Tips on fishing high alpine lakes, with George Hunker
Podcast Transcript:
Tom: Hi, and welcome to "The Orvis Fly Fishing Podcast." This is your host, Tom Rosenbauer. And my guest this week is George Hunker. George is a long-time guide and Orvis-endorsed guide and recipient of awards from The Orvis Guide Program. And I've known George for a long time. He's a great guy. And George specializes in fishing high mountain lakes, alpine lakes, specifically in the Wind River region of Wyoming. And we're gonna talk about fishing those high mountain lakes, what to look for, how to fish them, how to approach them. I get a lot of questions about fishing high mountain lakes, and I don't do a lot of it myself, not that experienced. So I wanted to get an expert here on the podcast, and I'm sure that regardless of where you fish, if you do fish these high-altitude lakes for trout, you're gonna get some good tips from George. He's been around a long time and he knows what he's doing. So hope you enjoy the podcast.
But before we talk to George, let's do The Fly Box, and The Fly Box is where you ask me questions and I try to answer them. You can send me your question at
All right, now The Fly Box. And the first one is an email from Dave from Appleton, Wisconsin. "I'm 61 years old, and I've been fly fishing since I was 14. My fly fishing has come full circle. As a boy, I fly fished mainly on small creeks, brushy streams, 8 to 12 feet across, for brookies using fiberglass and bamboo rods. I dream daily of fishing the Madison or other famous rivers. I spent many hours reading Bud Lilly's "Fly Shop Catalog." In middle age, I fished many of these famous rivers, Madison, Miramichi, The Dean, etc., with high-end equipment and it was great. Now that I'm north of 60, I find that my favorite fishing is again what I did as a boy, that is fishing the hundreds and hundreds of small creek-style trout streams in Wisconsin that are very brushy and very small. I use a short three-weight fiberglass rod, approximately 7 feet due to overhead brush and a creek line using nymph small streamers and dries.
On most of these streams, I can't overhead cast and mainly roll cast or drift to fly downstream near structure. I catch many small 8 to 10-inch brookies. This year I have been blessed to catch six brookies over 15 inches. Every one of those brookies are like diamonds to me, one of nature's most beautiful creations. They mean as much to me as a big Atlantic. I almost never see another fisherman, and I just get lost in my surroundings. It's heaven on earth. No, I'm not catching giant steelhead in the Babine or big Atlantics on the Miramichi, but a 14-inch brookie on a three-weight fiberglass rod to me, surprisingly isn't much different. I have the time and resources to go on three or four big trips per year, but just don't make time for that anymore but migrate to one of my local creeks within an hour of home. Maybe this is odd, or I have some sort of issue. For guys like me, would you recommend just getting those more exotic trips on the calendar to not miss out, or is what I am currently doing more common than not? I know this is all individual preference, but I know you know a greater range of fly fishermen than I do. Just interested in your thoughts and comments. I'm a regular listener and look forward to each show. Thank you for all you do for all of us."
So, Dave, of course, that's a difficult question for me to answer, but just thinking of other anglers that are my age, I'm 69, and even younger, I think that it seems, especially to me, that more and more, I enjoy fishing close to home. I enjoy the small creeks. I enjoy being a 12-year-old again where I don't see anybody else and nobody knows where I am. But you know, then I occasionally get to hankering for going someplace new, and someplace new might be just another stream in the area that I've never fished, or it might be a more exotic trip. And I think it's healthy as you get older to try to push yourself out of your comfort zone in all aspects of life. And even in fishing, I think that...and this is just me. You could be perfectly content and a lot of people are just fishing close to home and never going any place else. But if you have the means and the time to do it, I think that you'd benefit from going somewhere else, somewhere different a few times a year. I think that you'll...One of the things is we love learning in fly fishing. And I think that when you go to new regions you learn something new that you might be able to apply on your local streams, a new technique, a new way of approaching fish, or just something that you notice that you never noticed before that maybe you think, oh, maybe that happens on my streams at home. I'm gonna have to check that out.
So, not a good answer. But I think that you're not alone, that as we get older, we tend to gravitate toward things that are maybe convenient and comfortable to us, and places that we have a lot of memories on and that brings us back to earlier years. But I wouldn't give up those other trips if you can do it, they don't have to be expensive exotic trips, but just go somewhere else a couple of times a year to get a little bit more variety in your life. And I think it'll actually make you appreciate those streams that you have close to home even more.
John: Hi, Tom, this is John from New Hampshire. I got a question for The Fly Box. I've been fishing for largemouth bass over the last few summers when it's too hot to go after trout. And lately, I have been tying up some deer hair bugs and mice and I've had great success with them, but I've found that I have more success when I put eyes on these flies. The problem is when I use the stick-on eyes after, you know, one or two fish actually, the eyes fly off. They just won't adhere to the deer hair anymore. I was wondering if, you know of any way I could get these eyes or put any kind of eye on a deer hair bug, or is that just something that's not done? It's probably one of those things where it just adds confidence to my fishing, but it probably doesn't matter to the fish. But I'd like to put them on if possible. If you've got any ideas for me, please let me know. Thanks, Tom.
Tom: So, John, that's a pretty easy one. And I have found that head cement doesn't work that well on those stick-on...on those eyes that you wanna put on a deer hair popper. And neither does UV-cured head cement because the problem is that you can't really cure behind those eyes when you stick them on the deer hair bug. And I don't think it holds that well. So here's what I've found over the years that helps. Those eyes are gonna come off eventually anyway. But here's what I've found. First of all, if you're using kind of the 3D, the raised eyes, or whether you're using those or not, actually, even if you're using the flat stick-on eyes, what you wanna do is make a little divot in the deer hair. And you wanna do that by...you can do that two ways.
One is to just use a pair of fine-pointed scissors and make a little divot that's just slightly larger in diameter than the eyes. You can also use a cauterizing tool for this. You can buy these online. They're little mini rechargeable cauterizing tools. Not rechargeable, but actually you wanna get one that you can replace the batteries in. Because some of them come with a permanent battery that burns out pretty quickly, and then you're stuck with throwing away a piece of plastic. So get one. They may sell rechargeable ones, but I know I have one with batteries. And you can take that cauterizing tool and just carefully burn a little divot in the eyes. It makes it a little cleaner than using a pair of scissors.
And then you wanna use a product called Liquid Fusion. This is sold by fly shops. You can buy it typically where you buy fly-tying supplies. May be hard to find, you may have to go online to look for it, but I found that Liquid Fusion is really good at holding the eyes on. Another adhesive that you can use is...I don't remember the name of it, but it's an adhesive that they use for watch crystals to attach watch crystals on a wristwatch. And I don't remember the name of it, but you can probably find that. But again, I wouldn't use the standard cements for that. I would go with the Liquid Fusion or something else. Super glue doesn't seem to work that well either, although it might, the more flexible super glues might work. But I would go with Liquid Fusion. It's probably the easiest to find, and those eyes should stay on a lot better.
Here is an email from Cameron from Nova Scotia. "My first question is about fly tying. When I tie streamers, they turn out okay and they look nice, but when I go to fish them, I find the tails sometimes wrap themselves around the hook bend after fishing and casting for a while. Not a huge deal. I just unwrap them and they're usually good to go until I check the hook sometime later and the tail's once again wrapped itself around the hook bend. Is it something wrong with my proportions, or where I'm tying in the tail, or my method of tying them on the hook? Usually just a pinch onto the top of the hook shank. I'm new to fly tying, so maybe this isn't a real problem, but any insight will be appreciated.
