2025 Golden Trout Wind River Trip

The big, beautiful trout flashed its spotted gray body as it tossed and turned in the water, the fishing rod bent sharply, confirming its impressive size. That’s right—my dad and I, along with our Goldendoodle, Biscuit, took another trip to the Wind Rivers. What made the trip even more special was that my brother, Dallen, was able to join us, bringing along his Basset Hound, Roscoe.

As I’ve mentioned before, Dallen has yet to catch a golden trout, so we planned the same route we took last year, since we would be primarily targeting golden trout.

This video shows highlights from the trip!

We revisited several lakes that had produced golden trout during our previous trip. At one particular lake, my dad and I each caught roughly thirty golden trout. Last year, we made the trip at the end of July, but this time we decided to go at the end of June instead. The reasoning was that earlier in the season, the weather in the Wind River Range is much cooler, which we hoped would make the golden trout more active. We had also been advised by several experienced anglers who frequent the Wind Rivers that going about a month earlier tends to be more optimal for fishing.

Preparations for the trip included reducing the backpacks' final weight. Dad found a lot of lighter gear options on Amazon to help us lighten our packs. He got a lighter, solar-powered battery, and gave his older, bigger one to Dallen. He also found new lightweight titanium pots, a 750 ml, and a 450 ml, as well as some small stoves to heat and hold the pots. Dad bought me a new spinner rod since I broke the end of my rod on our previous trip to the Wind Rivers. My lure on the rod got snagged on a branch while we were hiking out, causing the tip of the fishing rod to snap off. I went into this trip planning to remove the lure from the fishing rod every time we weren't fishing and were hiking.

A few weeks before the trip, we were fortunate to find a local camping yard sale where we were able to pick up some useful supplies. Most of the items were discounted by about fifty to sixty percent, so my brother and dad took full advantage of the opportunity. They purchased a variety of flies and several bright lures that would work well for catching golden trout. In addition to fishing gear, we also picked up a few practical camping items, including shovels, hot dog roasting sticks, and a couple of cast-iron pans. Overall, it worked out perfectly that the yard sale took place just before our trip.

Before heading to the Wind River Range, we also did a short trial run at one of our favorite lakes in the Uintas. Dallen was able to join us for that quick weekend outing. During the trip, we caught several tiger trout, and I managed to land a cutthroat trout as well. We also experimented with our meals and discovered that adding freeze-dried fruit to our oatmeal made for an excellent breakfast. As a result, we added that combination to our food plan for the Wind River trip.

For the Wind River trip, our meals were fairly simple and lightweight. Breakfast typically consisted of oatmeal with fruit. For snacks, we brought protein bars, jerky, and trail mix. During the first couple of days, our dinners included mashed potatoes and stuffing, and later in the trip, we switched to freeze-dried meals and Mountain House. My dad also spent time preparing homemade jerky for us to bring along.

At last, the day arrived for us to set out for the Wind River Range once again. After doing the final weigh-ins of our packs, Dallen’s and mine came in at around fifty to fifty-five pounds each, while Dad’s pack was slightly heavier. Fortunately, my dad and I still had valid Wyoming fishing licenses from the previous year, so we didn’t need to purchase new ones. Dallen, however, had to buy a Wyoming fishing license at the last minute.

Before leaving, we sprayed the clothes we planned to wear—including our socks—with mosquito repellent. We were able to get on the road at around seven in the morning, and the drive to the Wind River Range took about four hours. With no delays along the way, we arrived around 11:00 a.m. The trail we planned to hike was the Elkhart–Long Lake Trail.

Our first day of the trip was mostly spent hiking far enough into the backcountry to reach the lakes known to hold golden trout. The cooler weather made the hike much easier for both my dad and me, as we didn’t have to stop as frequently to drink water and cool down. Our new socks and shoes worked well—they were comfortable and not overly warm for our feet.

