Golden Trout Beartooth Mountains

Most of the lakes have brook trout and some have Rocky Mountain grayling rainbow brown cutthroat or golden trout.

Golden trout beartooth mountains. 10012013 Taking the family along on high mountain lake backpacks was always an adventure to remember. At about 9400 feet there is no easy way to Lightning Lake. The Waters of the Beartooth Mountains Essay.

However though golden trout are not native to Montana the crimson-red lateral band grease-black parr splotches buttery gold belly white-tipped fins and the mud brown back that renders even their vibrancy next to invisible in gin-clear water paints a wildness into the wild populations in the Beartooths that draws anglers to the mountains like 49ers to gold. The trip to Lightning Lake is a difficult off-trail backpacking adventure to a high mountain lake in the Beartooth Mountains and one of the only lakes in Montana hosting beautiful golden trout. Golden trout which evolved atop the southern Sierra Nevada Mountains were first stocked in a lake in the Beartooth Mountains in 1938 according to a report Marcuson wrote in 1984.

As a trout treasury defined here as a landscape nurturing multiple species of rare and unique sportfish in the family Salmonidae the Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness is bested by none in inland North America. Most of our golden trout waters are in the Wind River mountains Lander and Pinedale regions with others in the Absaroka Snowy and Bighorn mountains Laramie Cody and Sheridan regions. With multiple peaks over 12000 ft.

Golden Lake is one of those lakes with incredible views and world class Cutthroat Trout. Three different trailheads form an approximately 9. The spectacle of Rock Creek Canyon unfolds as you weave along the pass toward Red Lodge Montana.

Many of these crystal clear lakes have excellent fishing for cutthroat trout brook trout rainbow trout as well as occasionally golden trout. Get ready for a challenging hike if you are not used to high elevations. The Wyoming Game and Fish Department manages 133 high alpine lakes for golden trout.

Golden Trout by Mimi Matsuda. The picture with all five of us must have been taken fairly early in that trip into the Beartooth Mountains because one or two of us is still smiling. 27092010 I began researching golden trout and I learned it was native to the Sierras in California.