In the City, Dreaming about the Wilderness...

[AR-Tenner]

Hi Everyone,

I am a long-time reader, and finally decided to sign up so I can get in on the discussion. Although I have hiked in some pretty cool places in the Chinese Himalayas, Qin Range, and Manuchria, I mostly hike with the end goal of reaching tough-to-access wild trout waters that have little-to-no fishing pressure.

I work as an attorney at a firm in northern Virginia, and although I love my job, being in an urban and low-altitude area, not a day goes by that my mind does not wistfully wander into the Appalachians or Rockies where the air is cool and the trout are big.

I have thoroughly indoctrinated my wife into loving the same type of hiking into beautiful mountain settings and fishing for trout. She is a small-town girl from China whom I met when we were teenagers at Peking University, and her awe at the gorgeous wild spots we have in the U.S. is such a joy to behold. Although it is embarrassing to admit, even though she had never fished until I took her on one such expedition her first time visiting the U.S., she now routinely outfishes me! She is an economist and works in downtown D.C., and longs for our summer expeditions as much as I do.

We have been into the wildest spots in Virginia and North Carolina and caught trophy native Brook Trout, and are planning trips to the Qin range in China after their unique species of lenok, and into the Rockies in Montana, Wyoming, and Idaho to catch Cutthroat and Golden Trout.

Anyway, thanks for the great forum and for having me as part of the community, and I look forward to learning a lot!

 

[b.stark]

Welcome. Backcountry fishing is highly addictive, isn't it?

 

[AR-Tenner]

Welcome. Backcountry fishing is highly addictive, isn't it?

It sure is, and judging by your photo, you have done a bit yourself. From the background in that shot, I'd say you were in either the Winds, Sawtooths, Bighorns, or Bitterroots! At least that is if you are in North America. I have been in some much higher country in China, but nowhere in the Himalayas or Qins have I found land that looks like the Winds, which is my wife and my favorite fishing area outside of North Carolina.

Do you go after Goldens as well?

 

[b.stark]

That is in fact in the winds. I don't get crazy about targeting them but do enjoy it when I catch them. would like to get one on the fly rod though, the last time I was around golden trout waters I had just started and really didn't know what I was doing. to be honest I look for cutthroats before goldens if fishing is a prime goal.

The winds are a bit of a second home for me. A very good place. I've never hiked outside the USA although have done one canoeing trip in canada.

 

[Kyle P]

Welcome AR-Tenner.

If you are interested in fishing the rockies, I recommend reading Fly Fishing the Rocky Mountain Backcountry by Rich Osthoff. The book is full of tips on finding the lakes and streams you are looking for that contain nice trout as well as solitude.

I have very similar goals in each of my trips, so let me know if you have any questions related to the Wind Rivers area.

Kyle

 

[MikeM]

Welcome to the board, AR-Tenner. I have hiked and fished many of the ranges and lakes in SW Montana, and agree that it is highly addictive. Not many Goldens in our area (although there are a few spots if you know where to look), but plenty of Cutthroat fisheries.

I second that book recommendation by Kyle P, great info. It also helps to get some more "local" books, too, depending on where you are headed.

 

[Glasterpiece]

I would recommend Trout Fishing in America by Richard Brautigan.

 

[AR-Tenner]

Thanks so much for the recommendations, and boy are you right about Goldens being more careful than Cutthroats, which I have never seen turn away from a fly or lure. The one exception I have found is in fall when it's starting to get colder and the Goldens start panicking to pack on weight for the winter. Then they'll go for anything.

I will give the Trout Fishing in America book a try, and I not only have read Mr. Osthoff's book (and Finis Mitchell's), but I actually correspond with Mr. Osthoff. I also know just about every fisheries biologist and official in Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming; my philosophy is that when you work a very high-pressure job without much vacation a long way from the Rockies, you make sure that you have all the information before heading out there on a trip.

I am curious about how many of y'all are exclusively fly fisherman, and how many also use spinning gear. I always use unscented artificial lures with one hook only, but despite having a lot of training and practice with fly fishing, I almost always do better with spinning gear using a spinner, jig, popper, or spoon (for bigger stuff). I also actually often do better casting dry and wet flies with a spinning rig by using a type of French casting bubble that you can fill mostly with water for casting weight, that will still float when full of water. I have found that trout that are spooked by even the most gentle lay of a fly from a traditional fly rod are fearless when you use the casting bubble to put the fly 50 yards beyond them, and then slowly bring it over the top of them by reeling in.

