The Trout Zone: The Wyoming Saga: Golden Trout Found and Plans Adjusted

Friday, August 09, 2024

The Wyoming Saga: Golden Trout Found and Plans Adjusted

A Perfect Day For Finding Golden Trout

Fishing high elevation lakes is a gamble at best. Weather can change very suddenly, fish seemingly appear and vanish at random, or never appear at all. On some days you'll catch fish, while on others, you might think there are no fish to be found. I've been on a streak of having excellent luck while fishing high lakes, so I was likely due for a clunker.

We got up early to try and beat the wind. That is often the biggest challenge of fishing these lakes. The wind almost always comes up every single day. If it gets bad enough, you simply cannot fish. We were hoping to get there ahead of the diurnal breezes.

Getting up early has some benefits. There is a special magic to being outdoors first thing in the morning. Someone who is better with words than I can probably articulate the mystery, but I'll have to let my pictures do the talking. This is the lake we were camping on before the sun got over the horizon. Glassy smooth water teased the possibility of a perfect day for finding golden trout.

Dawn at a lake in the Wind River mountains

Hiking To Our Golden Trout Lake

After a quick breakfast, we hustled on up the hill. I was feeling good with no ill effects lingering from the episode the evening before. We were already long past having an "official" trail (many of the better golden trout lakes are off trail), so we just struck out in the right directly from camp, angling uphill to try and intersect the social path that had to be there. While there are not official maintained trails, there are still trails or paths going most places you want to go. In this fragile high elevation ecosystem, it is probably best to stick to those paths when possible to limit impacts to the landscape.

Looking back downhill towards camp and sunrise

Hiking to find golden trout in the Wind River Mountains

Gaining elevation rapidly, we crested an obvious bench and soon found the "trail." Making better time on the flatter tread that meandered across the small bench, we continued on. In places, dramatic views opened up where the ridge we were climbing broke away abruptly on one side or the other. One of those big views showed us another small lake that had me intrigued. I didn't feel like dropping down to check it out, however, when our main goal was just over the next hill above us, or at least that's what we hoped.

Sure enough, we crested a few false rises, and then, as I've come to expect with most alpine lakes, we saw our goal ahead and a little below. Wonder of wonders, it was mostly calm. A few ripples out in the middle hinted at what could be, however.

Alpine golden trout lake in the Wind River mountains

Fly Fishing for Golden Trout On An Alpine Lake in the Wind River Mountains

Reaching the water's edge, we got our equipment put together and started fishing. It didn't take too long before we saw fish cruising the edges. Having targets to sight fish for made a big difference. A dry/dropper seemed appropriate. I wanted to catch fish on dry flies, but many of the fish were down just a little in the water column, probably eating nymphs for the hatch we hoped would materialize.

I missed a fish or two. The first fish jitters had me going strong, especially when my long dreamed of golden trout were cruising so close by. John got things dialed in a little faster and got the skunk off for us as a team. That helped a lot. His prior experience catching golden trout made a difference getting started that morning, but I would eventually hit my stride as well.

Golden trout in the Wind River Mountains

After getting the appropriate documentation of that fish, it was my turn. It took a few minutes longer than it should have when I missed a couple of fish, but finally I hooked one that decided to stay on the line for me. My own first golden trout. It barely happened in time. The wind was starting to kick a little harder. Soon, those fish cruising the edge would disappear. Did they go elsewhere? Or were they there but I couldn't see them in the chop?

We walked that edge back and forth a little longer before starting the usual progression of wondering about the other side. You know, the grass is greener syndrome. Still, with the wind starting to blow and fish becoming scarce, it made sense to start searching them out. Thus, we started our circuit of the alpine lake. I had some other things I wanted to do as well.

Touring the Golden Trout Lake

I have more pictures than anyone reasonably would want to look at from this day. So if you aren't here for pictures, feel free to keep scrolling. This next part will just highlight my trip around the lake. We slowly fished our way around 2/3 of the lake before mostly just making time on the last third. At some point, I climbed way above the lake for some shots from above. I also took time looking for wildflowers and wild critters. You know me, I can't stay away from those things for very long, even when there are fish to be caught.

