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I'm stuck at a high school make-up registration and not many kids need their photos taken so I figured I'd stroll on over to the NCFFB. (Can't access Facebook on the school's WiFi because it's designated as a "social/dating" site.)
Not to come empty handed, I've got a report. Wednesday night I returned to AZ after a week of FF in the Wind River Mts. of Wyoming for large cutts and especially, large goldens and golden/cutts. Two friends and I backpacked for 10 miles after being driven 13 miles across Shoshone tribal lands to the trailhead. (At a cost of $200 each for transportation and a $55. trespassing fee, it lends a new interpretation to the term being "scalped".)
I've since heard of other areas in the "Winds" that have nice goldens where you don't have to pay for tribal transportation, and if I ever do this again I'll be in touch with the Wy G&F to get more info.
I don't have any pix with me, so you'll just have to take my work for the results.
I'd been hiking/working out for a year to get in shape for this one. There isn't much oxygen at 10,500 feet. We fished a series of lakes connected by streams in one of the drainages. The nearest town was Crowheart, so named after a late 19th century battle where one chief killed another in a final battle to bring an end to a short war. The loser's heart was cut out and placed on the end of the winning chief's lance.
The bottom lakes contained small brookies, and some nice cutts and bows. Small buggers, prince nymphs and soft hackles accounted for most of my sub-surface fish and small mosquitos hooked a number on the surface. Speaking of mosquitos, there were thousands of them. We had to douse ourselves with 99% deet, three times a day. Lip balm with at least SPF 25 was a must, too.
As we made our way up the drainage, it was mostly cutts to 18". The outlets and especially inlets to the lakes were the best spots, and at times it was "fish on" two out of every three casts.
At the top two lakes was our ultimate quarry, goldens of 20" and larger. The forests gave way to alpine bushes and grasses. The lakes are deep, very deep, but there are "shelfs" around the edges of much of them. This is the time of year the goldens come out of the depths to spawn in the creeks and feed on the shelfs. We were a little late, and the fish had been pounded by two groups that were up there before us, but I was able to land almost 20 between 11" - 18", mostly on very small egg patterns, red San Juan worms and olive scuds. We had to hit them pretty hard to instigate a grab. Further down, below the second lake from the top, I landed a 20" golden-cutt from under a waterfall.
The goldens were, without doubt, the most beautiful fresh water fish I'd ever seen. Mostly yellow with slashes of red, I photographed almost every fish. I'll try to get back to the NCFFB later to post a shot or two.
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