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This was the most brutal, exilerating, exhausting, exciting adventure ive been on yet.
In the quest to catch large alpine trout i searched google maps for hours and hours on end recently. I checked wdfw fish washington for leads on good places to check out. I thought of refferences from a member from this site. Innitially my target was going to be josephine per recomendation from quadfather. Then i talked to another friend who pointed me in the direction of further, more isolated lakes nearby, chain lakes. He told me of the excellent fishing for 8"-12" cutthroat in chain and the 18" cutthroat of nearby doelle lake. The plan was made. 2 day solo hiking camping trip on the pct/icicle creek trail. 27 total miles round trip with full camp gear alone. The altitude gain loss is astonishingly difficult.. i dont know how much exactly, but my guess would be 10,000'+ gain/loss roundtrip.
The hike up started at 7:30am monday morning, by 9:15 i arrived at lake susan jane, i decided to pack down for a few minutes and briefly fly fish it, during the 20 minutes i was there i saw 2 rises, i casted to one of them. I saw the fish take the fly, a 12" rainbow by the looks of it, but i didnt get a good hookset. Knowing that i had a long way to go i headed off to josephine. After getting onto the icycle creek trail i arrived at josephine around 10:00 am, again i packed down and fished for a few moments, lots of risers all over the lake, but they all seemed a bit line shy and werent buying what i was selling, so onto the icycle trail.. i continues my journey growing weary as the miles passed behind me. I finally reached the chain lakes trailhead around 1:00pm, already tired from hiking roughly 9.5 miles and already did alot of gain loss, i reached the gnarliest most difficult trail ive ever hiked as far as elevation gain/mile is concerned, the trail has alot of duff on it to make it that much harder on top of being super steep. A friend claims it is 2,200' gain in 2.5 miles, and the last mile is mostly flat.
After finishing the hike i finally arrived at beatiful chain lakes. A stunning majestic, and outright majical place surrounded by, soaring peaks high above the lakes, meadows, wild flowers, babbling brooks, and the most delightful sound of plopping caused by fish surfacing in the lakes. Before i could fish i knew i had to set camp. Already exhausted from the hike i set my camp then just laid in the grass for well over a half hour to recouperate.
After a good long rest i made it down to the lake, 3 weight fly rod floating set up in hand. I noticed what looked like adult caddis flying around(im no entimologist so im not really sure) so i tied on a size 8 adult caddis wet fly in olive, i started casting near shore first as to make sure i properly target every bit of water within casting range. I started off stripping with no love, a few casts later i casted then had to mess with so slack in the line, while distracted i recieved my first bite and missed it. I immediately thought, maybe i should just cast and let it sit and not move it, sure enough that was the ticket. Every few casts produced a fish of 8"-12" these were gorgeous west slope cutthroat, my first ever. What a spectacular, gorgeous and hard fighting fish they are. After releasing roughly 20 trout from lower chain lake in about 45 minutes, i decided to take a break i went back to camp and made dinner. After dinner i fished middle chain lake, the action wasnt as frequent as was in the lower lake. The fish seemed concentrated on a very localized hatch in the middle of the lake OR they were hiding under undercut banks, overhanging trees and other cover. I couldnt cast far enough to get near the voraciously feeding fish near the center, who surfaced over and over. i targeted structure and walked the shore around the lake and caught and released another 8 west slope cutthroat in the same size range.
I went to sleep around 8 in preperation of my final target, dowelle lakes. To be continued on my next report....

AJFishdude

7/10/2015 10:53:00 PM

Nice pics John, those are some good looking fish!

tframe

7/11/2015 5:49:00 PM

Awesome report that's a beautiful area

Obi-jonKenobi

7/12/2015 12:37:00 PM

I've fished some of these over-populated lakes like these and my personal policy is to take as many fish out as possible to allow the remaining fish more room and food. It takes a dozen of these after cleaning to make a couple of pounds. These are excellent smoked and turned into smoked-trout mouse.

Also, and excellent place to revive your fishing ego because you almost have to shake the fish off your line.

jonb

7/12/2015 9:39:00 PM

There would be no possible way to process all those fish above 5000' altitude (no campfires allowed) and the daily limit is 5. My personal policy is to follow the rules so the reaource remains available and doesnt end up getting shut down. The problem with fires above 5k elevation is you cant see the flame oe can hardly see the flame, this can be very dangerous and could lead to a forest fire... with that in mind, i believe my policy was perfect.

Obi-jonKenobi

7/13/2015 2:05:00 PM

You don't need a fire to "process" the fish, you just catch the fish you want to pack out as close to your departure time as possible, clean them and pack them out. THEN you cook or smoke them.

As for the law, yes laws have their purposes and I'm mostly law abiding . . . except when the law obviously has no connection with what is happening in reality . . . like a heavily over-populated lake that is FAR off the beaten path and has no hope of being harvested at the level that will reduce the obvious numbers enough for food to be abundant enough for the fish there. I'm definitely down with resource protection but I don't blindly follow the law when I see a situation like that I describe.

jonb

7/14/2015 12:26:00 PM

Obi jon kenobi, A.) You are telling me i should poach those fish because of your ignorant beliefs. No i will never do that
B.) It is a 8HOUR hike in july heat then a 1 1/2 hour drive home, the fish WILL spoil in that time. They either must be processed at that time or released... im in favor of releasing fish.
C.) I have no respect for your ethic or mindset, do not message or comment me again please. I will delete any further comments without regard! Good day.

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