Second unrelated question. I've heard you and others say that a given-weight two-handed rod is equivalent to a one-handed rod two sizes up. But does this refer to the line specifics or does it refer to fish fighting capabilities? I have an 11-foot 6-weight switch rod, and my real question here is do you think that it is a suitable rod to fish for fall Atlantic salmon up in Cape Breton? I also have a single-handed eight-weight and single-handed nine-weight. So if not, all good."
Well, Cameron that can be a problem with streamers. And I've heard that by making the tail longer, it won't foul. And then I've heard that making the tail shorter, it won't foul. And I don't think either one of those makes a difference, honestly. The point is that there's a couple of things you wanna do. First of all, when you attach that tail, you wanna make sure that the last turn of thread is going to be right at the point where the hook bend starts to curve down. If you go forward of that, toward the eye, and you don't tie in your tail right at the end of the straight part of the bend, it's more likely to foul because It's more likely to wrap around that bend. And it's funny, you know, fish eat crippled bait fish all the time, and you would think that a streamer with a tail that's wrapped would appeal to fish, but it doesn't. They don't like it at all, and it almost never works. So that's one thing to do.
The other thing is things like maribou, and sometimes rabbit that are really soft and flexible are gonna wrap around the bend anyway, regardless of what you do, particularly if it's windy and you gotta wind at your back and you're trying to push your back cast into the wind they're more likely to wrap. So what you can do is when you tie your fly, before you attach the tail, you can do a couple of things. One is you can just put some stiff buck tail underneath the tail, and you can make that the same color of the tail, or you can make it a contrasting color like red or something to give yourself a little hotspot. But if you put some stiff bucktail underneath that maribou or whatever else you tie in that will act as a foul guard.
You can actually make a foul guard too, of something like a 25-pound monofilament. You just wanna tie in a loop of monofilament where the loop is flat or parallel to the shank of the hook. And you know, it's like a little paddle-shaped, oval-shaped piece of monofilament that the tail can rest on top of. And that's gonna help prevent it. And the other thing, if you're using rabbit strips, what you can do is you can tie a piece of very stiff monofilament at the end of the shank and puncture the rabbit strip and then stick that piece of monofilament through the rabbit strip, and then maybe singe your knot at the end so that it doesn't slip through. So there's lots of ways you can do it, but it is a problem. And I think with careful placement of the tail and then some sort of foul guard, you should be able to eliminate most of those problems.
Regarding your two-handed rod. Yeah, when we talk a 2-handed 6-weight, say 11-foot 6-weight switch you're talking about, is really suited for places where you would use an 8-weight. So the rod is going to have the beef of an eight-weight rod, and it's gonna have the ability to play fish that an eight-weight rod would. Just the way that Skagit and Scandy lines are developed, we call them a six, but the weight is distributed in different places, so you can't really measure them the way you can a normal fly line. And it's always been confusing, but that six-weight rod, consider it an eight-weight rod as far as the species you're gonna catch and the flies you're gonna throw. Consider that an eight-weight rod. And that should be perfect for those Cape Rutten salmon.
Here's an email from Garrett. "Next spring, my family and I would be going to see my nephew off before he makes his first deployment across the sea. We would be staying on the ocean in North Carolina. I was wondering what kind of rod to get for fishing from shore or waist deep water. I have an 8-weight with a seal drag, but I was thinking of maybe a spay or switch rod in a 10-weight, 11-foot or something similar. I'm very green behind the ears when it comes to salt water, as most of my fishing is in Michigan trout and warm water carp and panfish. I'm interested in a heavier spay or switch rod to also fish kings with in Lake Michigan tributaries."
So, Garrett, yeah, you know, if it's common, you're not throwing big flies and the fish are pretty close, you can get away with your eight-weight on the ocean or onshore, but chances are you're gonna experience wind and you're gonna experience some bigger waves, and you probably want a rod that...you know, a 9-weight or even a 10-weight, it's gonna be a lot better. Not so much for handling the fish, but just for getting the fly out there without killing yourself. And a lot of people are switch and spay rods in salt water now, particularly if you're standing on shore, the fish are often just outta reach and you can get more distance with those rods, with those longer rods. And it's also easier to kind of keep your line above the waves if you're in the surf. So a lot of people are using those, sometimes they cast them one-handed, sometimes they cast them double-handed.
But I would say, you know, somewhere around an eight-weight, a seven or eight-weight switch or spay rod, which if you listened to the previous question, is really gonna be a 9 or a 10-weight, an equivalent, as far as the size of flies you can throw and so on. So I would try it, I would give it a try. I think that rod would also be very useful for king salmon in Lake Michigan tributaries. So that would be my suggestion on the way to go. And I'd go to an Orvis store or a fly shop and take a look at the various rods available and have the people at the store help you out with that.
Here's an email from Larry. "Because I live in Montana, I really enjoyed the recent podcast about blue line fishing in the Rockies since I do much of that myself. When listening to suggestions about safety regarding potential bear encounters, I thought I should share what I do in this regard. I often hike and fish by myself in bear country. The idea of singing or talking loudly, I think is unrealistic and unpleasant. What I've done for years is to attach a waterproof Bluetooth speaker to my belt and then crank up the tunes. Assuming the bears aren't fans of John Mellencamp, Fleetwood Max, Springsteen or the like, I'm pretty sure they'll head the other way as they hear me approaching. In addition, it makes hiking and fishing all the more relaxing and enjoyable. Knock on wood, no bears encounters thus far. And whether this is due to luck or blasting tunes, who cares? As to my question, I've been tying flies for many years and have been given materials from older friends who no longer fish or tie. I've accumulated a collection of large salmon fly hooks, mostly Mustad Limerick style in sizes 8 to 1-0. Since I don't fish for salmon, I've thought about using these hooks for large nymph streamers and saltwater flies. Is there any reason not to use them for this purpose? Any big disadvantages?"
So, Larry, I'm not sure I'm with you on the blasting the tunes in the wilderness. And if you happen to encounter a human, I don't think they'd appreciate it, but if it works for you, fine. I'm gonna make noise or yell or whistle or whatever. I don't care for blasting tunes either when I'm hiking or fishing, so...but that's a personal choice and I respect that. Regarding your salmon fly hooks, yeah, they'll work for large nymphs. I've often tied big stonefly nymphs on salmon hooks and streamers as well. The salmon hooks look pretty cool and classy with a streamer. They're good, strong hooks. There's no reason not to use them. Those old Mustads aren't gonna be as sharp from the box as modern streamer and nymph hooks will be. So you may wanna touch them up with a stone or a hone just to make sure the hooks are sharp enough. They put a black finish on those hooks, and sometimes the black finish kind of would dull the point. I wouldn't use those in salt water. They're not corrosion-resistant. And, you know, if you wanna use them and probably end up throwing them away after a trip, you can, they'll certainly work, but they're not gonna hold up in salt water. So I'd stick with fresh water. You can tie bass flies on them too. It'd kind of make a pretty classy-looking bass streamer. But yeah, any large freshwater flies, yeah, those will work just fine.
J.D.: Hi, Tom. This is J.D. Longmeyer from Fayetteville, Tennessee. This should be a fairly quick one, but first, thanks for all you do, love your podcast and all the amazing topics that you are able to bring to the community. Quick question, why a tippet ring and not a perfection loop? I found that I've had some issues with tippet rings being sharp around the edges and sometimes, you know, cutting into my fly line. And I thought about going to like a micro-perfection loop to, you know, substitute for that need at the end of my leader. So like I said, quick question and would be very interested in your take on that. Thank you so much. Bye-bye.
