Fishing Forum

After my heli flyover earlier this month we modified our trip to match the snow conditions. On 07/11 we took ten 12-yr old scouts and a few dads on a six day 42-mile power walk in the Uintas. We ended up starting at Hells Canyon and going into Swasey Lakes, up to Spider Lake, further up to Superior / Little Superior, across Tungsten Pass into Upper Yellowstone, cross country to Milk Lake (near Bluebell Pass) and on down the Yellowstone River to the trailhead and our shuttle vehicle. The weather was cool and wet the first couple of days then cleared up as the week went along, it froze 3 of the 6 nights. As predicted, the rivers down low were very high could not be crossed. Since we were up high in the basins we were able to cross at or near most headwaters, so we were able to move around fairly easily though we needed to wade the larger ones with Tevas. Fishing was very good, as the fish probably had ice over them until recently they were receptive to about anything we threw in, especially green blade/black body Panthers and silver with red spots Jakes. The kids caught and released dozens of brookies and quite a few cuts. As you can see in the pictures there was still significant areas of snow in the highest elevations, however we stayed mainly below 11300' and other than some occasional small patches were able to move freely. One of the pictures on Tungsten Pass shows upper Garfield Basin which still has a lot of snow and will only be open for a small amount of time this year, if at all. The trails were all in decent condition, if you are going in make sure you have waterproof boots, as there were many sections of the trails with water running in them or areas with standing water, especially in the drainage areas. We barely even saw a mosquito which was welcome. We didn't see a single boot track other than one of our own, so if you're looking for solitude and great fishing I'd think about heading up there soon. Even though we had big thunderstorms the first couple of days, it was a great trip overall, and as always the Uintas are a beautiful place.
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Fantastic. Thanks.

We are heading up to the Uintahs (along with everyone else on the wasatch) this weekend and I have been worried about the conditions. Mostly though I just want to go fishing. Thanks for your report.
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Very nice. Thanks for the report. I have plans to head into the Garfield Basin the first part of August.
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The cross country pic reminds me of that scene from Forrest Gump when he is telling Jenny about his travels: "that high mountain lake was so clear, Jenny, I swear it looked like two skies..."
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