We passed by the first lake we could have fished, deciding to skip it since it mainly held small brook trout. After roughly three hours of hiking, we finally reached a lake known for golden trout. We stopped there to fish for a while. I tried nearly every lure in my tackle box as well as several flies on my fly rod, but I wasn’t able to get a single bite.

Dad also cycled through many of the flies in his collection, while Dallen tried a variety of spinners. With no success at that lake, we decided to hike about half a mile farther to try another one. By that time, daylight was beginning to fade. Dad decided to pump water and start setting up the tent while Dallen and I fished the lake nearby.

I cast several different flies toward fish I could see jumping on the surface, but none of them showed any interest. Eventually, I moved over to the spot where Dallen was fishing. After about forty minutes, I decided to switch tactics and try using some brighter-colored lures. While I still didn’t get any bites, Dallen managed to land his first golden trout on a bright pink spinner.

It was a solid fish, measuring roughly eleven inches long—larger than most of the golden trout my dad and I had caught the previous year. By the time Dallen landed the fish, it was nearly dark, so we headed off to find Dad, who had set up the tent on higher ground away from the lake.

It took Dallen and me a little while to locate him, but we eventually did. Thanks to our radios and the Meshtastic app, we were able to pinpoint where he had set up camp.

Dad had been waiting for a while and already had dinner prepared for us. That evening, we ate stuffing and mashed potatoes, which helped reduce some weight from our packs early in the trip.

The next morning, I woke up at around 7:30. Eager to try again for golden trout, I quickly ate a bowl of oatmeal for breakfast and then headed straight to the lake to start fishing. This time, I decided to try the far right side of the lake, where several large boulders lined the shoreline. I hadn’t fished that particular spot the previous year, but the water appeared noticeably deeper there.

I brought both of my rods with me: my spinning rod, rigged with an orange spinner, and my fly rod with a pink rubber squirmy tied on. About fifteen minutes after I began fishing with the fly rod, I felt a few bites and soon landed two of the largest golden trout I had ever caught. They weren’t enormous—each measured around a foot long—but they were still larger than any of the golden trout I had caught during the previous year’s trip.

While I was catching those fish, Dad was fishing the same spot where Dallen and I had been the night before.

Eventually, Dallen made his way down to the lake and was able to get some good practice with fly fishing. The fish weren’t responding to any of the spinners we were casting, but I managed to catch one more golden trout using my fly rod. By this point it was getting close to midday—around eleven o’clock—so we decided it was time to take down camp and continue to the next lake.

The hike to the next lake was only a couple of miles and took us about two hours to complete. This was the same lake where my dad and I had caught around thirty to forty fish each during our previous trip, so we were excited to try our luck there again.

We began fishing with some of the same nymph patterns that had worked well at the lake before. After a while, we noticed that most of the fish seemed to be concentrated on the left side of the lake. However, they were being especially selective about the flies they would take. I managed to get a few bites and eventually landed a couple of smaller fish. Dallen also caught a few using a spinner.

After fishing for a couple of hours, we needed to set up camp. Unfortunately, this lake had a large number of mosquitoes. At first, we began setting up camp lower down near the lake while Dad pumped water. However, Dallen and I quickly grew tired of being attacked by swarms of mosquitoes. In fact, it was the highest number of mosquitoes we had ever encountered on any of our trips.

Because of that, we decided to move the tent to a different location. We hiked farther up the hillside to a spot where Dallen thought there might be fewer mosquitoes. When we arrived, however, we realized the situation wasn’t much better. Fortunately, I remembered that I had packed a face net in my backpack. Once I put it on, it kept the mosquitoes from biting my face, which made things much more manageable.

Just like the previous evening, we had mashed potatoes and stuffing for dinner. The next morning, Dad spent some time fishing the lake while Dallen and I took down camp. Once everything was packed, we began hiking to the next lake, which was only about half a mile away. The hike took us roughly an hour.

We didn’t spend much time fishing at this lake. There were very few fish rising, and we weren’t seeing any cruising along the shoreline. Dad was the only one who managed to catch a fish there—a fairly large golden trout that measured at least fifteen inches long.

