44th Day Fly Fishing – Uinta Mountains Lake, August 18th, 2022
Yesterday was a lot of fun! Most of the time I would prefer to chase big fish over catching bigger numbers of smaller fish. But sometimes I like to change it up. Slams are fun and not every fishery supports 3 or more target species. For instance a flats slam in Florida, Mexico or the Caribbean is a redfish, tarpon, snook or spotted seatrout. Catch three in a given day and you have a slam, catch all four and you have a grand slam.
My goal yesterday was an Alpine Lake Grand Slam. Having been to this lake before, I knew it was doable. The target species were tiger trout, rainbow trout, brook trout and arctic grayling. The lake is fishable from shore, but bigger numbers happen from a float tube. For tigers I like to run the shoreline. They will cruise the shoreline about 10′ off the bank. The rainbows rise further out and the brook trout can be anywhere.
For flies, small foam bugs work great! The fish also love ant patterns. Today I mixed it up with foam beetles and Amy’s ants and even a foam yellow sally. The fish aren’t that picky. I like the foam bugs because they are easy to see, The yellow sally in particular. It was a tough day for rises though. The winds were variable and when they picked up the fish went down. Many times during the day the rises were very sparse.
Ultimately it was a good day though. Yes, I did manage two grayling, a few brook trout, several tigers and a lot of rainbows. All in all a beautiful day in the mountains!
The slam was complete today. All topwater eats and most ate the foam yellow sally. I was happy about that cause you are really low to the water and casting a highly visible fly really helps! Great day!