I also do always practice catch and release (one reason the old-timers in Golden country never seem to mind sharing their favorite spots with me) with Goldens or any native trout, and will only keep wild trout when they are invasive, like Rainbows and Browns in the native Brookie waters in the Appalachians, Brookies in the native waters out West, or ANYTHING but a Golden in a water that is supposed to have Goldens, but luckily there is only one lake I've encountered out West that has that issue, and so far, I haven't seen any evidence of the Goldens breeding with the intruder Cutthroats, which have been in there 40 years or so.

 

[Wanderlust073]

I fly fish all the time, but there are gold medal waters all over the place here from 30 minutes to two hours driving from my front door. Ironically I never fish when I'm backpacking in the mountains. As light as the gear is, I have some mental block about it being 'extra weight'.

Then I lug around ten pounds in camera gear...

Only used the bubble once, and that was on a guided trip in the mountains. Bought some bubbles after that, and just never used them but again probably because it's all streams here near home not alpine lakes.

 

[Kyle P]

I exclusively fly fish. As Wanderlust073 says above, it is extra weight, so I leave the spinning rod at home when backpacking. To me personally, its more challenging to consistently catch fish with a fly rod and I enjoy the challenge.

And I concur with not eating goldens, but most other fish are fair game for me. A lot of those lakes/streams are over-populated and could use some harvest. Especially the brookies in the Wind Rivers. There aren't a lot of better meals than fresh caught trout!

Kyle

 

[AR-Tenner]

I exclusively fly fish. As Wanderlust073 says above, it is extra weight, so I leave the spinning rod at home when backpacking. To me personally, its more challenging to consistently catch fish with a fly rod and I enjoy the challenge.

And I concur with not eating goldens, but most other fish are fair game for me. A lot of those lakes/streams are over-populated and could use some harvest. Especially the brookies in the Wind Rivers. There aren't a lot of better meals than fresh caught trout!

Kyle

I know exactly what you are saying about seeing some waters with so many small Goldens that it's easy to want to take some, but so far I've resisted. I've actually been surprised how common that phenomenon is in some of the REALLY remote (I'm talking 6-day hike from trailhead with most of it murderous off-trail) small lakes in the drainages that are exclusively populated by Goldens. I am amazed that anything is able to survive the winter in some of these relatively shallow and small (<10 acres) lakes, but come ice-out, they are teeming.

I will go to town on any Brookie I catch in the Winds, though, as what I see as a civic duty. It just so happens they are also the most delicious trout I have ever tasted. Some time when I have way more time to spend out west, I will catch some Goldens from one of the put-and-take high lakes that can't support natural reproduction and eat them, but until then, the Brookie is the reigning culinary champ.

 

[AR-Tenner]

I fly fish all the time, but there are gold medal waters all over the place here from 30 minutes to two hours driving from my front door. Ironically I never fish when I'm backpacking in the mountains. As light as the gear is, I have some mental block about it being 'extra weight'.

Then I lug around ten pounds in camera gear...

Only used the bubble once, and that was on a guided trip in the mountains. Bought some bubbles after that, and just never used them but again probably because it's all streams here near home not alpine lakes.

Wanderlust, I am GREEN with envy that you are so close to so many waters; if I want trout (or really any game fish in decent sizes and numbers), I either have to drive several hours and then hike many more hours into national forest land on the VA-WV border; drive many more hours to North Carolina where there are actually decent mountains with wild Rainbows, Browns, and Brooks; or swallow my pride and fish right after one of the ponds around the area is stocked by Virginia Game and Fish with Rainbows and Browns. As yucky as I feel fishing for stocked trout in a lake that is too warm for them in the summer and could never support spawning, I am so starved for good fishing here that I'll take what I can get. They are still wary and smart trout, though, and I am almost always able to fill my creel (the casting bubble comes in VERY handy there) while the casual worm-and-hook fisherman generally get skunked. Heck, even the lakes that are supposed to have crappie and bass around here are so overfished that 1 or 2 small crappie, a few yellow perch, and a couple bluegill is the best possible result from 8 hours on the water.

Due to how bad the fishing is around here and how rare it is that my wife and I can get time off work for a trip, when we do it, we take 2 weeks and load up with so much stuff. Not only do we pack in 4 spinning rigs, a pack-raft, and all the supplies we need for 2 weeks in the alpine country, but due to some close calls with bears in the past and our abundance of caution, I also sling my ArmaLite AR-10 across my chest, just in case we run across a hungry grizzly out of hibernation. It is pretty heavy, but makes for some pretty cool fish pictures when we catch stuff.

In total, when going in my total kit is 70+lbs, and my wife's is 25 (she's a small Chinese lady, so I take the dense stuff in my pack). It is murderous, but we make the most of the few opportunities we have.

