5 lakes in 2 days

[Jay]

Been lurking for awhile soaking up the info. I am a bass fisherman who got bored this summer and dusted off my fly rod. I put this originally on my bass forum.


Well I have only bass fished three times since the beginning of July, so I thought id throw a report up of the fishing I have been doing. Left about 9am wednesday with my girlfriend for the Tahoe area for two days on a fly fishin mission. Started out at Red Lake and caught a nice ~13" brook trout, lost another similar sized one at the bank, and missed a couple.


There was a huge algae bloom and it was very windy so we headed up the hill to Woods Lake. A few rises and small cruising brookies with only one unlanded bite on a midge nymph/indicator rig. Said screw that and headed back down to Wrights Lake where I knew the fishing would be easier and wind wouldnt be so much of a problem in the morning and evenings at least. Arrived at dusk to a gorgeous sunset on the mountains in the Desolation Wilderness and fish rising all over.


Waded out to a cool casting rock and had a hook jawed brown trout around 15 inches hooked up and landed and I missed three or 4 more on tiny size 22 dries with 2lb tippet.


Woke up in the morning to very little surface activity which I found odd, worked hard for about an hour and a half with only two missed bites to show for it. Went and woke up my girl and inquired whether she would enjoy a hike. She foolishly said yes. [smiley=evil.gif]. Packed up camp and made a quick drive to the trailhead. Our target was Twin Lakes in the Desolation Wilderness. It is a 6 mile roundtrip hike with 1200 vertical feet of altitude gain. Pretty rugged country. Found this little spring pool with a couple 6 inch fish in it on the way up


After an hour and forty five minutes we made it to the lower lake after much whining and near puss outery from my girl. What a breathtaking place!



So is the upper lake which is mere feet above the first, kind of a weird reverse infinity pool effect while standing at the lower lake with the upper one at below eye level.




I found the fishing for little brookies to be pretty easy and exciting on dry flies. You could watch them appear from the bottom in 10+ feet of water to rocket up and smack the fly.


Many many misses and about 10 or so of these little dudes before we made the trip back out.



Lot of fun, havent done something like this since i was about 14!

I just want to get into some day hikable goldens now!

[Scott V]

Nice report. looks like a nice place to hike into. Gotta love the ferocity of brookies, they may be small but they make up for it in attitude.

[Bill Kiene semi-retired]

Welcome to the forum Jay.

Pretty good post for the first one.

We love those photos.

Thanks

[Phil Synhorst]

Hey Jay, welcome aboard.

Great post and pics, thanks. I've been up to Twin Lakes once several years ago. It's a beautiful place. I came out smelling like skunk though.

p.s. Scott, hold the laughter at my expense to a minimum please.

[Ed Wahl]

Nice Jay, thanks for sharing. I love that area. The view across the lake is a bit misleading. Those boulders are actually the size of houses.

Phil, if I remember that trip correctly you weren't skunked at all. I believe you caught a chipmunk in your landing net. Ed

[dtp916]

Dude, nice pics! Thanks for sharing!

[SteelieD]

Great trip! Welcome aboard!!

[Jay]

Thanks all! Sure is a welcome change to the monotony of trophy bass fishing! I'm one of those guys out there throwing giant lures all day. That in the summertime is just a little depressing with the bad bite, hot weather and crowds. Being a Colorado native, I grew up in the high country trout fishing. Went to a family reunion in July and fished the Little Snake the whole time. After catching a suprise 14" Greenback Cutt, the fly bug got me again! If there is anybody interested in giant bass on big swimbaits, I would gladly do a trade a trip for some backcountry goldens. Been backpacking all through my teen years but dont have the gear or the Golden knowledge to do it by myself! I fished one lake a few years ago that is a 1.5mile hike with 4wd or 4 miles without that has them, but that is it. All I managed to catch were brookies and LDR'd a couple goldens. Sure would like to get one to the net before we get snowed in and its back to the big baits!

Thanks for the warm welcome!

[Phil Synhorst]

Ed, you are correct. I completely forgot about that little guy getting himself trapped in my net. He's lucky I was in a catch and release mood at the time.