I'm giving this report a 3 despite the fact we only caught one fish. Our plan was to go for a hike and if we caught some fish that would be a bonus. The hike to Cora is less than a mile, so it's not difficult to reach, but to get the best view you have to bushwack your way around to the far side of the lake. We got to the lake at about 9:30am and started fishing the shaded side of the lake with no success. We continued making our way around to the far side of the lake at the base of the cliffs. Once there we had a great view of Mt Rainier and found a massive school of tadpoles. As you can see in the picture, you could scoop them up by the handful...pretty cool sight.

There were five of us all using different setups and nobody got even a nibble. Once we got to the far end of the lake, we spent probably 2 hours there taking in the sights and letting our lines soak. I walked out onto a giant log which got me about 20 feet out into the lake and put a yellow Power Egg and a pink Power Egg with garlic scent on my hook with about a 2ft leader and 1/4oz egg weight. I cast out and within 60 seconds felt the bump. I set the hook on the second bump and had the only fish of the day on. I was fishing my 5.5ft ultralight pole so it was a fun fight, but as I got it closer I could see why. A beautiful 15" super fat rainbow was trying to wrap my line around all the logs and branches along the shore. I landed it without a net and cleaned it and put it on ice right away. Beautiful pink flesh and really healthy looking, unfortunately I didn't think to have someone get a picture of it before I cleaned it.

All said it was a beautiful day and would have been great even without a fish, but this beauty made the day perfect for me. I cooked it up when I got home and it was delicious! It was my boy and his friend and I brought two of my buddies who I have taken out fishing twice. They loved this so we will definitely be doing more alpine fishing. They want to do a longer hike so I'm looking for a good fishing lake that's a good 2-4 mile hike and about an hour drive from Puyallup.

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