Thank Our Lucky Stars: Our Favorite Fishing Spot!

June 2017

Last year we stayed at Rim Station RV Park in Pinedale, WY. I wrote about it in a previous blog. It was one of my favorite RV Parks! This year we discovered that just down the road from them is a Coast-to-Coast Park called Wind River View Campground. It’s not as pretty as Rim Station but the lady who runs it is really nice and we do have a budget! It’s also a little bit closer to Soda Lake! Fishing at Soda Lake is a blast! We were telling our neighbors, Greg and Cindy about it and they asked if they could join us! Greg is hilarious and Cindy is a sweetheart! We were glad for the company!

The next day we all packed up, fishing gear and licenses in hand, and headed for Soda Lake! We told them the limit on the lake was only one fish each but they were big and you were pretty much guaranteed to catch your limit, then you move on to either Sunshine Lake or Lake Freemont
where the fishing is a little more challenging!

Greg and Cindy travel in a Motorhome, pulling a small sedan behind them. We forgot about the unpaved road to get to Soda Lake. It’s quite the bumpy ride even in our 4-wheel drive pickup!
They said it was exhilarating!

A fun little surprise was waiting for us in the form of some beautiful horses blocking the gate to the bumpiest of the roads we had to go through! After taking some pictures and they let us pass! When we got to the lake we saw a magnificent bald eagle surveying its territory! I was hoping to see it swoop down and snag a fish out of the lake. I guess it was still digesting its last meal.

We set up fishing spots about 50 yards apart! Just enough to not get in each other’s way but close enough to hear Greg! Soda Lake is crystal clear for the first 20 or so feet. You can see the giant trout swimming back and forth in front of you. Greg could not contain his excitement when he saw them,
“You should see the size of these things!”

Larry and I just smiled. We knew from experience they were taunting him. Eventually we would catch fish but not them. Those are the sentries that try to keep the smaller ones from getting caught. After a while Greg’s enthusiasm turned to frustration as he tried to coax the fish onto his hook by yelling at them, “Come on! Come get it! You know you want it!” Not the best method.

On our end Jackson and Jenny were in doggie heaven splashing around! I’m pretty sure Jenny caught more than the legal limit of minnows! She got it down to a science. She figured out they like to hang out under the football-sized rocks that dot the lake near the shore. She’d stand there, knee deep in the water, for her that’s about an inch and a half and stare at the rocks until she’d spot one then dig like crazy! It worked pretty well. I saw her eat 3 or 4. But I’m sure she ate more. Poor Jackson’s method of jumping on them didn’t quite yield the same results. Mostly he just got wet!

As I was watching and laughing at my dogs, Greg’s frustration level was reaching a breaking point! Then it happened! He got a bite! He started screaming! “Oh, my God! Oh, my God! It’s huge!”
I looked at the water just in time to see it jump.

IT WAS HUGE!!!

It jumped out of the water, jerked its head and did a Greg Louganis back into the lake! I’m pretty sure it took the bait on purpose just to give how-to-get-away lessons to the younger fish. I thought Greg would be disappointed but he was so excited to have hooked it long enough to see it! He just kept laughing, jumping around and screaming, “Did you see that?!? Did you?”

He and Cindy hugged and went back to work with more confidence than ever!

It didn’t take long for him to start talking to the fish again, trying to coax them. This time when his frustration level got high, I got a bite! It wasn’t quite the monster that got away from Greg but it was big! I never really understood the term “play with it” before but I was learning! I’d real it in then let some out, real it in and let some out! I “played with it” and eventually pulled it in!

It wasn’t long before Greg got another bite that he landed this time, then Larry, then Cindy!

Watching Cindy pull hers in was so much fun! She had a big grin on her face the whole time!

We all caught our limit! The dogs had a blast splashing around.
It was a good afternoon but we weren’t done yet.

Larry and I usually bring gallon size zip lock bags to put the fish in then we put them in our big lunch cooler. We forgot the bags! We had to pass through town on our way to the other lake anyway so we decided to stop and get bags and a small cooler just for the fish.

When I told Greg about wanting to buy the bags he had to rub it in and tell me, “Well maybe that little thing you caught will fit in a zip lock bag, but I’m going to need something much bigger for that monster I caught!” Like I said Greg’s hilarious! He did buy the Styrofoam cooler for us.
He told me it was our “Guide Fee”.

We got our supplies and headed for Lake Fremont! It’s a beautiful lake but it got a little windy and the lake was choppy! The only thing I caught was this awesome bracelet! But we had a great time with great people and we introduced some new friends to one of our favorite fishing spots!