Tom: Well, J.D., first of all, you probably got those tippet rings that were sharp around the edges really cheap online. And I get this question all the time. If you're gonna use tippet rings, you want to buy them from a reputable fly shop. Saving yourself a few pennies by buying cheap ones online, they're gonna have sharp edges, they're not gonna be polished, and they're gonna cut your tippet. So, you know, that's not a place to save some money. Get real official tippet rings that are made for fishing and you're gonna be much happier about that. Now, why not use a micro-perfection loop? Why not? I think it's a good idea. I don't think a micro-perfection loop is quite as strong as two clinch knots to a tippet ring. But I just suspect that a perfection loop in small diameter monofilament is not as strong as a tippet ring, but there are a lot of people that use them, particularly when Euro nymphing because even the weight of a small tippet ring can introduce a little line sag.
And a lot of people are using micro-perfection loops now. So I think that's a perfectly valid idea. And, you know, especially if you're tying 6x or 7x to that, the strength of your perfection loop isn't gonna make that much difference because your tippet is gonna break long before that micro perfection loop. I've found main problem is fishing heavy streamers and heavier tippet using a perfection loop in something like 2x or 3x, I've found that they don't hold. But I think where you're talking about attaching a fine tippet to it, it should work fine.
Here's an email from Aaron from Shreveport. "Hi, Tom. As always, thank you for the podcast. I have three questions for you. First, I'm looking to get a new 9-foot eight-weight rod, and I'm wondering if the Recon or Clearwater would be a better choice. It'll be primarily used for what I call combat fishing for big hybrid stripers and largemouth bass down here in Louisiana, you have to fish for them in really heavy cover like submerged trees and use a very heavy leader, yank them out of there, so the rod has to be stout. But I'll also be doing some saltwater fishing for reds and possibly going to Arkansas a few times targeting freshwater stripers. Which rod would you think would be better suited for these strong fish?
Second question is, do stripers boil on the surface at night or is that only a daytime event? And third, I was in Wyoming this June with a buddy and we are waiting a lake fishing for trout. We managed to catch a few andries and also some on leach patterns, but when we got out of the water, our boots were covered in olive sow bugs or scuds, they kinda looked like rolly polly bugs you see under rocks only there were olive. Either way, we had no flies to match these sow bugs, but if we did, what would've been the best way to fish them in a still water situation?"
Well, Aaron, regarding your rod, you know, difference between a Recon and a Clearwater is pretty much a tossup. If you care about rods made in the USA, the Recon is made here in our rod shop in Vermont, the Clearwater is imported. They're both very good rods and I fish both Recons and Clearwaters. I think you're gonna have a slight edge on both accuracy and strength on the Recon rod. The action is fairly similar, so the casting is gonna be about the same, but I think you're gonna have just a little bit more accuracy with the Recon. But, you know, it's a more expensive rod. So, you know, if your budget's pretty small and tight, then I'd go the Clearwater, if you can go for it, I would go with the Recon. And if made in USA is important to you, then I'd go with the Recon. But they're gonna be fairly similar casting rods.
Regarding stripers boil on the surface at night, yes, they do. I know they do in salt water because night fishing is one of the best ways to fish for stripers. And they do boil on bait fish at night, often quite aggressively. And I would suspect that freshwater stripers, if there is food near the surface, they're definitely going to boil on the surface at night. So, yep, you could obviously find that.
And you know your third question, there are lots of good patterns to imitate scuds and sow bugs. You can find a bunch of those on the Orvis website or in a fly shop, probably rare to find a fly shop that won't have some patterns to imitate these things. You wanna try to match the size that you see because they can be anywhere from a little tiny 18 or 20 up to almost a size 12 or 14. So you wanna match the size. The color, they come in, you know, grays and tans and olives, and pink ones often work surprisingly well for whatever reason. So I'm not sure the color is that important. Regardless, you wanna fish those very slowly. Those flies do swim, but they swim in a very slow kind of an undulating manner. And they don't swim for very long. They'll swim along and then they'll kind of rest and drop and they'll swim along a little bit. So what I would do is a short slow strip and then let it drop, and then another short slow strip because these things don't move very fast. So you don't wanna strip them really fast like maybe you would a leach or a bait fish imitation. Anyway, I hope those answers helped.
Here's an email from Max. "I hope life is treating you well. I've got a scenario to solve that I'm hoping is applicable to other streamer fishermen. I recently picked up streamer fishing and bought a six-weight fly rod and rigged it up with an Orvis bank shot sink tip line. I was fishing a local river and found a wonderful 3-foot deep pool, 6 foot wide, and 6 feet long below a diversion dam. The pool is on my side of the river and I can't wade out into the middle of the river because the flow is too fast to safely wade. I also couldn't get upstream of the pool because of the fast flows from the dam. I ended up getting directly downstream of the pool and casted upward with the sink tip. I'm about 20 to 25 feet below the pool. The river was still moving fast along the bank, and I couldn't strip fast enough to keep good contact with the fly as it traveled back downstream to my legs. I'm wondering if there's a way to keep contact with the fly in this situation, or if it's a lost cause and I should go back when flows are lower. I appreciate the podcast and the knowledge and guests you bring on for everyone."
So Max, that's a tricky place to fish in general. You know, a short, fast flow of water, whether it's a pocket in pocket water or in a run, or if the whole stream occupies that little short, deep pocket. I think in this case, you're better off using your floating line and a heavily weighted streamer and maybe even a split shot in front of the streamer. Because you've got to get that fly down right away. And, you know, with a sinking line, it takes a while for that line to sink, and by the time the line sinks to effective depth your fly's probably out of the pool as you found. So what I would do is I would use as heaviest streamers, you can cast, add some split shot if you need to, use a floating line, fairly long rod, if you have one, the longest rod you got anyways, throw it up to the head of the pool and keep your rod high and keep line off the water. This is gonna help sink that streamer quickly so that it doesn't get pulled back up by the fly line. You can even use a tuck cast, which a tuck cast is kind of overpowering your forward cast and then lifting up the rod at the last minute. That'll kind of plunk the streamer down underneath your line. And hopefully, it'll get deep enough and then you can work it through, you know, by keeping your rod high and keeping the line off the water, try to work it through that run. But it is a difficult way to fish, and especially from downstream. So it's probably the best I can offer you regarding fish in that kind of flow.
Jeff: Hey, Tom, this is Jeff. I live in Eastern New York and fish there and in Western Connecticut and a little bit in the Catskills. I had a question about drop-shot rigs. I fish them fairly often. I was shown them by a guide in Western Connecticut on the Farmington about 10 years ago, and I fished them on and off. And my question is, why wouldn't you fish a drop-shot rig? To me, it seems like it has innumerable advantages. It gets your fly down, it keeps your fly off of the bottom. To me, it tangles less because everything is in line. And so I'm wondering what disadvantage there is to a drop-shot rig, aside from taking a little bit more time to actually rig up, which is basically the only time that I don't do it is when I'm being too lazy or I feel like I'm in a rush. The only other thought I had is that maybe it gives less natural action to your bottom fly because it's pulling on it because it's keeping it taut. Whereas the top fly I usually have on a tag, so it gets the natural action either way. But are there other reasons why you would avoid a drop-shot rig if you're going to add split shot to either fishing off an indicator or off of a tight line rig? Thanks for everything you do. Really appreciate it and everything that Orvis does.
