Winds

[chuckbigflies]

Would like to put together a backpacking trip next summer on the reservation side. Any recommendations for areas that consistently produce big cutties? Maybe not specific lakes but at least general areas for producing big fish.
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[one8sevenn]

Really, almost any spot you go can produce the fish that you are after. One thing I would look at is an area with a lot of lakes in proximity. I think people often get honed in on one lake that is ok fishing and the lake on the other side of the mountain is fishing hotter than the sun.

The key is to be mobile with a lot of lakes at your disposal.

Behind Pinedale, the green river lakes area, up from Lander, or the south pass area will all be gravy.

Bug spray is a must in the area. I would also advise to bring bear spray. Not many grizz in the area other than the Green River lakes; but there are a lot of stories of Black bears camp robbing during the summer months.

Keep a clean camp and if you pack it in, then pack it out.
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[chuckbigflies]

Finally made it up to the winds in the Lake Sonnicant basin on the res and fishing was decent. Nothing huge but we caught cutts up to 18". We had several lakes all to ourselves. The cutts were hiding in the rocks near shorelines and would hit double renegades every time one would come drifting over their heads. Bugs weren't too bad. The hike is about 13 miles and over 4,000 vertical. I suggest doing it in 2 days
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[wiperhunter2]

Sounds like a fun trip, does Lake Sonnicant have other fish besides cutts? Did you see much wildlife on the hike in and out? Thanks for the report.
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[chuckbigflies]

We never fished sonnicant but talked to others who did and they caught cutts and lake trout out of it. We fished Heebeecheche and lakes just upstream from it. There are lakers in many of these lakes but we only caught brookies and cutts. Never saw any big game while we were up there. We were hoping to but only saw occasional tracks. We heard that an earlier party that came in saw a black bear and the outfitter up there had a black bear walk past them as they were loading up horses at one of the lakes.
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[wiperhunter2]

How deep are these lakes that have lake trout in them? Wow the outfitter had a bear that close and the horses did not spook, that's amazing.
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[chuckbigflies]

They are pretty deep with steep slopes on many sides of these lakes and they're pretty big in size for high mountain lakes. Its hard to get down to them since you normally don't have a float tube with you to get out in the middle. Our biggest challenge was keeping the brookies off the line long enough to get down to where the lakers are. Those brookies would go after lures/flies that were their same size
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[SkunkedAgain]

It's kind of tough to predict size, one lake up the big sandy trail head a number of years ago was producing 20-24" cutties and a lot of them. Went back a couple years ago and we couldn't buy a bite out of that lake... Another lake that had been producing big macs for a couple years, last time we were there, they were all skinny snakes... but they were hungry and you could get hit about every cast... Next time we go there, they may all be starved out... or maybe feed will increase and they will be very nice fish... just hard to predict, but I liked the advice you got about finding areas with lots of other options, so if lake A don't work out try B and C and maybe you'll find great fish in one of the others... I quite often end up in the B or C or F option before I find fish, but I usually do, it's a great area and one of my favorites...Later Jeff
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