High Mountain Lake Cutties!

August 5^th, 2016

High Mountain Lake Cutties!

First blog ever!!!  So, what should my first blog be about?  Hum, simple answer for me, FISHING. More specifically my biggest passion, fly fishing. Rivers, lakes, streams, ponds or oceans, if it has fish or for that matter could have fish in it, I want to throw a fly into it. I have spent time staring at an aquarium or two as well!  I cannot hike by a stream or lake and not think to myself, I bet there are fish right behind that rock, or under that log!  Just the way I am wired! I find myself drifting across the center line when driving along a river wonder if there are fish down there!  Heck, I am addicted…and the tug is the drug! Sure I love a good beer or two. But nothing gives you the high of a fish taking your fly.

To pick the first place I wanted to write about was simple. Every once in a while you find a lake that is just absolutely beautiful, unspoiled and more importantly, has a lot of fish in it.  Today, I hiked up to a lake that fits all of those criteria.  Granted, the lake is only accessible from about mid-June through mid-October because of the elevation. Granted the fish are not huge because it is snow covered most of the year. But I could not think of a better place to start my blog at than Link Lake.

Link Lake is in every book and on every map you can find.  But few people fish it because from Whitefish it is about an hour and a half drive up a dirt road that progressively gets worse and worse. The last two miles have ruts that are about a foot deep! You can only go about 5 or 10 miles per hour. Plus, once you get there it is a very steep hike.  I fish this lake 4 or 5 times a year and absolutely love the lake.  Today, was a perfect day to hike, mild temperatures and high skies…Big Sky Country at its finest.

Arriving at the lake their were two other people there, both in float tubes.  I had the entire shoreline to myself, well except for another, more talented angler!!

Don’t get me wrong, I am a pretty good fisherman, but this guy fishes for a living and did pretty well for himself today I might add! I fished for the better part of two hours all the while he was overhead fishing or perched just up the shoreline in a tree! I am not sure that there is a cooler experience than fishing alongside an eagle.  I think just the fact of seeing an Eagle of his size fishing is cool, but add in the scenery and how good the fishing was, and it was a special day.

Oh, I did catch several nice cutties as well. I started off throwing nymphs because I did not see anything rising and it was still relatively cool.  After about an hour I started noticing a few fish rising and decided to throw a dry fly. Dry fly fishing is a visual stimulus that makes your heart jump when that fish comes to the surface and takes the fly. Some fish jump out of the water to take the fly. Some just slurp it from below the surface. Either way, it is exciting when you see a fish take your fly.

I ended up having a great day and caught a decent number of beautiful cutthroats.  On the drive home I could not help but wonder what my 'fishing friend' was doing? I would assume he was flying home to his family as well. I know I will be back to Link Lake in the near future. Hopefully, the next time I am at Link Lake my feathered friend is there as well.