Tom: Jeff, that's a good question. And, you know, I asked George Daniel that once because George is, you know, the master of all methods of nymph fishing. And he said he likes the drop-shot rig in a lot of scenarios. But his problem is that he's not in constant contact with the flies themselves. With a drop shot, you're going to be more in contact between your rod tip and the split shot than you are between your rod tip and the flies. And you may miss a few more strikes because of that. So George thinks that he's a lot better at detecting strikes when he uses weighted flies and tries to get down just using the weighted fly as a fine leader and, you know, the casting techniques that get the fly immediately down to the fish than he is using a drop-shot rig. That being said, it is handy and it does work. And that's the only reason I could think of why people wouldn't use it all the time just to stay in better contact with the flies.
Here's an email from Taylor from Kansas City. "Today I have a tip and a question for you. The tip is related to croppy fishing with a fly rod. In the spring, I've had so much success on a San Juan worm under an Oros or Airlock indicator. I cast out about 15 to 20 feet off the bank and slowly twitch the rod or slow strip it in. I will sometimes add a wooly bugger and have the San Juan behind it. I call this the PB and J. This is mainly effective in the spring, and we have filled our coolers with croppy. The question I have is about the wild trout streams in southern Missouri. The trout seem reluctant to take dry flies. I've had unbelievable success on nymphs and a few dry fly eats in my two years of fly fishing. I wanted to ask why this is, is it because it's spring-fed and the aquatic insects below the surface are in abundance so they don't need to rise as often? I've thrown big bugs and small bugs. Griffith snats seem to entice more bites. Any tips on how to catch more fish on dries would be greatly appreciated."
So Taylor, first of all, thank you for that croppy fishing tip. That's a good one. I know where there's some in a local lake and I'm gonna try that myself. Regarding the trout not taking dry flies, you know, it's tough to get fish to take dry flies when they don't wanna surface feed. And in certain rivers, dry flies just aren't that effective because the fish don't have a lot of surface food or don't need to feed on the surface. I would say I would be willing to bet that there's a couple of times when you would see more dry fly fishing. One would be in the evening right before dark when insects are hatching and mayflies and caddis flies are coming back to lay their eggs. Generally, even in streams where you don't see a lot of fish rising and you don't have very good luck on dry flies, this tends to bring them to the surface, even on the most reluctant surface feeders.
The other time to fish dry flies would be in late summer, early fall because a lot of the aquatic insects have already hatched out. And the fish don't have as much food and the water's low and clear and the fish can see stuff on the surface. And they're often likely to be looking for terrestrial insects, grasshoppers, beetles, edge worms, you know, house flies, crane flies, all sorts of things that fall into the water. Even though crane flies are aquatic, most of the time they're almost like a terrestrial because the fish can't get at them until they return to the water to lay their eggs because they crawl out in muddy banks.
Anyway, I would think that late summer, anytime from noon to evening would be good. And you might see more fish taking the dries. But, you know, if they don't wanna take dries, if they don't want to come up to the surface, they're not gonna, there isn't much you can do if they're not already regularly surface-feeding or at least looking on the top for stuff to eat, then there isn't much you can do to bring them up. They're just not conditioned to it and they're not used to it. And that's where their food isn't coming from. But I would try those times and see if you have some better luck on your dries.
Here's an email from Nick. "I'm new to fly fishing and spend most of my fishing time trying to chase blue lines in Virginia. My four-weight is awesome for it, but I'm looking into getting on the Jackson River tailwater. I'm thinking a six or seven-weight so I can throw some streamers while I wait. If I go with a six, I find some have fighting butts and some don't. What is the advantage to having it? And should I go for a rod with one? Also, should I go six or seven-weight? Thanks for your time and all that you do for the sport. Fly fishing has helped me clear my mind and improve my life. Means the world to me."
So Nick, for the Jackson River, I would tend toward a six-weight. The fish aren't giant in that area, some good ones, but they're not giant. The water's pretty clear and you probably wanna be versatile because you may not wanna fish a streamer all day. You might want to fish a dry or some nymphs. And I think six-weight's gonna be nicer for throwing those other flies, and it'll still handle some pretty good-sized streamers. So I would go with the six-weight as opposed to the seven. And you can even catch small bass on the six-weight too. So it's a pretty versatile rod.
The fighting butts, some people fish six-weights in salt water or even for salmon. And the fighting butt is there so that when you have a bigger fish and you want a little bit more leverage, you can stick that fighting butt into your gut or into your chest, into your gut or wherever, into your belt, wherever it's comfortable for you. But that gives you a little relief from holding your arm out and, you know, with a bigger fish and a long battle fighting butt just makes things a lot easier to play a larger fish. You probably aren't gonna need it for trout fishing, so, you know, it's just added weight and something to get in the way. So I would say, unless you're gonna use that six-weight in salt water or for some really big fish, I would get the rod without the fighting butt.
Here's an email from Kevin from Solomons, Maryland. "Thank you for your amazing podcast. It has made me a better fly fisherman over the years and has truly helped me discover new fishing opportunities all over the world. One of those opportunities I'm getting into is fishing for stripe bass on the Chesapeake and its estuaries in southern Maryland. I'm a competent trout fisherman growing up in the Adirondacks of upstate New York. And for me, nothing beats being on my home waters with my Orvis Recon nine-foot-five-weight. I've recently located to Southern Maryland for work, and I've had the great fortune of having access to Chesapeake Bay fishing through my friends and family, both from a boat for deep water and from the shoreline estuaries. I'm looking at buying a setup devoted to pursuing striped bass on the Chesapeake, and I admit I'm a bit of a novice when it comes to selecting what fly line and leader I should be using. I'll be using an Orvis Clearwater 9-foot eight-weight rod. And I'm wondering, is there a fly line you recommend for stripe bass? I have a basic understanding of shooting lines and that I will need to get some depth to run streamers. Other than that, I'm a bit confused about what I should be looking for. It seems like there are so many products out there. I also anticipate using this rod for saltwater trips to New England. I appreciate your insight and recommendations as I begin my foray into saltwater fishing."
Well, Kevin, I would never go striper fishing with a single fly line unless I knew that I was only gonna be, say, fishing the flats in shallow water. Because you never know where the stripers are gonna be in the water column. They might be right up on top feeding on bait fish, or they might be in 20 or 30 feet of water. And even from shore, you know, you might find that the stripers are gonna be deeper in a deep channel with a current. So I would never go striper fishing without a floating line and a depth charge line. That covers almost every situation that you can find. And I'd sometimes throw in a clear intermediate line for a little bit deeper water flats fishing. You know, I like the floating line because there are times when stripers are in really shallow and I love fishing poppers and gurglers for stripers. And you can fish a gurgler or a popper on an intermediate line, but about halfway through the retrieve, it tends to pull it underwater.
And with a floating line, you can fish that popper all the way back to the boat or all the way back to your feet. And, you know, it's really fun to catch stripers on floating flies. And then there are times when they're just deep and you gotta get down to them. And those depth-charged lines I find are really good in the wind. They sink well. And if you don't want it to sink quite so fast, then you just start stripping immediately. And if you want it to get deeper, you wait a little bit for the line to get down. So those are the two lines that I would absolutely have. And for a floating line, you know, I already specifically mentioned the depth charge line. For a floating line, I would recommend the saltwater all-rounder line. That's the one that I use for stripe bass fishing. And I find that to be a perfect floating line for striped bass.
Morgan: Hi, Tom. Morgan from Indio, California. The question I have is...We are lucky enough to have a property along a major tributary to Rock Creek Montana. It's about 1800 feet of trout stream and fished it obviously quite a bit, but I've never really systematically picked it apart. And I wondered if that's something that you would recommend doing or had a technique of how to do. I feel like it's probably something that I would like doing, but I think like most fly anglers, you kind of go to your spots and you know the ones that produce and are the better runs, but there probably are some hidden gems out there that I could really almost map it out and pick it apart and take a really, you know, big effort towards doing that. I just wondered if you had a technique of how to do that.
