# High Lake Fishing Saturday



## Trigger (Sep 11, 2007)

Went to a high mountain lake with my wife sons and grandchildren. Had a great day. Love riding the horses, catching fish is a bonus. Cant wait for the next trip.


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## Dunkem (May 8, 2012)

Nice! Looks like a great time.Thanks for sharing.8)


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## brookieguy1 (Oct 14, 2008)

Way to "get high". Best way to do it in my book. Nice lookin chars and trout-chars to boot.


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## wyogoob (Sep 7, 2007)

Wow, that's cooler than the other side of the pillow.


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## spencerD (Jan 14, 2014)

High lake fishing is the way to go, especially this time of year. Nice catching, them tigers are always good eating, too


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## N8ON (Oct 7, 2010)

What a great trip, thanks for the horse ride the last two weekends Trigger. We were surprised when we started catching tigers, because they are not on the stocking reports for that lake. That being said, I have liked the tigers being stocked. They seem to be hardy fish, are doing well in the Uintas, and like Spencer said, they are great eating. I have not noticed a decline in the brook population in the lakes we have found tigers. 
What are everyone else thoughts on tigers in the Unitas?


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## Catherder (Aug 2, 2008)

N8ON said:


> What are everyone else thoughts on tigers in the Unitas?


I guess the novelty is worn off for me and I don't consider them much of a big deal. They're probably perfect for the roadside lakes. I suppose I prefer sterile brookies, cutts, grayling, and where possible, goldens for the management of back-country lakes.

I remember fishing a fairly remote Uintas lake a couple years ago and catching chunky, gorgeous cutts all morning. Then I caught a recently stocked small frankenfish tiger. My emotional gut instinct was distinctly negative. Aesthetically, it just didn't seem to belong there.


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## brookieguy1 (Oct 14, 2008)

Tiger trout were OK for a while at some of the lower elevation lakes, and are a fairly good answer to helping manage for rough fish while still maintaining a catchable yet managable sportfish. BUT.....
Now that we have ample stocks of sterile brook trout.....NO MORE TIGER TROUT IN ALPINE LAKES!!!! And I don't want the ole' crap about brook trout not being native to Utah. They belong here, naustalgically, end of story. Just one of natures forgivable boo-boos. They are a perfect high-country fish.


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## 30-06-hunter (Sep 22, 2013)

On Friday I was fishing the upper Provo a mile or so above the falls and was glad to only see brookies on the end of my line. Don't get me wrong, I love tigers in certain areas, but when fishing a high mountain stream nothing brings back childhood memories like a brook trout. My wife loves to eat tigers while I love brookies, both are welcome table fare in our home.


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## spencerD (Jan 14, 2014)

brookieguy1 said:


> Tiger trout were OK for a while at some of the lower elevation lakes, and are a fairly good answer to helping manage for rough fish while still maintaining a catchable yet managable sportfish. BUT.....
> Now that we have ample stocks of sterile brook trout.....NO MORE TIGER TROUT IN ALPINE LAKES!!!! And I don't want the ole' crap about brook trout not being native to Utah. They belong here, naustalgically, end of story. Just one of natures forgivable boo-boos. They are a perfect high-country fish.


If people practiced catch and release more in alpine lakes, I'm sure we'd see more brookies. But stocking sterile ones in every year, enough for thousands of people to catch a few fish and come home with them, is expensive. Hence stocking the tigers to help take pressure off the brookies. And putting them in with brook trout is great. I know a fairly-reknowned lake famous for tiger and cutthroat trout that is now receiving sterile brookies.

If people understood the brookies they were catching were sterile, and they can't reproduce but if you put them back they'll get bigger, and just kept the tigers for eating (which are just as good as brookeis, IMO) then we'd see more brookies in the alpine lakes.

Just my two cents. I want as many brook trout lakes as we can get, I love 'em. Awesome, awesome fish.

And FYI, I'm not a C&R nut who thinks we should never keep fish, I'm saying that being more aware of what lakes you keep fish out of, and what fish you keep, will do a lot to help out fish populations. I love eating me some fresh grilled trout as much as the next guy!


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## Trigger (Sep 11, 2007)

I have never caught a grayling but was wondering are they good to eat?


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## Catherder (Aug 2, 2008)

Trigger said:


> I have never caught a grayling but was wondering are they good to eat?


I have eaten them before. They are OK, but if I'm at a lake that has both Grayling and trout and I want to keep a few for dinner, I'll keep the trout.

