The Wind River Gold Rush is on!

After find gold in the Wind River lakes and streams in July we knew we had to go back.  In August Justin, Travis and myself loaded up my wife’s car and were off in search of the elusive Golden Trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss aguabonita).  The lakes we were after consisted of some serous off trail hiking.  After hiking 5 miles of dead fall, filled with elk herds and bear droppings we busted out of the thick pine forest to a small opening to the lake we would call home for the next four days.  That evening we fished camp lake, like most lakes in the Wind Rivers, all we caught were stunted brook trout.

Here are a few evening shots of the inlet above camp lake.

Evening camp

We had 3 day hikes planned on this trip, the first day ended up being our biggest hike of the trip.  We logged 11.4 miles on our boots looking for golden trout in the wind river lakes and streams.   We found new lakes that had golden trout in them, I had a small arsenal of flies that the goldens love.  The only problem with golden trout, they are by far the hardest trout I’ve ever fished.   Luck was not on my side this morning.  Travis and Justin threw out every spinner they had, with no luck.  Things were looking grim for us, it didn't help the winds were howling at a steady pace all day!

We had one last lake to fish before heading off the mountain, most of the streams we fished on the way up held no fish.  But that soon changed, as we turned up the inlet from our last lake we started catching golden trout.  Most were small goldens, that didn't matter to us, we were catching them.

I was going for a small golden trout at the upper inlet of the last lake we fished when I noticed a big flash.  Whatever it was, it sure didn't want my fly.  I dropped a copper john off of my dry fly, on my second pass where I saw the flash....FISH ON!   And this was one big fish.  I have no idea how I managed to keep this monster golden from snapping my line, thanks to the help of Travis and Justin I was able to pull the beast out.

That wouldn't be the last one that evening.  I pull another one out that had been beaten by the boulders in this small creek.  We ended up eating this one, this was by far the best trout I've ever eaten.  We cooked it over the fire with no butter, spices and no tinfoil.  When you can eat fresh trout with nothing on it you know your eating a tasty fish.

After day two in the Wind Rivers hiking for Golden Trout we ended up not making it back to those lakes.  We had no energy to hike the passes again.  We decided to head south into another small drainage to see what it held.  That was the end to our golden trout, all we caught the rest of the trip were small brookies.  Well, we did find one lake with some bigger, stunted brookies.