Dry Creek: June 6th, 2015

Alone on my own, for some reason its really hard for me to get my friends to come to the mountains with me but with them or without them you know Im going to hit the mountains. This trip was up Dry Creek where Swauger Lake sits and another little lake that is unnamed that I have been wanting to check out for awhile now.
I always seem to hit Swauger Lake at the first of the year because it sits at a lower elevation and gets quite a bit of sun light since it faces south. Last year we hit it pretty early and found a lot of snow with a lake that was frozen but this year has been a lot different, less snow and warmer weather made this lake open relatively early. On the drive in I could tell that the lake would be unthawed but the question would be how much of it. On the hike up I was reassured that the lake was going to open. The huge snow bank that we ran into last year was completely gone and sure enough the lake was ice free and the water was extremely clear compared to previous years.
Fishing was great! It seemed like I timed it just perfectly to where the fish were on the hunt for food. Catch rates were good and got to the point where unhooking the fish took longer than catching them. There was this one spot where all the fish where concentrated and looking for food. They didn't care that I was standing over them so I threw my Gopro to see if I could get some good footage and sure enough they weren't scared of that either. After seeing the video some people said that it looks like I put my Gopro in a raceway at a hatchery and not a mountain lake.

After fishing for a bout an hour a headed to that other lake that I wanted to check out. Curiosity was killing my cat so I had to go check it out and I'm glad that I did. This lake doesn't have any fish in it but it has some killer views. The mountains just tower over the lake with a few waterfalls dropping into the lake. I'm glad that I brought my Gopro because I don't think my other camera would be able to catch the mountains and the lake all in the same photo. The only thing that would have made this trip better was if there were trout in the lake.

The Hunt for Grayling: May 30th, 2015

Just getting out of school I was itching to get back home to fish but this early in the year I'm usually limited to a few spots such as the rivers which are going to be filled with rushing water and some lakes that are at lower levels that might be thawed off. With that in mind I decided to hit Mill Creek Lake that is located in the Little Lost drainage on the Lemhi Mountains.
Mill Creek Lake is a really short hike and has tons of Grayling that you can catch if you hit the right spots and use the right flies. I wanted to use my new float tube that I got over the winter but when I got to the trailhead there seemed to be a boy scout troop camping up there so instead I just took the bare essentials.
After arriving to the lake I sat down to grabbed a quick bite to eat and set up my pole. It didn't take very long until I hooked into some fish. This lake also has cutthroat that usually out number the Grayling but at the end of the day I only caught a few cutthroat with the Grayling summing up the rest of my catches. Fishing was really good with catch rates around 10 to 15 fish per hour. After awhile I decided to take out my Gopro and record some hook ups. The one spot that I came across where the water comes into the lake I was catching a fish on every cast, one video that I recorded I counted catching six fish in three minutes. Mill Creek Lake was a great place to fine tune my fish skills and get ready to enjoy another summer of fishing in Central Idaho.