08-25-2009, 05:53 AM
Its been a couple of years since I have fished the area of my forum handle so when my neighbors asked me to take them I jumped at the chance.
They wanted to go somewhere adventurous so we went to just such a place.
Gorge Lake is 9 miles up the trail from the Elkheart Park trailhead. The first 8 miles are all on good trail and really no big deal, but the last mile is a straight down plunge of across boulders the size of cars, houses, and as my neighbors said hotels. Just to give you an idea it took us three hours to go the last mile and another three hours to go that one mile on the way home. Over all it was a three day 20 mile adventure with more time spent hiking than fishing.
The long hike down did pay off in the way of suicidal fish. Ironically enough we fished a lake called suicide lake but I think it was named after the difficulty of the hike and not the starving fish. At the inlet of suicide lake our group caught well over 100 brookies, and bows. At one point my neighbor was counting down "5,4,3, 2,1....Windriver has another one..." The upper lake called Gorge Lake was also very good for small fish using small dry flies.
The cool thing about suicide lake was we were using chernoble ants in the fast water running into the lake. The fish were literally fighting each other to get to the fly.
We had a great stream side lunch with some fresh brookies.
This trip will be one that the neighbor boys will never forget. Everytime I get done with this hike I vow never to do it again, then my memory of the hike dims as my fishing memory remains strong and I do it again.
This was my ninth trip into Gorge and Suicide Lake.
Here are a few pics...
Windriver
[signature]
They wanted to go somewhere adventurous so we went to just such a place.
Gorge Lake is 9 miles up the trail from the Elkheart Park trailhead. The first 8 miles are all on good trail and really no big deal, but the last mile is a straight down plunge of across boulders the size of cars, houses, and as my neighbors said hotels. Just to give you an idea it took us three hours to go the last mile and another three hours to go that one mile on the way home. Over all it was a three day 20 mile adventure with more time spent hiking than fishing.
The long hike down did pay off in the way of suicidal fish. Ironically enough we fished a lake called suicide lake but I think it was named after the difficulty of the hike and not the starving fish. At the inlet of suicide lake our group caught well over 100 brookies, and bows. At one point my neighbor was counting down "5,4,3, 2,1....Windriver has another one..." The upper lake called Gorge Lake was also very good for small fish using small dry flies.
The cool thing about suicide lake was we were using chernoble ants in the fast water running into the lake. The fish were literally fighting each other to get to the fly.
We had a great stream side lunch with some fresh brookies.
This trip will be one that the neighbor boys will never forget. Everytime I get done with this hike I vow never to do it again, then my memory of the hike dims as my fishing memory remains strong and I do it again.
This was my ninth trip into Gorge and Suicide Lake.
Here are a few pics...
Windriver
[signature]
] Dam I wish I was younger again.[frown]