RE"If people practiced catch and release more in alpine lakes, I'm sure we'd see more brookies."

I believe in most cases, the opposite is true. First off, a goodly number of our Uintas lakes and probably all of the streams have varying levels of brookie natural reproduction. In these lakes, the tendency is for the brookies to over populate and stunt. The answer in these places is to harvest as many as legally possible, so the remainder have a few groceries around to grow. The DWR realizes this and that is why they have a bonus limit of 4 additional brookies that one is allowed to harvest there. In lakes that do not have natural reproduction, the stocking levels are almost always high enough for folks to harvest some fish with the hope that the survivors again have sufficient food to get big enough for Brookieguy to want to go after.

There are others on here that are bigger Uintas experts than I, but while winterkill can depopulate a lake, I haven't seen very many Uintas lakes get "fished out". However, I've sure seen a great many where the brookies are stunted. Usually, you can tell on the first fish you catch.


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## brookieguy1 (Oct 14, 2008)

spencerD said:


> If people practiced catch and release more in alpine lakes, I'm sure we'd see more brookies. But stocking sterile ones in every year, enough for thousands of people to catch a few fish and come home with them, is expensive. Hence stocking the tigers to help take pressure off the brookies. And putting them in with brook trout is great. I know a fairly-reknowned lake famous for tiger and cutthroat trout that is now receiving sterile brookies.
> 
> If people understood the brookies they were catching were sterile, and they can't reproduce but if you put them back they'll get bigger, and just kept the tigers for eating (which are just as good as brookeis, IMO) then we'd see more brookies in the alpine lakes.
> 
> ...


I don't quite follow your thoughts. Are you saying sterile brook trout are more expensive to stock than sterile tiger trout? If we just simply quit stocking tigers and put only sterile brook trout in the same numbers I see no difference. If most people don't care which species they catch, why not please the ones that do care? Brook trout are just superior to tiger trout in alpine lakes. So if a certain lake was to get say 1000 tiger trout, 250 sterile brooks, and 500 cutts, why not put 1250 sterile brooks and 500 cutts (or not) instead? In alpine lakes tiger trout just suck hind teet when sterile brook trout are available.


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## Jackalope (Oct 30, 2007)

brookieguy1 said:


> I don't quite follow your thoughts. Are you saying sterile brook trout are more expensive to stock than sterile tiger trout? If we just simply quit stocking tigers and put only sterile brook trout in the same numbers I see no difference. If most people don't care which species they catch, why not please the ones that do care? Brook trout are just superior to tiger trout in alpine lakes. So if a certain lake was to get say 1000 tiger trout, 250 sterile brooks, and 500 cutts, why not put 1250 sterile brooks and 500 cutts (or not) instead? In alpine lakes tiger trout just suck hind teet when sterile brook trout are available.


I agree,

This past week I hiked in to a lake in the Uintas, and it had Cutt's, Tigers, and Brook Trout. The only ones with any size was the Brookies. Wish they would cut out the Tigers, and only put Brookies, and Cutt's. Looking at the stocking report for this lake all I see them putting in is Tigers.


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## HighmtnFish (Jun 3, 2010)

spencerD said:


> If people practiced catch and release more in alpine lakes, I'm sure we'd see more brookies. But stocking sterile ones in every year, enough for thousands of people to catch a few fish and come home with them, is expensive. Hence stocking the tigers to help take pressure off the brookies. And putting them in with brook trout is great. I know a fairly-reknowned lake famous for tiger and cutthroat trout that is now receiving sterile brookies.
> 
> If people understood the brookies they were catching were sterile, and they can't reproduce but if you put them back they'll get bigger, and just kept the tigers for eating (which are just as good as brookeis, IMO) then we'd see more brookies in the alpine lakes.


I am going to respectfully disagree with your comment. When people practice catch and release in alpine lakes with brook trout in them, those lakes will usually over populate and stunt. There's a lot of lakes that I wish people would keep more brook trout out of. It would help thin out the population and give the survivors room to grow. My experience is if you can easily catch Brookies in a lake this time of year then the lake is over populated with them. And there are too many alpine lakes that are over planted and under harvested with brook trout, even the sterile ones. Keep the Brookies you catch, it will ensure that the ones left will be bigger and better for the rest of us. 
I know of several lakes that have good populations of healthy Brookies that seem to disappear in the summertime. You could fish them every July or August and not even know there were brook trout in them.


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