Interestingly, the fish’s body didn’t seem quite proportionate to the size of its head. When Dad first saw it, the unusually large head made the fish appear bigger than it actually was, which briefly fooled him.

While Dad and Dallen set up camp, I made my way to the lake with my rods and began fishing. It wasn’t long before I got a bite on my orange spinner. Unfortunately, the golden trout was small and easily shook off the hook.

A little while later, Dad and Dallen made their way down to the lake. Dallen was the only one who caught a fish that evening. The next morning, we planned to focus on fishing the right side of the lake, so we spent our time there until around lunchtime. Dad caught a few golden trout before we packed our backpacks with the essentials and made our way to another lake that held lake trout and brook trout.

It took us about an hour of hiking to reach the lake. For my fly rod, I set up a leech pattern for the brook trout. For the lake trout, I rigged a large Rapala.

We made our way to the left side of the lake, where we saw fish jumping about twenty to twenty-five feet out, which is a fairly long cast with a fly rod. After casting as far as I could, I saw a large fish swipe at my leech as I was retrieving the line. I cast back out to the same spot and managed to hook the fish this time.

It turned out to be a beautiful brook trout. When I pulled it in, I realized it might be the biggest brook trout I had ever caught—and certainly the largest fish I’ve landed on a fly rod.

After I landed that fish, Dad and Dallen began catching brook trout as well. A little while later, Dallen hooked into a lake trout while casting a large Jake lure. After fighting it for a few minutes, he was able to bring the fish in.

The lake trout measured around twenty inches long. Dad mentioned that this was actually fairly small for a lake trout, as the larger ones can easily grow to thirty or even forty inches in length.

After Dallen caught his lake trout, Dad and I decided to try our luck at catching one as well. Dad picked up Dallen’s rod, cast it back out, and immediately hooked another lake trout.

I went back to my pack and switched my spinner rod to a large Rapala. When I returned to the water, it only took about four or five casts before I hooked one myself. I was able to bring in a lake trout that was slightly smaller than the one Dallen had caught.

It was very exciting that all three of us were able to catch at least one lake trout, especially since none of us had ever caught that species of trout before.

The lake held some very nice brook trout, likely because the population was relatively small. The average brook trout we caught measured around eleven inches in length. The lake trout in the lake prey heavily on the brook trout, which reduces competition among them for food and allows the remaining fish to grow larger.

We kept Dallen’s lake trout, one of his brook trout, and my large brook trout to cook for dinner that evening. Dallen set up some chairs and built a campfire using a ring of rocks. I gathered firewood and cut it into smaller pieces with my small saw.

For the fish, we had brought garlic seasoning in small baggies along with butter spray, which we used to coat the fish. After seasoning them, we wrapped the fish in tin foil and cooked them in the hot coals left from the fire.

The lake trout tasted very good. Its meat was white rather than the pinkish color typically found in other trout species. Interestingly, the flavor was quite similar to chicken, which was somewhat surprising.

When we woke up the next morning, we had planned to hike to the lake where my dad and I had caught the most golden trout the previous year. However, the dogs were not feeling well, so we spent most of the day resting and passing the time by playing a card game called Rummy.

Around three or four o’clock in the afternoon, we hiked back to the lake where we had caught the most fish the previous year. The following morning, we spent a couple of hours fishing there before hiking the rest of the way out.

Overall, the fishing trip went very well. Although we didn’t catch as many fish as we did the previous year, it was great to share the experience with Dallen, which made the trip especially memorable.

Below are links to other useful new gear we used during our trip

We purchased Nalgene Water Bottles, choosing the blue and green colors to store our pumped water.

We got Vermont crew socks in blue, gray, and green colors.

Saucony Men's Hiking Shoes were very comfortable for hiking during the trip.

Another stove stand we used was the Fire Maple.

Kahtoola Gaiters were nice for keeping debris out of our shoes.

Sawyer Insect Repellent was sprayed on our clothes to help alleviate bug bites.

The Anker Power Bank was useful for charging our phones at night.

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