Hiked into this small higher elevation lake (around 4,000 feet) to see what I could find. I'm sure you'll recognize this lake if you've been there. The water was surprisingly warm at 66 degrees, but the snow is all gone on the surrounding mountains, so I guess it warms up quickly after that. There were definitely mosquitoes around, but not too bad, so I didn't have to apply bug juice. I'd heard of 14 inch Brookies being caught in this lake, but maybe I just hit it on the wrong year, as all I found were lots of small Brookies in the 6 to 12 inch range. I had a total of 44 solid hits, and of those I had 26 on for a while, and of those I landed and released 22 of the fish. They were all very thin and didn't have much fight in them. But, some of them were quite colorful, like this one:
All the fish were hooked using my T-Waterboatman pattern, although I never saw a waterboatman while I was there. Didn't see much hatching. for that matter. Only saw a few dragonflies and one damselfly. I'd guess that the particular fly pattern wasn't that important, but getting the depth right was the key. I was mainly finding the fish in the 11 to 12 foot depths.
There was just one other guy on the lake, but he left early, so I had the lake to myself most of the time. There were some day hikers and backpackers passing by, but otherwise it was quiet and peaceful.
Saw lots of interesting wildflowers, including these Shooting Stars on the shoreline:
Rex
