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High Mountain Adventures in Northern Idaho
Trilby Blog
August 24th
In our never ending quest for breath taking fish footage, we decided to head for the Trilby lakes. Near the border of Montana and deep in the Frank Church Wilderness, Trilby is a seven hour drive north and west from Boise. We gathered our gear and made for the trail head on Sunday the 23rd, camped the night there, and set off during the black day light of the 24th.
The walk was practically cake! The trail starts way up on a major divide and it follows it for 8 miles. That means that was practically zero up in the walk until you brake down for the lake. The scenery was breath taking, on wither side was a different drainage and you could see for miles. Idaho is on one side and Montana on the other.
Lake Creek Lake was our destination and we pulled into camp around 11am. We immediately started fishing, waiting for a go with a few of the giant cutthroats rumored to live there. But we never got arise. It was dead we had to bail on that lake and hit lower Lake Creek Lake to catch dinner. That lake was jumping with fish and we quickly caught dinner and started fishing for fun.
Finally our feet had had enough and we called it a day. I immediately peeled my boots off to check my feet and found a bit of a blister. No problem, life was still good. We fed up and called her a night.
Day 2 August 25th
It was apparent that our targeted lake was not going to fish. The lunkers were there, in the deep middle, feeding on monster flies that were hatching out there. Way out of range. So plan B: head 3 miles out to a more remote lake by the name of Rattlesnake. We took off early and expected a gnarly walk, but to our surprise, found a nice gentle walk to the lake, and the fish were there!!
We wasted no time in catching them. We caught so many I couldn't even guess a number. We were using our CDC Caddis Black and they were taking! We worked our way around the lake and continued to catch them. Finally the sun was its way down and it was time to get back to camp. An easy walk to greedy fish; Rattlesnake was good to us.
But it held one more surprise for us. On the way back we stumbled into a monster huckleberry patch with blueberry sized berries! We picked a bag full and then ate our fill. The pancakes in the morning were now going from good to awesome. Rattlesnake was a good choice. We get back to camp with smiles on our faces and memories of giants on our mind.
Back at camp we waited for a chance at the big guys in the middle; hoping one would venture into casting range. While I was waiting, I stumbled onto a breeding bundle of Garter snakes which were everywhere around me. I was extremely fun to film those snakes.
Day 3 August 26th
After some high mountain huckleberry pancakes, we decided to take a chance and walk back up the trail to a lake called Spread Point Lake. It was supposedly a big lake on the chain but had no marked trail on the map. We thought that a lake that size should hold a fish and since there was no marked trail, there would have been fewer people fishing it.
Five miles later, we found ourselves looking down on it and started our climb down. The map was right and the trail was non existent. It was extremely bluffy, with blow down after another, and the entire hill side was one big bog. It took us a good half an hour to walk a quarter mile. Once we were there though, we found a dandy camp site, and what was better, fish were everywhere.
We had already gotten plenty of footage so I got the pole and caught a few for dinner. We fished around and discovered that the lake was full of fish and they were all smaller, 8-10 inches. Classic signs of an over populated Lake. Even so, we had a great time catching and releasing fish out of Spread Point Lake.
The following day we navigated our way up that crazy hillside and hiked to the car. It was an awesome trip with excellent scenery, perfect weather, and plenty of superior fishing.
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