2025 Golden Trout Wind River Trip

That's right, my dad and I, as well as our Golden Doodle Dog, Biscuit, took another trip to the Wind Rivers. What made it extra special was that we got to bring my brother, Dallen, who brought his Basset Hound dog, Roscoe, along. I've mentioned this before, but Dallen hasn't caught a golden trout, so the route planned was the same as last year. With consideration that we would be going primarily after the golden trout.

We visited many lakes that held golden trout on the previous trip. At one lake, my dad and I probably caught around thirty golden trout each. The previous year, we went at the end of July, but this time, we went at the end of June instead. Going earlier to the Wind Rivers, the weather is much cooler, which should make the golden trout more active, was the thought process. We were also recommended by various fishermen who have gone to the Wind Rivers that going a month earlier was more optimal. 

Preparations for the trip included reducing the backpacks' final weight. Dad found a lot of lighter gear options on Amazon to help us lighten our packs. He got a lighter, solar-powered battery, and gave his older, bigger one to Dallen. He also found new lightweight titanium pots, a 750 ml, and a 450 ml, as well as some small stoves to heat and hold the pots. Dad bought me a new spinner rod since I broke the end of my rod on our previous trip to the Wind Rivers. My lure on the rod got snagged on a branch while we were hiking out, causing the tip of the fishing rod to snap off. I went into this trip planning to remove the lure from the fishing rod every time we weren't fishing and were hiking.

What was nice was that a few weeks before the trip, we were able to get a lot of good camping supplies from a nice camping yard sale. Everything at the yard sale was going for like fifty to sixty percent off. So my brother and Dad took full advantage of getting a bunch of flies as well as bright lures that would work well for golden trout. Things bought from the yard sale that weren't fishing related were some shovels, hot dog sticks, and some cast-iron pans. All in all, it was very convenient that this yard sale happened right before the trip.

We did do a trial run at one of our favorite lakes to fish at in the Uintas again. Dallen was able to come along on that short weekend trip. During that trip, we were able to catch some tiger trout, and I caught a cutthroat trout. We figured out that adding freeze-dried fruit to our oatmeal for breakfast was a nice combination, so we added that to our list of food supplies for the big Wind River Trip. For the Wind River trip, our food consisted of oatmeal and fruit for breakfasts, protein bars, jerky, and trail mix as snacks, and for dinners, we ate mashed potatoes and stuffing for the first couple of days, and then switched to eating Mountain House food. Dad worked on making jerky to have for the trip.

At last, the day had arrived to set out for the Wind Rivers again. When we did the final weigh-ins of our packs, mine and Dallen's were between fifty and fifty-five pounds. Dad's pack was a little heavier. What was nice was that my dad and I's Wyoming fishing license was for a year, and so we didn't have to buy new licenses. Dallen, however, had to buy a Wyoming fishing license as a last-minute thing.

Our clothes we were going to wear for the trip we sprayed with mosquito repellent, including our socks. We were able to leave at around seven in the morning. It took about four hours to drive to the Wind Rivers. But we arrived at the Wind Rivers around 11:00 with no delays. The trail we were hiking on was the Elkhart Long Lake Trail

Our first day of the trip was mainly spent hiking and getting far enough in to reach the lakes that held golden trout. It was nice that the weather was cooler, for it made the hiking easier on me and Dad.  We didn't have to spend as much time taking breaks to drink some water and cool down. Our new socks and shoes were working well; they were comfy and not too warm for our feet. We skipped the first lake that we could have possibly fished at; it just had small brook trout in it. After three hours of hiking or so, we made it to a golden trout lake. We stopped to fish at it for a while, I tried every lure in my tackle box and various flies on my fly rod, but wasn't able to get even a single bite.

Dad tried every fly in his inventory as well, and Dallen tried a ton of spinners. With the lack of fish at that lake, we decided to hike half a mile to try fishing at a different lake. Around this time, there wasn't much light left. Dad said he would pump some water and work on setting up the tent while Dallen and I fished at the lake. I tried a bunch of different flies at some fish I saw jumping, but didn't get any bites. Eventually, I moved over to where Dallen was fishing.

After about forty minutes of fishing next to Dallen, I decided to try my luck with using some brighter colors. I didn't get any bites, but Dallen was able to get his first golden trout on a bright pink spinner. The golden trout Dallen caught was a pretty decent-sized one, too. The golden trout was probably eleven or so inches long. Which is bigger than most of the golden trout my dad and I caught last year. After Dallen caught the fish, it was almost dark, so we went to find Dad, who set up the tent high away from the lake. It took some time for me and Dallen to find him, but eventually we did. It was thanks to our radios and the Meshtastic app that we were able to locate where he set up camp.

Dad had been waiting a while and had our dinner prepared. For dinner, we had some stuffing and mashed potatoes that would help alleviate some weight from our packs quickly. The next morning, I woke up at around seven-thirty. I was anxious to try to catch a golden trout again, so I  had some oatmeal for breakfast and then immediately started fishing the lake. But this time I tried the very right side of the lake, where there were lots of boulders. I hadn't tried the spot the previous year, but the water looked pretty deep. It seemed to be pretty deep over there at first glance of the lake. I brought my spinner rod with an orange spinner and my fly rod with a pink rubber squirmy tied on. Fifteen minutes into fishing with my fly rod, I got a few bites before landing two of my biggest golden trout ever. They weren't huge fish, probably both around just a foot long. But they were bigger than the golden trout I caught last year. At the same time that I caught my golden trout, Dad was fishing the spot that Dallen and I were at the previous night.

