Frank Church II

The fishing at Heart Lake was decent but not fantastic.  The lakes seemed to be a little fished out.  It was the first really good place to camp on the trail and fish so the pressure here must have been higher then else where.  What fish we did catch here were solid though.  Just had to work a little harder for it

We spent the day fishing Heart and the smaller lake adjacent to it.  We decided tomorrow we would day hike north and check out Bird Bill Lake and a couple of lakes nearby it.  Bird Bill was rumored to have golden trout.

The trail around to Bird Bill traversed around a large peak then switchbacked down it.  In places we had to negotiate the snow pack still across the trail, and erosion leaving the trail nothing more then a sandy foot path traversing a steep slope.

Bird Bill kept with the theme... stunning

It was in the 70's, but we were fishing in the snow in places.  Needless to say I had no complaints.  No Golden Trout out of Bird Bill, but lots of good Cut Throats.



We worked our way to the other lakes that we separated from Bird Bill by small streams and marshes.  The fishing at these other lakes was almost silly.  The fish weren't huge there, but almost every decent cast resulted in a rise at least.  The small streams and marshes had a surprise for me too. Amphibians at 9,000 feet! 



Columbia spotted frog

 Western Toad

We fished the rest of the day in this area before hiking back to camp.  We made the decision to hike out tomorrow and head for Marsh Creek on the other end of the wilderness.