John casting into the wind for golden trout

Fishing for golden trout in the Wind River range

panorama of Wind River mountains alpine lake

More wildflowers while looking for golden trout

Back to Catching Golden Trout in the Wind River Mountains

As I started angling down the hill from my perch, I started noticing something interesting. As a good fly angler, I couldn't keep my eyes off of the water for long. Sure enough, dark shadows were cruising here at the upper end of the lake. John was still off down the lake somewhere, but when I yelled that I had found a bunch of fish, he started working his way over as well.

Best of all, these fish were cruising for a sparse hatch that was coming off. Some type of small dark mayfly was hatching and the fish were feasting. Cutting off the dropper, I went with a single parachute Adams and that proved to be the ticket.

The fish were cautious, but would eat if you got the fly where they could see it. If you caught a fish or missed a fish, that little area was spooked for a few minutes. You could either wait them out or move a few yards down the bank.

We started bouncing up and down the bank, casting to eager risers and catching just enough golden trout to keep us focused a bit longer. Still, all good things must come to an end. As the rise started to ease off, we realized we were both tired from sun exposure, exercising at high elevation, and our early morning start. Some food back in camp was sounding better and better.

Hiking Back To Camp After Fishing For Golden Trout

By this time, the wind was kicking pretty good. We had found those fish rising in the back corner of the lake on the one shoreline with a little "calm." There, the bugs stayed on the water long enough for the fish to find them instead of being blown off. Once we moved on around the lake back to our starting point, the full force of the high elevation wind was in effect and we were anxious to drop back down into the trees and hopefully find a little calm.

Sure enough, things got moderately better as we made our way back to camp. At that point, we wanted just enough calm to boil some water for our backpacker dinners. The hike back down went much faster than the hike up, mostly because we weren't working as hard physically going downhill. Coming straight up to 11,000+ feet in elevation from Tennessee was challenging, but we were doing better than I think either of us had expected.

Our hike would periodically be interrupted by red squirrels scolding us or birds chattering away, but we never saw any larger mammals this day. The biggest surprise was when a grouse spooked almost underfoot. I grabbed my camera and took a few quick photos before it disappeared. Not my best shot ever, but I did get documentation.

Decisions To Make

With a highly successful first day starting to wind down, it was time to consider our options for the next several days. The original trip plan involved hiking cross country the next day and dropping into another drainage to explore some more golden trout lakes. These were lakes that supposedly produced larger fish, so that was exciting.

What wasn't exciting was the forecast from John's Garmin inReach Explorer+. We already knew that our backpacking portion of the trip was potentially in jeopardy after the first couple of days. A weather system was supposed to move through and produce very high winds over the Wind River Range. With spot forecasts for our campsite showing winds potentially near hurricane force, we debated back and forth but ultimately decided that it would be smart to bail the next morning. Going to bed that night, we didn't know how significant this decision was for the rest of our trip, but time would eventually show us that...

Random Musings

A word on our destination lake. If you happen to have read my blog for many years, you've probably noticed a trend away from naming streams and waterbodies to giving rather vague info on where my adventures happen. That is all on purpose.

Just the other day, I saw someone lamenting online about how a favorite trailhead in the Smokies was not "secret" anymore and was always super crowded. They of course then proceeded to share pictures of said trailhead (easy to identify) and describe in great detail their day of fishing. All of this while posting to a fly fishing specific Facebook group. I could basically go retrace their steps and I'm sure there are some people who will do that. That's a formula for NOT protecting and preserving wild places. If people are willing to put in the time and effort to figure these things out for themselves, they are probably harmless. The people looking for quick and easy answers, not so much.

I have long ago made the decision that I'm not going to directly be the guy outing all these spots. Shoot, there are some places you can't pay me enough to take you. So, if you do just a little basic research, this lake is already "known," but I'm not going to continue that trend myself. To do so would go against everything I believe about backcountry fishing. That said, there is more than enough info on this post to figure it out fairly easily. If you have questions, feel free to reach out. I would be glad to discuss further via email, call, or text, but not on the inter webs for the whole world to read...