29th and 30th Days Fly Fishing (July 28th, August 3rd 2024)- Washington Lake, Mirror Lake, Trial Lake
Sunday, July 28th 2024 – Washington Lake, Uintas
It’s 97 degrees in Salt Lake City on July 29th. It is so great to go up to be able to climb up to 8,500 feet following the Mirror Lake Highway to Washington Lake where it is a cool 70. In fact, I had to pack an extra shirt because it was also very windy and cool actually. Today was my annual trek to Washington Lake with my float tube in pursuit of the “Uintas Slam”. The Uintas Slam involves catching a tiger trout, a rainbow trout a brook trout and an arctic grayling. Today was going to be difficult. I knew this as I was pumping up my tube at the truck, when a wind gust of about 25mph hit me. It almost made me want to leave. So glad that I decided to persevere.
This is my fourth time going for the slam at Washington and I always look forward to it. I have a route that I have been following with my tube since my first slam a few years back. Today, I was focused entirely on that route from the start. The reason being the winds. Even with ripples on the water, fish were still rising, but far fewer. Far fewer. So I hit the shoreline first where the tigers tend to be. They just love running the shoreline, sometimes only a couple of feet from the edge. I was kicking my Classic Accesorries float tube. In the parking lot, after that gust hit, I made sure to fill the tube for maximum pressure. Having it ride even a half inch higher helps when the water is cold and the wind is blowing against your wet skin. I wanted my legs and bottom to be as dry as possible.
OK, back to fishing. I had rigged my 3wt Scott G2 and patched the tippet with 5X. I knew the bugs that I would use. The size 16 foam yellow sally, an Umpqua pattern was my first choice. It worked really well last year. My second go to was the Lance Egan Atomic Ant. A black bug with a white wing, which really helped with visibility as well. Anyway, working the shoreline, I missed a couple of eats. Youu are dealing with smaller fish with smaller mouths, but you also need to be right on the set. My first fish to the new delighted me! It was not a tiger, it was a brookie!
You can see the foam yellow sally sticking out of this beautiful fish’s mouth. The barb was pinched so the fly came out effortlessly and with very little damage. I was elated that it was a brookie, because it has been the last fish in my slam before. There are a lot of them but a huge percentage are very small, say 6″ or less. I have had to resort to a smaller fly like a cinnamon ant. But this brookie was almost a foot long and he easily pounded that yellow bug.
So I continued on my path but moved out aways where there was a rock garden submerged about 3 feet. These were large reddish tan sandstone rocks. They were flatish on top and rose 1 to 2 feet up off the bottom. This is perfect fish habitat. So I worked this garden really well and had several missed eats, small brookies perhaps? I finally stuck an eat! To my surprise when I got it in, it was a rainbow! Yes! A very pretty stocked rainnbow.
It interests me that the tigers and brook trout tend to work the shoreline, whereas the rainbows I have caught have been offshore. They also like structure as do the graylingI was happy to have two species landed at onlly a half hour in. Moving back the shore, there was some other good areas to find tiger trout. I like the tigers as they run a little larger and they are real feisty fighters. They can be sneaky in terms of how they eat the fly. You have to be on your toes. You can’t be scoping your next cast before you pick up. I missed several fish due to being distracted. But I did pick up several tigers along the way, like the one below.
As I moved along the shoreline heading away from the dam, I worked several spots that had submerged structure. There were also tree stumps, which can be good, but not today. They were also a few big rocks along the shore that were half submerged and produce eats. My favorite rock has a flat face and the water depth out from the face is about 4 feet, which is really good for being so close to shore. I delivered a fly a couple feet off the edge of the face that was closest to me. Yes! I got the eat almost immediately, but unfortunately failed to set the hook.
Float tubes can be an incredible fishing tool. What makes mine so useful particularly in high mounntain lakes is the portability. Strapping it on my back and hiking in works really well. And yeas, to some extent, a SUP can be packed in as well, but on the water a float tube allows you to fish hands free. I was a kayak fisherman when I lived in Florida and you are constantly switching between paddle and fly rod. But the downside of the float tube is that it won’t get you where you are going quickly. So continnuing on, one flipper kick at a time, I slowly progresssed along the shoreline. I was blind casting a lot because there weren’t a lot of rises due to the wind. But I was headed to a big cove that I had hoped, might offer some protection. I picked up a couple more tigers along the way and in spite of the wind, I seemed to be doing OK.
