Fishing Bailey Lake

My venture scout troop headed to Bailey Lake (its up the Little Greys) for a day of fishing and hiking last weekend. We found a rolled over truck that morning, about 5:15 am, and I had to make the run down to Alpine, Wyoming, to make the 911 call. They had been out all night and one of the guys was hurt pretty bad. We still made it to the lake (a 4.5 mile walk) by 8 a.m. and fished until 3. We dined on cutthroat and brook trout, 10 pounds of potatoes and an onion. It was the way life should be! Catch fish, cook fish and eat them with fried potatoes, onions and lots of butter, and then fish some more. Around noon the scouts all went swimming in the lake, taking full advantage of the rope swing and 'hand-crafted raft' floating along the bank. I didn't take a picture camera so you will have to watch video! I would have taken video of the "swimming" but their swimming suits were a little NONEXISTENT!

The First Breakfast Video

The 2nd Breakfast Video

Tyler got a fly rod and reel for his birthday a year ago. He loves it and has used it quite a bit. He does pretty well, actually, for a neophyte! Corey has only fished a little with me using a fly rod, so we took advantage of the fish at Bailey Lake. Around 9:30 am the bank feeders really started rising. I put on a Chernobyl Ant (it looks like all the huge wood ants we were finding in our campfire kitchen) and started catching about any trout I tried to. Corey was around the lake a ways, so I fished to him. I coaxed him into putting down his spinning rod and taking over my fly rod. He did quite well for his first time. He missed a lot of rises, but hooked up on probably a 1/3 of the fish he had chances at. If he would have kept tension on the line he would have landed a lot more. His casting got better as the day wore on, but the fish were pretty well hidden by noon. The next video down shows him missing a fish in grand style. I had a blast walking a long behind, ducking his errant backcasts, and filming him!

Corey's First Fish On A Fly Rod Video

Corey's Big Miss Video--watch along the bank right after his first cast and you can see the splash from the fish rising on the fly!

Corey Connects With A Nice Cut Video! Too bad I didn't have the camera on for the take.

The Landed Fish Video--I couldn't do two things at once, so I had to stop filming to help with the fish. This video just shows the fish he caught in the previous video.