I was in the area to do some shellfish harvesting during the minus tides and decided to drop the kayak in and troll around this picturesque lake in hopes of connecting with one of the two endemic species of trout, either the Beardslee Rainbow or Beardslee Cutthroat.

I launched from Storm King and trolled the south shore in 20-50' of water using a variety of weights up to the 2 oz maximum allowed and didn't have much luck with spinner hoochies or a Thomas Buoyant spoon. After a couple hours I switched to a small copper Rvrfshr spinner and immediately hooked and landed a dink Beardslee cuttie and that was followed shortly by a skinny 16" fish. After that my time had run up so I had to leave but it was good to connect with one of these unique fish in such a beautiful locale.

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