The wind had shifted when I reached the cove and it wasn’t offering much protection after all. I got a few more eats there, but I think they were mostly splashy little brook trout because I wasn’t getting hook sets. The cove was near the area where I like to find the arctic greyling, which was the only species left that I needed to complete my slam. At this point, I had two brookies, several tigers and 2 rainbows. Carefully working a submerged rock garden, I knew I would eventually get that greyling and sure enough it did happen. This spot is where I always go for the graylings and it has not let me down. The first two fish I got out of that rock garden were rainbows. Then ultimately I got my grayling.
As the day worn on, the wind got worse and finding rising trout out in the middle was tougher. Taking this reality into account, I moved back to the shore, and with my slam finally in hand, decided to work the shoreline heading back to where I would take-out.
All in all, it was in excellent day. The wind caused me to change the way I approached the day and it reset my expectations. But still, I was able to persevere and get my slam at Washinton lake for a fourth year in a row! Brilliant!
Saturday, August 3rd, 2024 – Mirror Lake, Trial Lake, Washington Lake
Thanks to the bloody hot days in Salt Lake City, I needed to escape once again to the cool of the Unitas. This time I decided to make it a day of wading beginning at Mirror lake, which is very high in elevation, just below tree-line in fact. It is a popular fishing lake and also popular with the kayak and SUP crowds, it can be very busy there. However, I do have a favorite spot to wet wade there and the water even in early August is wicked cold and takes some getting used to. Perhaps the chill of the water is one reason this spot is always available, even on a crowded day at the lake. However, because of its popularity it also get heavily stocked by DWR. Tigers are always the fish of choice. Being bth hardy and sterile, they are perfect for the high mountain lakes.
It was crowded this day at Mirror Lake, but I made it there early and got a good parking space. I also noted right away that no one was in my wading spot. So I rigged my 3wt Scott G2 and headed for the water with my still water bix, my bug bx and my soft hackle box in case the fish were not rising much. Today, the atomic ant worked really well as far as getting eats, but not well for getting hook sets. A lot of these fish are smallish brook trout and a bigger ant like the atomic ant becomes problematic. Missing many and only landing a few tigers, I was getting a little bored. Also, the wind gusts put the fish down for a few minutes and they were becoming more frequent. Therefore, I decided to head back toward Washington Lake and fished Trial Lake for a few minutes. It was crowded with fishermen unfortunately. Finding a spot that was not ideal, I managed a couple of tigers out of a roving school but decided to move on; just too many people!
Even though I had fished Washington Lake a few days before from my kick boat, I knew that fishing it from shore would offer a different experience and decided to try it. It was already pushing 3pm and I wanted to be out of there by 5, so parked in my usual spot and began hiking toward the lake. Thanks to my experience I knew the areas I wanted to work. I thought about trying for another slam but wasn’t sure if I could pull it off. The grayling, which I usually get further out, actually came fairly quickly from shore. The tigers were easy, as several were landed along the shoreline as I worked it. The rainbows and the brook trout were scarce today.
As I came upon that flat faced rock that I fished from my kayak a few days earlier, I was back fishing the foam yellow sally since it floats so well and is so visible. I had missed that tiger earlier and thought I would see if I could provoke anither eat. As my fly landed toawd the top of the rock and slid down the face, there was an immediate explosion as the fly landed, the water exploded. The hook-set was immediate and the fish was big! Heading for deeper water and dragging my line across a submerged boulder, he was off almost immediately. This clearly was not this fishes’ first rodeo. Checked my leader and saw where the remaining piece of tippet was frayed.
As much as I wanted to land that fish, I had tremendous respect for it. Good on you my slippery friend for doing what it took to escape capture! So with that, I decided to call it a day and headed back to my truck, happy with another cool summer day up in the Uintas!
