We all dream of those adventures of chasing gold and striking it rich. Well on this adventure Jeff and Marcus came across an old stocking report of the Utah DNR saying that California Golden Trout were stocked in Jean Lake in high Uintas. So there are only a few lakes in Utah that hold golden trout and so they both went on a long hike to try and strike it rich. Hoping for gold they started thier adventure at headwaters of Smith and Moorehouse Lake.
They parked at the top campground at the Ledgefork Trailhead and headed about three quarters of a mile up the trail and located the correct canyon to the left and headed across Smith and Moorehouse Creek and up the canyon to discover what lies ahead. While walking up the creek coming down the canyon the trail kept disappearing and reappearing becuase of a fire that had been in there a couple years proir. So jumping over downed trees , crashing through bushes and swatting at thousands of mosquitoes they finally reached the summit of the saddle. They had to take a break as the vertical elevation change was pretty steep, pretty fast.
As they came through the trees there was a small lake covered in lily pads and the thought of gold fever was over coming them. Getting closer and closer to thier goal but yet having to climb up another hill with heavy legs. After cresting the final hill and swatting off what seemed to be the millionth mosquito they could finally see water. The gold fever was in full effect and they strung up their rods licky split and hit the water. So with a two fly set up they fought the wind and cast thier lines as far out as they could. They kept getting little bumps and when they would go to set they would come up empty handed. Till finally Jeff hooked into something and to thier suprise instead of gold they had hit silver. It was a grayling. Having not known they were even in the lake they now knew what was doing to little bumps on thier flies
Grayling having the sliver sides with little heart shaped spots and the reds and blues in their sails were a pleasant surprise. The smaller mouth on the grayling gave them a clue about the bumps becuase they had a larger fly on the bottom of their set up and the grayling couldnt get the hook into thier mouths. After switching to smaller flie they contiued to fish and worked thier way around the lake finding a log that extented into the lake they could stand on and even saw big leeches and even Salamanders swimming around underneath them. After hours and dozens of grayling coming to the net they realized that becuase of the shallow lake the golden trout that were stocked there must have been victim to a harsh winter kill over the years but the grayling were thriving.
So they packed up and headed back on the long journey back to the truck and reflected on the wonderful adventure they shared. Thanks for reading our article. Be sure to visit our shop to find cool gear, visit our affiliates on our partners page when buying your products from them and make sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel for more adventures throughout the world.
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