I have one more question, hopefully, you have time for it, but we were up there on the 4th of July this year, and as you know, there's been a lot of snow packs so the water was still pretty high, so un-wadeable or maybe wadeable, but not for me. And so a little bit tougher fishing, came back then again, August, a couple of weeks ago, and obviously the water was down a little bit, but still a little high for the year. But one thing I noticed is in a couple of the pools that pretty regularly produce, you know, good sized cutthroats for the area specifically, you know, 15-inch to 18-inch, you know, probably average is, you know, 13, 14. But it seemed to be a little bit smaller this year. We were catching a lot smaller sort of juvenile fish. I don't know if it was because there was a storm recently or if it's just the normal cycle of a river. I just wondered if you had any thoughts on that.
Tom: Well, Morgan, you know, with streams that experience drastic differences in flow, and I know Rock Creek does, the fish are gonna be found in different places at different times of year. And there are gonna be times when the places that worked really well in the spring, and you caught big fish, are only gonna hold smaller fish. There just isn't enough depth or enough cover for the big fish to be around. So, you know, I would just explore, I would take a walk and look at water that looks good to you as 2 to 4-foot depth and has some break from the current,has a nice choppy but not swirly surface, and fish that.
The other thing is, you know, to learn where the fish are gonna be in a stream, the best thing that I know of is to frequent it when you think fish are gonna be rising. So it might be, you know, the time of a good PMD hatch in late morning in June. Or it might be, you know, just before dark. Generally, if there's any fish around and there's any insect food, you're gonna see something feeding on the surface. So, you know, go at the best time of day for any particular part of the season. You know, it's gonna vary throughout the season and go when you know there's gonna be an abundant insect hatch is gonna get the fish feeding so, you know, they'll be in a feeding mood and they'll be easier to catch, honestly, when they're actively feeding. And you're just gonna have to explore and get out there and, you know, look at different kinds of water. Look for water that has a lot of variety. Look for water that has both deep pools and shallow riffles and lots of cover, lots of rocks, you know, just look for diversity in the water, and you'll find those places, but it's gonna take some work.
All right, that's The Fly Box for this week. Let's go talk to George Hunker about fishing high alpine lakes. So my guest today is George Hunker, and George has been an Orvis-endorsed guide in Wyoming for how long, George?
George: Somewhere over 30 years, I think, Tom.
Tom: Long, long time. I first met George on the banks of a little tailwater in Wyoming, was camping there with Joe Bressler, and the name of the river will go unsaid. But George joined us at the campfire and we chatted for a while. And then I think, I don't know if you were even in the program at that point, were you, George?
George: I'm not sure, but I was close to being in the program at that time because we were living in Crow Hart. And Bob Mitchell, who was on the Orvis board at the time, had a ranch in Crow Harr, and he's the one who introduced me to the program. And I think it was only a year or two after the program started that I joined it. So...
Tom: And you have received awards from the Orvis-endorsed program?
George: That is correct. I believe in, like, 2003 I was the Orvis-endorsed independent guide of the year, and then later I got a lifetime achievement award, which is extra special.
Tom: And that's a coveted award. That's not even given every year. So that lifetime achievement award in the Orvis-endorsed program is a pretty special event. And I was there to see it and brought tears to my eyes. So, great stuff, George. And George, you specialize in high mountain lakes, alpine lakes, right?
George: That's correct.
Tom: Tell people...
George: I've always...Go ahead, Tom.
Tom: Tell people a little bit about what you do just so they know the background there.
George: Yeah. So back in the mid-'70s, I decided that I was going to take people on backpacking trips into the Wind River Range for fly fishing. And the Wind River Range has 3000 high alpine glacial-carved lakes. So that's gotta be a part of the fishing. And many of them are stocked with trout. And maybe we don't do as many backpack trips as we used to do, but we'd spend a week or 10 days or 5 days in the high country of the Wind Rivers fishing these high mountain lakes. And we've developed techniques for fishing them that maybe aren't unique but, you know, we haven't had a lot of other influences in our lives. So the techniques we've kind of developed on our own.
Tom: And don't you use llamas now to get up there?
George: Used to use goats, used to use llamas, now if we need some sort of support, we use horses for a number of reasons. That's what we're using right now. Yes.
Tom: Okay. So yeah, let's talk about, you know, a lifetime of fishing those lakes. And I get questions frequently on the podcast about, you know, what do I do in an alpine lake? I'm hiking in and I don't know what to look for. I don't know how to start fishing. So tell people about, you know, first of all, what to look for in a lake and then how you fish them.
George: There's been a lot written on fishing lakes. The high alpine lakes, especially in the Wind Rivers, are relatively unique because they're all pretty deep. So one of the criterion that people often use to fish lakes in the backcountry is they look for weed beds. Well, there's almost no weed beds in any of these high alpine lakes in the Wind Rivers. So the first rule of thumb, as far as I'm concerned, is you check out the inlets and the outlets because you have moving water that concentrates food or is a pathway for fish to move into or out of streams, whether it's for food or spawning or whatever. So that's rule number one.
Rule number two, as far as I'm concerned, is you walk the shorelines of the lakes and you look for fish. You look for fish. One of the great Hunkerisms of all times is, it's very hard to catch a fish if one is not there. So how do you know when the fish is there? Well, you've got to see the fish or you've got to see the rise for them, so, you know, everything else is like playing chess, you know? And I think I developed that technique because in the mid-'70s, I went to New Zealand for the first time, spent a long time there, and learned to spot fish in clear water. And then when I came back to the Wind Rivers, I said, oh, well, I've been doing this a little bit, but I'm going to zero in on spotting fish. It's not always possible to spot fish all the time in the high alpine lakes if you have heavy chop or heavy cloud or something like that, but it's a very important thing. And I think for most people, the fishing is a lot more exciting when they see the fish.
Tom: So, let's say you have a lake and you've looked at the inlet and the outlet, nothing there. Maybe the lake doesn't have an inlet and an outlet. What else do you look for? Do you look for shallow areas, flats? Do you look for points? What kind of things do you look for?
George: Dropoffs. Dropoffs that are close enough to fish that the trout will cruise along the edge of the dropoff. They can move into the shallower water or they can go down deep. And certain types of trout, especially golden trout, prefer bouldery-type situations. Bouldery-type situations. But I find that most trout don't like to expose themselves to shallow bottoms in lakes unless there's a reason to be there.
Tom: Yep. Food.
George: And what would those reasons be? Why would they be in shallow water? Not that we have much in the Wind Rivers. Well, why would they be in shallow water? Well, there's a big chop, there's clouds, there is a rubble bottom that is broken up. It's not all one color. And if for some reason there was a lot of food in the shallows.
Tom: Yep. Okay. And there's usually more food in the shallows than there is in the deep water, right, because that's where the insects are mostly located.
George: That's correct. You know, there's some writing that says, you know, sunlight penetrates 10 to 20 feet into these lakes, and that is the zone that you're gonna have the most biomass to feed fish. So that's where the fish would be feeding. But of course, you know, this biomass can get spread all over a lake, not necessarily depth-wise, but it can get spread way out to the middle with wind or hatching situations of insects, that sort of thing. So you will find fish all over a lake, and they cruise. They are never in one position, but as many people have written, sometimes they're on a beat and they'll make a circle, and you can expect that fish to be back in like 10 minutes or something like that. But my fishing technique is not patience. Patience is a negative word in my language. We go for the fish. Go for it, man. Go for it. Go find those fish. Put the fly in front of it as soon as you experience the sight of that thing, man, go for him right there because you never know where he is gonna be.
