As recorded in Wayne’s Journal, on 2 July 1994, I (Wayne) carried a 45 lb. backpack to a high mountain lake in Western Washington. A friend of mine (Scott) hiked to the Lake also. Scott had been to this lake several years prior, and he found cutthroats of nice size. We started hiking at 8:35 am. We reached the Lake at 5:35 pm. I brought a fly rod on this trip. That evening I fly fished without success. Scott had a large cutthroat on, but he lost it.
The following day, after breakfast, we went for a short hike up the hill behind our camp site, which had nice mountain scenery. We went back to our camp and started fishing. Scott used a spinning rod with a spinner on it. I was using my fly rod with sinking line on the reel. I selected a wet fly with black deer hair wing, yellow body and black deer hair tail; I tied this fly for sea-run cutthroat. It was a nice afternoon, and I was standing on a rock ledge just above the water line, leaning against a rock. I let the fly sink for 15 seconds. I was using a 2” strip retrieve (short jerk, than a short pause). I was almost dozing off. Suddenly, a large fish took my fly. I told Scott that I had a fish on. He hurried over to where I was at. I gradually tired out the fish. It did not take me into the backing. Scott helped me land it. It was a 24” cutthroat. We kept it for dinner.
On the 4th of July, we got up at 8:00 am. We had breakfast, and then picked up camp. We started hiking at 9:45 am. We reached the trailhead at 4:15 pm. We saw a black bear and 2 deer during this trip.
Note 1: The “From the Bank" web page can be viewed by selecting Fishing->From the Bank from menu bar at top.
