A trip into the high country to meet some friends that were overnighting turned into a solo adventure of epic fly fishing. Perhaps the best day I will have this season given the great fishing conditions I encountered. Upon arriving at the first lake, I built out the 3 weight rod as the water appeared to be whitecapping. I could see there was a storm approaching but the wind was not heavy enough to cause waves. I then realized I had walked into the middle of a flying ant fall. The "whitecaps" were all fish frantically smashing the ants. The lake surface was completely covered with feeding fish gobbling thousands of ants. I managed to shred a humpy into nothing but floss on fish after fish hammering the fly. After that I switched to a renegade, which worked well until the ant fall started to taper off and the rain began to fall. The rest of the day was continual subsurface action on leeches.
As evening's waning light began creating long shadows it was time to begin towards the trailhead, but with a quick stop for half an hour of casting dries on a lake containing naturally reproducing bear river cutthroat trout. A few came to hand and I packed up and headed out under the sunset painted sky.
Sunday, August 24, 2008
Sunday, August 10, 2008
In Search of Gold
Adam, Floyd, and I took a trip hoping to find some golden trout in the high country lakes during the height of the mountain summer. The valley is sweltering but the mountains are a welcome escape to cooler temperatures and secluded fly fishing. We had threatening weather passing by all day but it never hit directly where we were fly fishing. Cutthroat and brook trout were the major catches of the day as the goldens were able to somehow elude us.
Sunday, August 3, 2008
High Country Cutthroats
We had a day devoted to cutthroats. They seemed to be more willing to hit a wider assortment of flies than this lake has allowed for in the past. I had particularly good action with a beetle pattern and Eric was pounding away at them with a selection of emergers for most of the day. Many people were packing out of the backcountry with horses and search and rescue planes and helicopters were either training or actually searching for someone. On the way home the sunlight was cutting under large storms in the valley. It produced a beautiful rainbow. The pictures don't seem to quite do it justice.
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| High Country Cutthroats |
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