Summer 2014 Part 1

I spent my summer fishing Utah, Idaho, Montana and Washington. I revisited a lot of favorite spots but had the chance to try out a few new rivers and lakes. The first place I was able to fish was on a trip to Bear Lake. I camped on a creek up there called St. Charles Creek. The fishing was pretty tough, it was a swift moving creek with lots of trees and brush to try to work around. Finally after a few days of scouting I was able to find some nice bends and holes to bring some fish in. I was able to bring in lots of brookies, rainbows and cutthroats. I was blown away by how many fish were in this creek. Most of the fish were 8-14 inches, but I did catch a few nice ones pushing 16 inches. There were a lot of cutthroats in this creek, in the spring it's a major tributary for the cutthroats in Bear Lake to spawn. Over all I would definitely recommend this creek to anyone that likes chasing wild brookies and cutthroats. I would also recommend checking out Bloomington Lake, it's about an hour and a half north-west of Bear Lake. It has some amazing scenery and is full of brook trout. The drive up is kind of rough, make sure you take a vehicle up there with some clearance. The road can get a little sketchy up towards the last stretch before the lake. Here are a few pictures of St. Charles Creek and Bloomington lake.

The next place I was able to spend some time on the water was Horseshoe lake in Idaho. Ryan and I took our pontoons out for the morning and early afternoon. We were able to catch grayling and rainbows. From the time we got to lake until about 11:00 the lake was full of risers and fish taking big flies off the top. I had a #14 Royal Wulff on all morning and I was very surprised how many grayling I got in to. We went up on a Friday and we only saw one other group on the lake. They took a canoe out for about a half an hour and packed up. If you can get up there on a weekday, do it and you'll have the lake to yourself. After we finished up at Horseshoe we headed up to Ashton and made a few casts in Warm Springs river. I got into a lot of rainbows, had one on the line just about every cast. In the half hour of fishing I think I brought at least 15 in even with all the tubers and floaters. Here a few pictures of Horseshoe lake. If you are close to Idaho Falls and you haven't been up to Horseshoe, take your camping stuff up there and spend a weekend enjoying the bald eagles, lily pads, grayling, and rainbows.