”. I don’t want to hear him shit all over the trip when he “only”’catches 2-3 steelhead.

Also I don’t know if steelhead really count as predators the way large rainbows do but o get and agree with your point.

 

[thinhorn_AK]

Make sure he never takes up Muskie fishing then! Catching panfish and predatory fish are two different things.

100%, he was saying he wants to go to the Olympic peninsula for steelhead, I was like “find somebody else to go with bro”. I don’t want to hear him shit all over the trip when he “only”’catches 2-3 steelhead.

Also I don’t know if steelhead really count as predators the way large rainbows do but o get and agree with your point

 

[Poser]

The 2026 season is well underway with super early access to high country lakes this year. I haven’t knocked out any wilderness area lakes so far, but I did use the early melt off window to access some more popular/easy access lakes that get too much traffic starting July 4th through the summer for me to normally consider dealing with the crowds and Bluetooth speakers on the trails, crowds at the lakes and on the line of traffic on the shelf roads.

I was expecting super easy fishing this early, but all of the lakes so far have been surprisingly difficult, probably due to post spawning behaviors. Also had some super high winds to deal with: 50-60 mph gusts which just shut things down completely.

 

[The_Jim]

I love fishing alpine lakes, but every time I've tried to do it before July 4 my experience has been the same - windy...

 

[Poser]

I love fishing alpine lakes, but every time I've tried to do it before July 4 my experience has been the same - windy...

Yeah, my conclusion is that having a spinner setup is the only practical way you could reasonably fish in super high winds. The winds super cool the surface so the fish drop to depths where the temps are stable. They are probably just sitting there mostly inactive, but if you drop something in front of them at 30-40 feet, they may take it.

 

[The_Jim]

We were in the Rawah Wilderness last June. I just gave up on fly fishing but, my son & my buddy did pretty good in the wind with spinners. It was so miserable up there we ended up dropping down 1000' to a lake surrounded by trees for some relief. Hindsight, I think we were pretty close to the ice out because the snow line was still around those 11k lakes. Without the wind they may have been covered yet.

I do think there may be something to the post spawn fish being pickier. Similar situation in Central Colorado a couple years ago over July 4th weekend, but we couldn't get anything to bite even on spinners. We didn't catch 1 fish the whole weekend.