 

[MikeM]

Like some of the others, I fly fish exclusively, no spinning rods. I have nothing against them, just a personal preference. I realize it limits me with my casting ability to not be able to reach further out into some lakes, but I find fly fishing to be so therapeutic that I've really never picked up spin casting.

And, as far as weight goes, I've never really felt like it adds all that much weight. I'll pack my rod, a reel with 2 spools (one sinking line, one floating), and a medium sized fly box with just the essentials. I can't imagine it adds more than a couple pounds.

 

[Wanderlust073]

Wanderlust, I am GREEN with envy that you are so close to so many waters;

One of the best decisions I ever made was to move to a place where my 'vacations' would become my 'weekends'. Highly recommend it!

 

[Kyle P]

I know exactly what you are saying about seeing some waters with so many small Goldens that it's easy to want to take some, but so far I've resisted.

Just to clairfy... I don't eat goldens and don't plan to. They are too rare of a species that requires a unique set of circumstances to survive. And with trout waters warming up, these select lakes might start to disappear.

Kyle P

 

[b.stark]

I started spin fishing but pretty much always fly fish for trout now. just plain enjoy it more.

I will admit to having eaten golden trout once, blasphemous as it is. it was very good, red meat.

 

[AR-Tenner]

No worries, I don't blame anyone here for eating the occasional Golden; I would not be above eating the occasional one caught from a stream below a barrier from one of the trophy lakes, since it would not affect the population in those lakes. The Cutthroats my wife and I have caught in lakes high up in the Winds had that blood-red meat color that I hear described being present in Goldens. For those that have eaten them, can you really tell a difference in taste between them and Cutthroats or Rainbows, when they come from similar environments?

I would take great issue, however, if I were at one of the trophy lakes and somebody was just pulling dozens of fish out and keeping them all. This does not seem likely, though, as the kind of people that ruin fisheries are not the type to hike 30+ miles off-trail over multiple 12,000' passes just to get to the fish.

 

[AR-Tenner]

One of the best decisions I ever made was to move to a place where my 'vacations' would become my 'weekends'. Highly recommend it!

If only there were a good market for corporate attorneys (federal government contracting and white collar crime) and litigation support economists (what my wife does) in Wyoming, Montana, or Idaho, we'd be there as soon as we could pack! Unfortunately, even Denver does not have enough of a demand for people in our professions. I hear the Golden Trout is making a comeback in Colorado, and now there are alpine lake opportunities to catch the Greenback Cutthroat - a fish that is definitely on my life list - but the thing that worries me in Colorado is the firearms magazine ban. One of the ways I am able to convince my Chinese small-town girl wife that it is safe to hike in potential grizzly country after trout is that I have my ArmaLite AR-10 across my chest, and not being able to carry that would be a serious issue for us.

 

[Wanderlust073]

the thing that worries me in Colorado is the firearms magazine ban.

Can't speak for the blue tumor of Denver (or Boulder), but cops here openly scoff at magazine capacity bans. Outside of Denver this is an open carry, free state.

 

[Absarokanaut]

With all due respect I'm going to be blunt, please understand and take this constructively:

Informed folks properly holster and know when and how to use BEARSPRAY in grizzly country and understand that beyond common sense and situational avoidance it is your PRIMARY defense. With most ammunition however well you might have trained yourself when a grizzly bear is down on all fours and charging you you have two targets the size of dimes and those eyes are bobbing up and down and closing on you at +/- 25 MPH. I don't know what your gun or ammo is but you should most certainly see the definitive study from AK that UNEQUIVOCALLY demonstrates Bearspray is almost always a better choice than almost any firearm short of entirely too cumbersome monsters. There are no guarantees, particularly with a sow with cubs but GET Bearspray. It very well might have saved my life in 2012 when a large boar rolled up 6' in front of me just a few miles from where they dug a forest inventorier out of 3 holes 2 years later.

If you must have the likely incredibly false sense of security of a gun make certain your minimum caliber is a .454 Casull., it is holstered on your chest, and you can fire it FROM THE HOLSTER. Don't be a scumbag and shoot a bear at distnce and that isn't charging you or inside your tent.

There has not been evidence of Grizzly Bears in Colorado for 45 years or so as far as I know.

I am not a fisherman but have family not far from here that own a Guest Ranch/Hunting Lodge and Wilderness Camp and Fly Shop. There are many lesser known/travelled places from Silver City, NM to the Arctic with walk and wade fishing as great as anything on the Henrys Fork, etc.

The Rockies aside have you seen the MONSTER trout beneath Senneca Rocks in WV?