Tom: Yeah. So, okay. So let's say you've spotted a fish cruising, it's not rising. What Hunkerism do you use to start out?
George: I go for it, man. We go for it. I get the fly on the fish as fast as possible.
Tom: Yeah, but what...
George: Whatever I have on.
Tom: What fly are you gonna pick? If you're in high mountain lake and maybe one you've never been to before, so you don't know what fly might work, and you see a fish cruising, not rising, what fly are you gonna put on? Or what type of fly?
George: Yeah. Well, in the old days, I'd pretty much fish a nymph, a weighted nymph. And back in the old days, my favorite was a true blood shrimp. And a true blood shrimp is a very, very simple fly with a dubbed body, a beard hackle and a tail, and was gray or kind of cream-ish color. But anyhow, nowadays, if I were to do that, I'd probably have a soft hackle beadhead hairs there.
Tom: Okay. Good.
George: And the results in the old days, empirically for me, were always better on a nymph than they were on a dry fly. But the older I get, the more enjoyment I get out of the dry fly takes. So even if the fish is not coming to the surface, I say, well, shoot, maybe I'll have a stimulator on there, or maybe I'll have a small Chubby Chernobyl, or maybe I'll have an Ant, and of course I'll try to lead that fish an appropriate amount. But I'm not leading that fish by 50 feet. I'm leading that fish by 5 feet. And if he's pretty far down in the water, I would be anticipating the...if I'm using a nymph, I would anticipate the nymph getting to his depth in my calculation of how far to lead that fish. But on a dry fly, you know, I might only put it 3 or 4 feet past him and see what happens.
Tom: Okay. And twitch or no twitch?
George: Kind of, my general policy is no twitch. But it seems like, you know, every little rule in your head, you know, you see the fish going by and you see he doesn't have any reaction at all to your fly, so you give it a twitch and see what happens. It's only a fish. It's only a fish, but he's there. It's better to have a fish there than not. So, you gotta take what you can get out of the situation.
Tom: Yep. Now, do you ever fish dry dropper? Do you ever hang a little nymph off your stimulator or chubby Chernobyl?
George: Yes, but again, I prefer to do it to fish that I can see. But for me, that's a little bit of a boring technique.
Tom: Okay.
George: Especially if you say you've seen fish in the area and there's chop, but you can't really see them all the time, and you throw your stimulator out and hang a nymph below it, and the fly's coming in on the chop, it's pretty exciting. But compared with actually throwing it to a fish, it's relatively boring. So, I don't use that technique as much as I could.
Tom: Okay. Okay. Now do you ever fish streamers in these high alpine lakes?
George: I'm not a big fan of streamers in the mountain lakes in general. But surprisingly enough, we have leeches even at 10,000 feet in these high alpine lakes. They aren't big leeches. But I'll use...one of my favorites is a mohair yarn leech, which is so simple. But I have a number of different other leeches, and some of the squirrel leches would work and whatnot. And yes, I do use some leeches occasionally. But I'm not a big fan of bait fish kinda streamers other than leeches and certain trout like cutthroats, I tend not to use any bigger flies with cutthroats. And the same for golden trout, but brook trout are a different story. Brook trout in many locales,, are very aggressive. The small ones, you know, strip the thing as fast as you can and, you know, watch them jump out of the water as you fly. Dry fly, Woolly Bugger, whatever it is. But bigger brook trout, in the Wind Rivers at least, often tend to be a little deeper, more like a lake trout, a Mackinaw. And then I will fish Woolly Bugger-type flies even on a sinking line or a poly leader or sinking poly leader or something like that when those fish are deep. And I would be fishing mostly blind then, which I don't like to do, but, you know, it's always better to catch fish than not catch fish. So...
Tom: I would agree.
George: Yeah.
Tom: So you have golden trout, you have cutthroats, which I assume are native up there. And you talked about stocking, obviously the golden trout were stocked at one time because they're not native to Wyoming. Are the cutthroats native to these lakes, or have they been stocked as well?
George: Pretty much everything has been stocked. Here on the east side of the Wind Rivers, the drainages are really quite steep coming out of the mountains. And the lakes are way up of the head surge of the drainages. And there was just no evolutionary way for the trout to be there. There may be a few places on the west side of the Wind Rivers where the gradient was less steep, and there may have been a few remnants of cutthroats in very few places in the Wind Rivers on the west side. But otherwise, everything has been stocked at one time or another. There are very few lakes that are being stocked right now. Most of the lakes have natural reproduction.
Tom: They do. I was gonna ask you that. So, do the goldens reproduce up there as well?
George: The goldens, I'd say about 50% of the time they are naturally reproducing. And the other 50% of the time, the Wyoming Game and Fish has them on a stocking schedule of every two years. And they'll plant fingerlings every two years to a certain number to, you know, just augment that fishery. A lot of times they plant them in the very highest lakes because goldens hybridized with both cutthroats and rainbows. And they want them to be pure. So they usually put them in the highest lakes that has a barrier from downstream encroachment of any other kind of fish. And a few of those lakes have almost no spawning because they drop off so deep, but there's almost no inlet and no outlet and no sandy gravely bottom them at the outlet. So those lakes, to maintain a fishery, have to be stocked periodically.
Tom: Do they stock them by air or do they take them in by horseback?
George: Yeah, anymore they stock them by helicopter.
Tom: By helicopter. Interesting. And what's your most common fish that you encounter up there? Which species is the most common?
George: Brook trout and cutthroats. Brook trout, even though they're a native American fish, native of the East Coast, are a scourge to backcountry places in the high mountains of the West. And what I've read is that brook trout actually need colder water temperatures than any other type of trout. And that's why on the East Coast, their ranges have been taken back and farther and farther and farther into the headwater streams. Of course, all the water in the Wind Rivers is very cold, and the brook trout do really well. They're extremely aggressive. They're able to breed very well. They jump up waterfalls, and when they get into an area with other fish, they just generally outcompete them. They outcompete cutthroats, they outcompete rainbows, they outcompete goldens. They don't outcompete Mackinaw lake trout.
Tom: Oh, you have some lake trout in your lakes as well up there.
George: There's a few very big lakes that have some Mackinaw that have been stocked in there. And of course, similar to anywhere else, they're big piscivorous things and they live for years and years and years and years. And, you know, I hear of fish 20 pounds being caught occasionally in the Wind Rivers, not that we catch any of that big on a fly rod, but occasionally we'll go after Mackinaw on a fly rod and use the same technique as I was talking about with brook trout, use a heavy sinking line and a big Wooly Bugger type fly and find a really deep drop off and toss it out as far as we can and let sink as far as we can. And lo and behold, we catch some pretty nice Mackinaw that way.
Tom: How big do the other species get? I mean, what's the size range of, say, brookies and cutthroats and goldens up there?
George: Generally the brook trout tend to be 8, 10 inches in streams and lakes unless there's a reason for them to get bigger, and what would be the only reason for a brook trout to get bigger? Their population numbers are lower. So if there's a lack of spawning, or they get washed down from one particular area, or there's a little spring hole that can only hold a certain amount of fish, then you could get brook trout up to 5, 6 pounds. But that's pretty rare. But, you know, sort of, there are people that are looking for these places with big brook trout, and we find them occasionally. Cutthroats, you know, all the stream fish because the environment is a lot more difficult for them to gain weight because there's a lot less biomass in the streams because they've gotta swim against the current, the fish tend to be small and a 16-inch fish might be big in a stream, that is locked into that stream and can't get back to a lake. If there's a reason that the fish can come down or up to spawn and they're still in the stream, you might have fish to 20 inches.
