A Lake In A Beautiful Area

[hiketofish]

This hike to a lake was suggested to me this summer and once it gets in your head and you buy the map of the area, you just have to go and see what its like. I found someone (not a flyfisherman by the way) to go with me and off we went. This was a totally new area for me so I was quite excited. This lake is a healthy long distance from the trail head although you can split the distance into biking and hiking. The first part is biked on a decent trail, mostly single track with lots of overgrown willows and spruce. Do not do in shorts!

 

Finally you emerge from the forest and get some nice views but have to cross a reasonably sized river.

 

At the end of the road is a weather thingy, Does anyone know if they still collect data? There was one exactly like this up the Howse river. It made an awesome bike rack.

 

Then the hike begins, back into the forest until you emerge back to the river (a different one this time, a tributary to the first one). I was surprised at its size as you have to cross it later.

 

So we get to the crossing point around supper time of a hot day....it was very fast and definitely not crossable where we were so we have to head upstream to a fork where the river splits into two.

 

Now getting upstream was a bit interesting especially with a full pack on. I wish the picture did the angle justice as while crossing this face, there were parts where your hands and feet were in the water edging along. Very fun.

 

We get upstream and find a very big waterfall that apparently just pours out of the rock above. It not even marked on my map but its pretty enough to warrant a picture. We cross the river and move on now going up towards the lake.

 

Here is the lake with a towering peak above it. It is a pretty spot although you really aren't high enough to have unspoiled views. Of course I wasn't exactly coming for the views, I was hoping for some decent fishing.

 

I'll admit that we were too tired to fish when we got there and only had enough daylight to make camp and get some supper going. The next day though, got some pictures from the pack raft and went around the lake.

 

The lake is fairly big and is certainly clear with lots of depth. But what about the fishing? There are fish in the lake., I did see one guaranteed rise but I was kind of hoping for unspoiled really easy fishing.

[hiketofish]

There were fish around although I would not call the lake a good fishery. They were very colorful and although everything I have read says I should only be catching cutts, I'll let you decide.

 

Do juvenile cutts always have so many par markings?

 

Likely because of the sun, but this one looked absolutely golden.

 

Some bigger one's caught that were normal looking.

 

Another one: Some big fish in easy to catch locations. The biggest one's aren't posted because I'm not sure my friend wants to be posted and besides he outfished me with his spinning gear.

 

This was true "fly" fishing. Holding your fly above a pool and catching them 6 inches above the surface. Of course they were only 6 inches to begin with...

 

Now for some track identification: Any chance these are caribou? Or am I just making a moose print seem like one.

 

Here's another one, not so clear. They certainly seemed to have bifurcated hoof.

 

Here's a view on the way out. Anyone think they have this lake and area pegged? No guesses from those that I asked to go with me...

[alan2]

One particular photo on the way in seems to be showing the east side of Mt Alexandra, a Rockies 11,000 ft peak, so that must be Alexandra river. You must have started from Icefields Parkway and biked Alexandra River fire road. Further up on foot, would be Castleguard river, leading to either Watchman Lake or Cinema lake (which is a very small lake) so I'd say you fished at Watchman Lake and The Watchman peak is towering above it in one picture.

 

Just a wild guess of course.

That's a heck of a long ways if I am right!

[hiketofish]

Too easy for Alan. Good job. The tracks (small moose or maybe Caribou) were in the Cinema Lake and Thompson Pass area. If they were Caribou (which they might not be, Any opinions?), it would be a nice story for BNP if some migrated back into the park from BC even if its right on the border. I think the last herd in Banff died in an avalanche a few years ago.

 

 

[alan2]

Yay, I win. Good effort on your part going there.

Those might be caribou tracks. I recently saw a Parks brochure encouraging people to watch for them, and it showed the difference between caribou, moose and elk. Moose are easy, but I think that between elk and caribou the main difference seemed to be the narrowness of the part in between the two halves of the hoof. Kinda like in your pictures, so maybe...

[SteveM]

Dude, your little excursions are always epic.

I kinda feel embarrassed posting mine.

In the pics I just posted, I doubt I was ever more than 10 minutes from a drivable road...

 

Keep packing your camera along & sharing your trips with us.

Lets face it, it's the only way most of us will get to see those places.

 

[echinopora]

The dead ringer on caribou tracks are that the tip of the hoove curves inward, making each individual hoove look like a comma. I've seen them at Amethyst lake in Jasper, and in the shovel pass area, but not much south of there. Everything I've heard from my old research buddies paints a pretty grim picture for caribou south of the caribou mountains and hay river. I did some work on the Little smokey, Narraway and highway 40 herds in 2006 and even then it was a pretty poor outlook. I think oil and gas are going to win this battle.

 

Rob

[hiketofish]

Here's a pic of Cinema Lake.

 

So I'm fishing with my friend and we're in a pool with maybe 50-100 fish, mostly small but with a few big one's sprinkled in. I'm fishing a dry and catching one on almost every cast but they are all tiny. The bigger fish notice the fly come for it, but a smaller one inevitably rockets in and takes the fly. My fishing partner is catching all the big fish including one we nicknamed big fatty with his spinning set up. I suggest that maybe he should switch to a flyrod because its so much more fun. He seems to think catching big fish is fun already and I think he sees through my flimsy excuse to leave the big fish for me. I formulate a secret plan to steal his rod and hide it for a while when he decides to try flyfishing for a while. I don't think I convinced him it was more fun although he actually had the biggest fish in the pool (big fatty) rise for his caddis but just missed him. Here's some of the smaller one's along the edge.

 

I was wondering about the Par markings, do juvenile cutts usually have them so abundantly? Does it mean this trout has some rainbow mixed into it or perhaps all true trout can have those marks. I've caught tons of tiny cutts this year but usually not as colorful when so small and usually a non-descript silvery color.

 

Here's one for Alan or anyone else to guess: A long fire road up this area as well. Its close to the BC border too.

 

There is a named waterfall near its beginning:

 

It has these along its entire length, every pool seemed to yield a few.

 

It also has these probably along its entire length. These two popped into the water about 20 meters from where I was setting up and let out an audible sigh obviously enjoying the water.

 

A slightly closer look. I watched them for a while and then started to pack up my stuff, (I was setting up my rod) and once I started moving about, they seemed to notice me and took off. I decided to not fish downstream...and went up abandoning a pretty good spot. So where am I?

[mickberry]

absolutely wicked!