Hello all! I have returned once again this year and wanted to share a crazy adventure that took place a couple weeks ago. Every once in a while I get a crazy idea in my head and I won't be satisfied until I give it a shot whether it is a good idea or not and this trip was definitely one of those. So with the lack of snow and mild temps early this year, I started to think about hiking in for backcountry ice fishing. I have done this before in a couple different locations with varied success but this time I thought it would be cool to target goldens. Main reason is that this year I thought it would be possible when most it wouldn't be and I don't know a single person that has ever gotten a true high mountain golden through the ice before. I had a lake in mind but wanted to make sure it would be safe before I put in all the effort to get there so I actually had a buddy fly me over it to take a look 4 days before we hiked in which was an awesome experience in itself. All looked good so we were a go
The hike on paper was about 4 1/2 miles each way through mild terrain and there was only 3-6" of snow at the trailhead so it seemed very doable. We set off early and made good time on the main trail for the first 3 miles or so to where we had to turn off the beaten path and start bushwacking towards the chosen lake. We actually had to cross one lake on the way in that only has brookies but that made for great easy walking with 8" of ice and only 1-2" of snow.
Now from that first lake to the next was only about 3/4 of a mile on paper but we ended up in mid thigh deep snow for the majority of it which slowed the pace way down. We persevered and arrived at the target lake. We set up shop where I had caught a nice fish years ago and although I was marking fish (yes I was dumb enough to pack a helix 7 all the way in there) but no hits. I think they were all fairly small fish. We poked around that lake for a while fishing in 8-50ft and same story we would see some but nothing would hit. So we decided after a couple of hours to bomb in even further to another small lake that we knew had goldens. Another mile of over knee deep snow and we made it to that lake which was just over 10000ft.
At first we were a little discouraged because of the lack of depth in the lake and we struggled to find 10ft deep out in the middle of the lake. We finally set up shop in that 10ft range and I fairly quickly caught my first golden through the ice, a beautiful 13.5" fish
We continued fishing in this area for another hour and a half before we had to start heading out and everyone in the group caught some fish and I ended up with 5 topside with a handful more that got off or I missed and most of them were around that 14" mark with the biggest being 14 3/4".
The walk out wasn't as bad as going in but it took longer than expected and I was late to my wife's christmas party. All in all we did 12 miles of hiking with our gear on our backs with 4 or so miles of that being in over knee deep snow. I weighed my pack when I got home and it was 36.7lbs so I would expect that I was closer to 40 starting the day off and I could sure feel it the next morning. Good thing I had elk season to get me ready for ice fishing lol.
It was an amazing trip but I don't know if I will ever do that again or even get the right weather conditions to attempt it again. Lots of type 2 fun was had looking back at it but I thought that you all would enjoy seeing this.