But there are plenty of places where you have 20-inch-plus cutthroats in the Wind Rivers and the high lakes. There are plenty of places where you have 20-inch-plus goldens. A bunch of the tippet records for goldens, probably all the tippet records for goldens have been made in the Wind Rivers. And there are a lot of 5, 6-pound fish. And of course, the world record golden is like 11 pounds from Cook Lakes on the west side, which now has brook trout. And I don't think anybody has seen a fish that big in a long time.
Tom: But that's still...I mean, 20-inch golden is still a big golden.
George: Yeah. And the goldens, as they get big, if they're in a normal environment, tend to bulk up like brook trout, they get really deep. Like, one time I caught a fish that was 19 inches and I said it weighed 5 pounds, whether or not it was, I don't know, but, you know, because, you know, it was thrown back. We didn't have a net, we didn't weigh it, so, yeah.
Tom: Wow. So I have never caught a golden, and that's something I'd like to do someday. And by goldens we mean real golden trout. You know, there are states that stock kind of like albino rainbows that they call golden trout, but we're talking about real golden trout here. Right? The real species.
George: Yeah, that's true. Yeah, I've seen pictures of fish from West Virginia that were actually golden trout, but in their hatcheries, they've kind of bred for a specific color that's really golden, you know? But our high mountain golden trout are the Sierra Nevada golden trout, and I can't remember whether they're the Turn River ones or whatever the Volcano Creek goldens, but I think there's the Kern River golden. And they do well. They're beautiful fish. They don't behave like normal fish, but that's okay. It's golden trout, you know.
Tom: Oh, wow. Well, let's explore that a little bit. What do you mean they don't behave like normal fish?
George: Originally, I heard from a fisheries biologist that said he felt that golden trout filter-feeded on zooplankton. And imagine if you're feeding on zooplankton all the time, you are not dependent on cataflies, mayflies, stoneflies, midges, whatever, leeches, that sort of thing. And to me it made sense because a lot of times you'd see golden trout and yeah, maybe you'd catch one on one fly, and yeah, an hour later the fish are still in front of you and you haven't caught another one. You switch flies and, lo and behold, you catch another one. But nothing ever seemed to be the key to golden trout as far as imitation flies, normal insect flies that normal trout would eat. So I just got the opinion that they didn't feed like normal fish. Occasionally you'll see them rising, but rarely, you know, rarely do you see them rising. Sometimes when you get a good chop on the lake and a thunderstorm coming in, they'll be up near the surface, but I think they're very shy of light to begin with. And they just don't behave like normal trout.
The only way my most successful methods are to find the fish and keep putting the fish in front of their face. And they also take the fly very differently when I'm watching them. And oftentimes I'm fishing like 5 or more feet deep, but I'm watching the fish and I have a nymph out there, and I'm retrieving it fast or slow, but I'm retrieving it. I watch the fish, he may accelerate towards the fly, and then he may slow down, but he doesn't change direction, where a lot of times a cutthroat or a brook trout will take a 90-degree bend after he takes your fly, but the golden trout always seemed to keep coming in the direction of your fly. So it's very difficult to detect a strike, even if you're taking all the slack out of your line by retrieving. So the best luck, in my opinion, oftentimes, is to strike when you sense that that fish slows down, or maybe you see that little wink of his mouth opening or something like that.
Anyway, it's all a really interesting game. And a lot of times I talk about our encounters with golden trout because we don't always catch them, but it's fun to have these encounters and it's fun to try to outwit them. So yeah, it's a fun thing, and they're interesting fish. And if you do find them rising or you do find them feeding, then consider yourself very lucky. We often look for them early in the season, and target them more early in the season because we can count on where they're going to be. Well, where are they gonna be? Well, they are spring spawners like cutthroats and rainbow trout, and in the high mountains, that means late June to middle to late July. So a number of these high lakes, they have no spawning to speak of moving water-wise, so they gravitate to a certain colored bottom. Usually, it has some sort of gravel, but it's usually a light cream-colored bottom that looks like gravel. So even though it may be 8 feet deep, you often find fish cruising these areas.
And, you know, rarely do we...We don't know if there's reds there or not. And we certainly think that the egg laying on lake shores is not viable, but that's where we target those fish along with, you know, they move up to the inlets and the outlets of the streams, just like normal fish, and they're able to spawn in normal fish-type places too. And so the golden trout, pre-spawn, they're around these areas. Spawn, they're around these areas. Post-spawn, for a little while they're around these areas, and then they tend to go very, very deep and it's very difficult to even find them. And then towards later in the season, you start seeing them more cruising the edges, but they're usually very deep and difficult. So...
Tom: I didn't realize they were that different and that difficult to catch.
George: Yeah. Not that I fish for permit, but you might think of in that frame of mind. Or steelhead fishing, not that they're quite that difficult, but if they are in a stream setting, they behave like a normal fish because they do have to eat your regular trout-type insects. caddis, mayflies, stone flies. But where brook trout, you might throw it in there and miss the strike and throw it back and he takes it again in the mountains. Golden trout, once he comes to your fly, man, even if he's a 6-inch golden in the stream, man, that guy is hidden. He's hidden after that, he does not like exposing himself to the light. Yeah.
Tom: Wow. Interesting stuff. So it's not that easy to catch a golden, even though there's a lot of them around.
George: Yeah. Yeah. Now, one other interesting thing about goldens is I sometimes find them in what I call a sunbathing mode. Where there might be as many as 100, just kind of out there in deep water, just milling around, milling around, and I really don't know why this is. And they don't seem to be awfully spooky. There are usually some that are very near the surface. But whenever you find goldens, there's a chance that you can catch them. So that might be one situation where you might use a popper-dropper-type situation and just suspend your nymphs into the area. And sometimes they respond to really small stuff. So, you know, you might use a stimulator with a little bitch larvae with a little red fluff on it or something and just suspend it there and watch what happens could be fun. So...
Tom: Huh. Wow, that sounds fascinating. It sounds difficult, but really interesting stuff. And it makes sense. You know, the fact that they don't turn when they take a fly makes sense if they are eating zooplankton because, in that situation, they would just keep going in one direction. Right? So, it does make sense.
George: Do you know the little dark red, almost black things they call cocopods [SP] that are sometimes on surfaces of water? They're about the size of a pinhead. That's zooplankton-type stuff. And I've seen sometimes on our high lakes, lots of these coco pods on the surface, and I've seen golden trout with their upper jaw completely out of the water, just cruising the surface, obviously straining these cocopods out of the water.
Tom: Huh? How tiny are they? Are they too small to imitate?
George: Yeah, but I think I read an article by this guy, Richards or whatever he is, who's a lake fisherman for big fish who imitated zooplankton for big rainbows with a kind of like a yarn leech with little speckles of fabric paint on them. And I haven't actually put...well, maybe I did try the fabric paint once. I don't know. I haven't successfully fished for them that way. I actually wanna try some of those English reservoir techniques that are being used in the competitive fishing circles like the washing line and the booby flies, but I haven't gotten around to that yet. So that's one of my things that I'd like to try at some point.
Tom: We're always learning, aren't we? We're always learning.
George: Yeah. Yeah.
Tom: You know, my friend Phil Rowley fishes these flies in lakes that are supposedly imitating a clump of zooplankton, and he calls it the blob. Have you ever heard of that fly?
George: Yeah. The blob is a lot like these boobies and things like that. In fact, I think they make a combination of the blob and the booby.
Tom: Oh, boy.
