09-06-2009, 02:58 PM
I haven't fished Yellow Belly for several years but I know a few things about it. At the time I visited, they had lifted the limit on Brook Trout, I'm pretty sure because of the generally smallish size. It also used to have the trophy regulations for Rainbows, (2 fish, none under 20 inches). Now it appears that Fish and Game has converted the regs over to purely catch and release. When I last visited, I took my float tube out and fished pretty much all day and didn't even get a bite. While I was out, I did see a very large Rainbow swim by my float tube, but as soon as it saw me, that was pretty much the end of that. It's a very scenic lake and the road going in there is pretty rough, you definitely don't want to try it with a car due to lots of good sized rocks in the road. You also can't drive right to the shoreline, you have to park and hike about 1/4 mile into the lake from where the road is. While I couldn't figure it out myself, I've heard that if you stay on the road that it's possible to park a little closer to the lake at the upper end but it seemed to me that if anything the road was heading away from the lake as opposed to closer when I tried it. It's been over 10 years since I last visited, so maybe things have changed since then and the fishing has improved. Based on my experience, if you're headed there to enjoy the beautiful Sawtooth scenery, then you won't be disappointed but I wouldn't expect for the fishing to be all that great.
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