Ever since I was a young lad, I have been hearing about Lake Alice from friends and family. Kevin, Markus, Matt, Josh, Zak, and I fished Hobble Creek back in 2010, but never made the actual hike to Lake Alice. That was pretty close.
Then, Zak and I tried to make it up there over Memorial Day 2015, only to again be foiled by a bad combination of lingering snow drifts over the road and a steady rain fall. We got within a few miles of the river crossing up to Hobble Creek Campground, but were then driven back by Mother Nature. Getting closer, I suppose.
So, all summer long, I've been salivating about getting back up there and redeeming ourselves. With a busy summer, time sped by much too fast. Moving into fall, things weren't slowing down. We chose the weekend prior to Halloween to make our bid. It was a good thing we did, because snow arrived a week after we departed.
First, we had a successful river crossing at the Hams Fork. Roxy enjoyed the washing of the undercarriage.
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| Yes, this is the only way. No, there is no bridge. Yes, it was fun to cross at high speeds. |
We took the short, 1.5 mile hike from the campground up to Lake Alice to find beautiful, still ,azure waters.
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| What a reflection! |
Lake Alice is the only lake in the U.S. with a healthy, naturally reproducing population of Bonneville Cutthroat Trout. Not a single planter up here. And they were very hungry. It was created by a natural landslide many centuries ago, making for a deep natural lake, that easily looks like it good be manmade. By the second cast, we were getting dialed in on them. The lure of choice was anything golden with good action, namely the Jakes Spin-A-Lure.
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| Sunburst fish on. |
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| Zak on the humane release |
We then made friends with the only other 2 people we saw the rest of the day on this large lake, who happened to have a boat and were tired of fishing with no luck; such good friends, in fact, that they let us use their boat since they were heading down for the day. Trolling and putting around the lake ensued.
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| Zak doing the double trolling |
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| Doing some deep surgery on the fish. |
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| And then finally a release back to the clean and pristine waters... |
When the afternoon wind kicked up, we felt it was finally time to head out. The oars on this boat were unruly and homemade; besides, the boat had no personal floatation device (PFD) to speak of, as it is a communal vessel, to be left on the shores. We reluctantly left this place of solitude and peace in the late afternoon.
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| Till Next Time |
That evening we fished the Hobble Creek proper, down below what we affectionately call The White Castle. The water was crystal clear and low, and difficult to fish without spooking them. It was serene fishing until night fall with no other company.
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| Zak doing his thing at the soft light and growing shadows of dusk |
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| Not a great pic but wanted to capture the one brown from the whole trip. |
We also fished the Smith Fork down through Cokeville, WY. It's always nice when you have access to someone's private property; in this case it was the Cottonwood Ranch, owned by the Dayton Clan. The fish hadn't seen much pressure and took the woolly buggers pretty readily. All cutts on the Smithie ranged from 13-16", with a few whitey's mixed in.
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| Thanks Dames! |
P.S. Before the 2015 fishing season slips away, I wanted to include one more picture here from a July adventure Zak and I had up on Mountain Dell Creek up Parley's Canyon. The picture is not the greatest, but netting this 18" fish after dark sure was!
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| So shocking that we took a pic of our finger at the same time. |