George: And I tied...I saw...Oh, daphnia is another word that comes to mind.
Tom: Oh, yeah. Right.
George: I saw this material that was called...I think the color was daphnia, but it was called daphnia glitz or something like that. So I tied some blob flies with that. And I sent them out with my son and my other helper, Jim, and they didn't report anything spectacular with them, but anyhow, we're always experimenting and there's somebody always that says, well, I have the secret fly for goldens and I'm not sure that anybody does. But a guy named Rich Ostoff, who wrote a book on Rocky Mountain, high mountain fishing, claims that his orange mega scud is the ticket for golden trout, and it's on a size eight hook, heavily weighted, and yes, it does catch fish. It's a pretty good fly. But, you know, a lot of times my soft hackle beaded hairs has done just as well. But there's some things that have not done well, and those are bigger streamers on golden trout. So...
Tom: Yeah. You would think since they're not actively...don't seem to be actively feeding on insects that a streamer might attract them, but doesn't sound like it works so well, huh?
George: Yeah. Well, you never know. You know, all fish have aggressive instincts that, you know, something moving fast they may take, or, you know, how many times have you caught a small fish and out of nowhere here comes a big fish and tries to eat it?
Tom: Yeah. Yeah.
George: I mean, yeah. Happens all the time. It's just, you know, some sort of, maybe even pheromones in the water, I don't know, that causes fish to be so antagonistic.
Tom: Wow. So, before we end this, let's talk about seasons for these high mountain lakes. In your part of the world, you know, what's the earliest and the latest? Obviously, summer is probably your primetime, right? Midsummer.
George: Correct. Yeah, midsummer.
Tom: How early can you get in there and then how late do you go in?
George: Well, there are people that call me in May and say, "Hey, how about we go fishing in the mountains?" I laugh. Yeah. I mean, it's just heavy snow pack. The general runoff in our area is maybe the very end of May through the middle of June. So that tells you when the most snow is coming off. But I wouldn't plan on ever going in before the middle of June. And we don't ever take our guests in until the very end of June, if not July. So you're playing with fire on some of these lakes with ice out, although there are people, quite a lot of people that are targeting ice out as the best fishing of the year. But, you know, if you hit it and you're 10 days too early, you're 10 days too early, you know. But it is fun to fish around ice out. There's occasionally where we're way up high, like 11,000 feet, and the ice is just coming off and you toss a Wooly Bugger out on the ice and you drop it off the ice, and here comes a fish out from under the ice and hits your fly.
But don't count on the ice out in the Wind Rivers until at least mid-June. This year, you would've been burned bad if you decided to go in mid-June. You needed to wait until, you know, the last week in June, maybe the first of July, and of course, July, very buggy month. August, good weather. September is often wonderful except for snowstorms. And few Labor Days ago, my son, Hank, and my partner, Jim, both went out on Labor Day weekend, and the forecast was for a big snow storm, and they were prepared, but they got 2 feet, 2 feet of snow. They had to really work to get back out of the mountains. It was post-holing the whole way. So keep an eye on your forecast. But depending on the forecast, you know, you could be up in the Wind Rivers into October and it's wonderful. Of course, there's almost no people and the fishing can be good. And the solitude and scenery are spectacular, so...
Tom: Yeah. Yeah, what a beautiful part of the world. It's amazing. So November is out, right? October, what...?
George: November's out, October's touchy. You know, one year back in the '70s we were hired by a "National Geographic" writer to follow John C. Fremont, who explored a lot of the area, climbed Fremont Peak, which he thought was the highest peak in the continental U.S., etc., etc. And he wanted to climb Fremont Peak. Well, I think it was even in September, this was, like, full winter mountaineering, you know, snow up to your chest almost in places. But I think with global warming it's a little bit more moderate, but you've gotta watch out for those storms because we can get a big snowstorm in September or October. And it can be quite cold also at night. So, yeah.
Tom: Wow. Well, it's an incredibly spectacular part of the world, very remote, and you're lucky to have it there.
George: We are lucky to have it. And it is pretty amazing that the United States had been so foresighted to set aside areas as wilderness, national parks, national monuments. I mean, really, there's no place in the world that has as much wild country as we have to explore, and the beauty of the Wind Rivers for fly fishermen is that, you know, there is a lot of area to explore. And I hope that the internet doesn't expose too much of these things, that people learn to do it the hard way, because that's the joy of learning to enjoy the mountains, I think, doing it the hard way.
Tom: Yeah. And I think it, you know, I think you're pretty safe because, you know, the casual people that read about it on the internet are probably not gonna make the effort to get way back in those lakes. It's a trek, right? It's a commitment.
George: It's a commitment. But, you know, since COVID, well, during COVID, everybody and their brother thought, oh, well, we're safe in the Wind Rivers. So we had a huge influx of people in our area, whether or not they brought their campers and just camped, you know, on the edge of the mountains or went into the mountains, we saw a huge influx. But I was just talking with a guy who said, yeah we thought it was permanent, but he says he's seeing a lot less people this year. I wouldn't say that myself, but my wife, Paula, and I just did a short backpack on the far side of the mountains and we hardly saw a soul, so yeah, we felt good about that. So yeah, that's the beauty of it, is hopefully you don't find anybody, and if you do, you let them fish. Even if you give them the whole lake, you don't go up 100 yards from them and fish. You give them the whole lake and you go find someplace else and give them their wilderness experience in this kind of an area.
Tom: And this is all public land you're fishing, right?
George: This is all public land. Everybody has the right to be there. It's true wilderness where there are no motorized vehicles, there are no mountain bikes, there's no generators. You know, you either gotta pack it in on horses, llamas, or on your back.
Tom: So great that we have places like that left. All right, George, well, have we missed anything? Any other tips for people? Obviously, you know, people need to be prepared with a first aid kit and enough food and probably don't need to take water, you can probably drink the water up there, right? With a filter.
George: Yeah. Most everybody's treating their water somehow either with a filter or some chemical treatment just for safety's sake. Yeah. But, you know, we can have grizzly bears. Not many, but, you know, you gotta be prepared for bears and the Forest Service requires people to hang food or keep it in a container that is bear-proof. But it's, you know, severe, severe, severe country. You can have a temperature drop of 40 degrees with a thunderstorm coming through. You can have lots of hail, lots of rain. And this summer has been particularly interesting weather-wise, some years it's an extremely benign range with blue sky every day for two months, but it is the mountains and it's not called the Wind Rivers for nothing. So yeah, you don't wanna fish those high lakes with your one-weight.
Tom: Oh, yeah. Yeah, something I forgot. What rod and line and what leader do you typically use up there?
George: My favorite rod is a 9-foot five-weight. There's some people that use a four-weight well, and you could certainly use a six-weight general floating line trout to match your rod. And my general leader is a 9-foot 4X. But sometimes I go a little bit longer, but you can bet sometime that you're gonna get some wind, so...But I've had guests that brought little 4-foot rods and just loved them in the streams. It's wonderful when you're catching 8-inch brook trout with a one-weight. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Tom: Well, that is great. Well, thank you, George. Really appreciate you taking the time to share your knowledge and experiences with us. It sounds like a fun trip, and I've never fished with you, and I hope to do it someday. It's not something I've done before.
George: Right. Well, let's hope before we get too old, we know that we're both very fortunate with everything in our lives that we've been able to do and our bodies are holding up. So let's just hope we can do that, Tom.
Tom: Okay, George. All right. Well, thank you so much, and it's always fun to talk to you.
George: Okay, thank you.
Tom: Okay, George. Bye-bye.
George: Yeah, bye-bye.
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