Eventually, Dallen came to the lake and got some good practice with fly fishing. The fish weren't hitting any of the spinners we were throwing out, but I was able to catch one more golden trout with my fly rod. Around this time, it was getting close to noon, about eleven o'clock, when we decided to take down camp and get to the next lake. We just needed to hike a couple of miles. It only took us about two hours to reach the next lake. This lake was where my dad and I caught about thirty to forty fish each. So we were excited to try our luck at the lake again. We started fishing with some nymphs that worked well on the lake before. We found out that most of the fish were on the left side of the lake, but the fish were being extra picky with the flies. I did get a couple of bites before landing a couple of small fish. Dallen caught a couple with a spinner as well.

After we fished for a couple of hours, we needed to set up camp. Unfortunately, there were a lot of mosquitoes at this lake. We initially started setting up camp down lower while Dad was pumping water. But Dallen and I were getting tired of the mosquitoes attacking us in swarms. The number of mosquitoes we saw at that lake was the most we have ever seen. With that in mind, you can see why we chose to move the tent somewhere else. We moved higher up the hillside to the spot where Dallen said he saw fewer mosquitoes. Once we got to the spot, we realized the mosquito numbers were not much better.  What was nice is I realized I had a face net in my backpack, so I threw that on and it prevented the mosquitoes from biting my face anymore.

Just like the previous night, we had mashed potatoes and stuffing for dinner again. In the morning, Dad fished the lake a bit while Dallen took down camp. We then started hiking to the next lake, which was just half a mile away. We got there in just an hour or so. We fished the lake for not very long at all. There wasn't a lot of fish jumping, and we weren't seeing fish cruising by the shore. Dad was the only one able to catch fish on the lake. He caught a pretty nice-sized golden trout; it was at least fifteen inches long. The funny thing was that the body was not proportionate to the size of the head. It kind of tricked Dad when he initially saw the fish.

While Dad and Dallen set up the camp, I made my way to the lake with my rods and began fishing. It was not long before I had a bite on my orange spinner. Unfortunately, the golden trout was small and shook off the hook easily. A little while later, Dallen and Dad made their way down to the lake. Dallen was the only one who caught a fish that night. The next morning, we planned to focus on fishing the right side of the lake, so that is what we spent our time doing till around lunchtime. Dad caught a few golden trout before we assembled our backpacks with our essentials and made our way down to a lake that held lake trout and brook trout. It took us about an hour of hiking before reaching the lake.  For my fly rod, I set up a leech for the brook trout at the lake. For the lake trout, I had a big repala. 

We made our way to the left side of the lake, where we saw some fish jumping about twenty to twenty-five feet out. Which is a pretty far cast with a fly rod. After casting out as far as I could with my fly rod, I saw a big fish swipe at my leech as I was retreating with the line. I cast back out to the same spot and was able to hook the fish this time. This was a nice brook trout that I hooked. When I pulled it in, I realized it might be the biggest brook trout I have ever caught. For sure, the biggest fish I have caught on a fly rod.

After I pulled that in, Dad and Dallen started catching some brook trout. A little while later, Dallen hooked onto a lake trout. He was tossing out a big Jake lure. After fighting with it for a couple of minutes, Dallen was able to pull in the lake trout. The lake trout was around twenty inches long. Dad says that this was pretty small for a lake trout. The big ones can easily get up to thirty or even forty inches long.

After Dallen caught his lake trout, Dad and I tried our luck at catching some lake trout as well. Dad took Dallen's rod and cast it back out, and immediately hooked onto a lake trout with it. After I went back and put a big Repalla on my spinner rod, I returned. After about four to five casts, I hooked one and was able to bring in a lake trout a little smaller than the one Dallen caught. It was very cool that all of us were able to catch at least one lake trout, for none of us had caught that species of Trout before.

The lake held some nice brook trout, mainly because there wasn't a ton of brook trout. The average brook trout we were pulling in was around eleven inches long. The lake trout consumes a lot of the brook trout in the lake, meaning the brook trout compete less with each other for food. We kept Dallen's lake trout and one of his brook trout, as well as my big brook trout, to eat for the night. Dallen assembled some chairs and a campfire made out of rocks. I gathered firewood and broke it into smaller pieces with my small saw. For the fish, we brought some garlic seasonings in baggies and some butter spray, which we coated the fish with. We then wrapped the fish in some tin foil and heated them in the coals left from the fire.

The lake trout tasted pretty good. It has white meat instead of the more pinkish meat found in other species of trout. It tasted very similar to chicken, which was surprising to say the least. When we woke up the next morning, we planned to head to the lake where my dad and I caught the most golden trout at last year. However, the dogs weren't feeling well, so we spent most of the day resting and playing a card game called Rummy to pass the time.

When it was around three to four o'clock in the afternoon, we hiked back over to the lake where we caught the most fish last year. The next morning, we fished for a couple of hours at the lake before hiking out the rest of the way. Overall, the fishing trip went pretty well. We didn't catch as many fish as the previous year, but we got to share this amazing experience with Dallen, so that was nice. 

Below are links to other useful new gear we used during our trip

We purchased Nalgene Water Bottles, choosing the blue and green colors to store our pumped water.

We got Vermont crew socks in blue, gray, and green colors.

Saucony Men's Hiking Shoes were very comfortable for hiking during the trip.

Another stove stand we used was the Fire Maple.

Kahtoola Gaiters were nice for keeping debris out of our shoes.

Sawyer Insect Repellent was sprayed on our clothes to help alleviate bug bites.

The Anker Power Bank was useful for charging our phones at night.

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