Tour of Utah and Arizona Part 3: Sunrise Lake Arizona

[Natural Lefty]

We arrived back in Arizona on July1, driving from St. George, UT to Show Low, AZ that day. I had studied AZ fishing opportunities, especially summer trout fishing opportunities plus some assorted other species where the weather wouldn't be too hot, on the internet before the trip, and had come to the conclusion that Show Low was pretty much at the epicenter of the high country fishing of Arizona. I think going there turned out to be a good choice.

Frankly, I was ready to go home after Utah, but my wife still wanted to fish Arizona, and since I had never fished there before except for a little fishing at Havasu (caught 1 large Redear), I wanted to go too and try some new spots, especially in the high country. We had eaten so much Walleye and Yellow Perch earlier in the trip that, even though they are delicious, Eunice wanted to try for more "pinky trout of all kinds" (to quote her) just as she had the day we went to Panguitch Lake. Thus, we decided to spend a couple of days fishing the high country of eastern Arizona around Show Low.

Actually, my original plan was to go there and buy a 5 day Arizona fishing pass, but as I am sure everybody knows, the humongous Wallow Fire was burning that area up big time. As a consequence of the fire, I found out that most of the prime trout spots I had wanted to fish were closed to the public. In fact, they still are and probably will be for quite some time. Also, many of the fish are expected to die from the fire ashes, if they haven't already, but I knew at least that some places in the area had been unaffected and were having okay fishing.

When I was in the motel room in Show Low, I looked at the phone book for sporting goods stores, and realized something important. One of the sporting goods stores was in Hon-Dah on the Apache Reservation, and they were selling fishing passes. There was a map of the reservation in the motel office, and my recollection was that none of the closed lakes or streams were on the reservation. Furthermore, it looked like the reservation included many of Arizona's best trout waters. Thus, we headed for the store in Hon-Dah on July 2 to get a fishing pass for the day and find out about the fishing there. It turns out that the daily fishing passes cost $7 per person, regardless of where you are from. In contrast, the AZ state passes cost something like $12.50 per day for out-of-staters, and most of the places on state land I wanted to fish were currently off-limits anyway.

After eating at the Indian Pines Restaurant (the buffet next to their casino), we bought our daily fishing passes at the sporting goods store. These are only good for reservation waters, but that is where we wanted to go. In fact, I found out that the reservation is very popular for fishing. While we were at the store, there was a constant stream of people buying the fishing passes. Also, a new sporting goods store will open soon on the reservation, closer to the edge of the reservation. Perhaps more people are going to the reservation to fish than usual for the same reasons we did.

After buying the passes, we headed for Sunrise Lake, which is the last lake along the main roads in the reservation before reaching its boundary at the mountain divide. Sunrise Lake therefore lies just west of the divide, and is another one of those unusual lakes I have now fished. It is a large natural lake at 679 acres, although there is a small dam by the outlet. It appears to be "at the top of the world" and undoubtably thus the name, as it is only surrounded by low lying hills to the east. The elevation of the lake is slightly above 9,000 feet, but unlike alpine lakes in California, there are no mountain peaks visible. Arizona's Mount Baldy lies a few miles to the south, at over 11,400 feet, but we could not see it and it is probably just a gently sloping, rounded old worn down volcano, anyway. The area is quite volcanic, apparently an ancient, relatively flat but elevated volcanic area much like Grand Mesa in Colorado, which we have been to also. In any case, the appearance of Sunrise Lake was beautiful and unique.

Sunrise Lake was also known for fast trout growth and large trout, as well. In fact, the state record Brook Trout was caught there, at 4 pounds, 15 ounces in the 1990s, plus it has large Apache and Rainbow Trout.

When we got to Sunrise Lake, we saw a gravel road heading for the dam area, so I took that. I headed down to the lake to try fishing (while Eunice waited to see how the fishing was and stay out of the sun as usual). This was sometime around 2:30 p.m. I immediately noticed hoardes of fish surfacing, although they looked small. I tried my usual sliding bobber and worm combination, and before long, caught a fish that was such an eager biter that I missed two hooksets before I managed to hook it, but it kept after my bait. To my wonderful surprise, this fish was an Apache Trout, the native trout of the area. Apache Trout have been given status as a separate species, no doubt with help from the Apache Tribe lobby. They are classified as Oncorhynchus Apache, in fact. Technically, Rainbow, Cutthroat, Golden, Apache, and Gila trout etc. of the Oncorhynchus genus from the western U.S., are all members of one very diverse species in that they can all interbreed readily and produce fertile offspring, but anyway, they are officially considered different species. The Apache Trout are apparently an offshoot of Cutthroats, and in fact, the literature on them says that they occasionally even have the red slashes under their throats, but usually not. We took two photos of them but the photos turned out fuzzy. Nonetheless, I will try to include one. The Apache Trout are a yellowish-bronzish color on their sides, with tons of little black spots, and nicely colored, orange pectoral fins. They are certainly different, if not the most beautiful of trout, and this was another first for me that I was hoping for.

I showed my whopping 8 inch Apache Trout to Eunice, and soon, she joined me. Even though the fish had nice, full fins and nice colors, I had a feeling that they had been stocked recently. Nonetheless, I kept the fish. Afterward, I continued to catch 7-10 inch Apache Trout on the worms, and it wasn't long before Eunice caught a couple of them, too. There were a bunch of people all along the shore near the dam, and the dam itself, and I saw them catch an occasional fish but not as many as we were catching fishing near the corner of the dam with worms under bobbers. When I went to investigate the catches of other people, I found out that nearly all of them were using Power Bait, they were catching fewer fish than us, and the fish they were catching were all Rainbows, but they were larger than our Apache Trout, like 12-15 inches. It was strange how different the results were based on choice of bait. Since Apache Trout were new to us, we were happy with them for the time being, but eventually, we started thinking about catching something bigger.

I put on some Power Bait for Eunice from the new bottle I bought at the store, with a normal weight this time, but had the same result I usually have with Power Bait -- nothing. Meanwhile, I tried flies for the surfacing fish. They ignored Black Gnats and Mosquitos, but I had a bunch of strikes on a Zug Bug, only I couldn't get any of them to stick. Sometimes, I could see a little critter chasing the Zug Bug, and they looked like baby trout of some kind, so I was curious to catch one just to see what they were. I also headed for the dam to try there, and found the bite even more consistent there, both on worms or flies. I kept catching Apache Trout on worms from the dam, and missing strikes on the Zug Bug. I released some of the Apache Trout or I would have exceeded my limit of five. Eventually, I caught 7 of them, but kept 4.

Anyway, at one point, Eunice gave up on the Power Bait, and asked me to put a worm on her Power Bait setup instead and fish it on the bottom. I went back to the dam to worm fish, but after a few minutes, I saw Eunice suddenly pick up her pole and set the hook. After seeing that she appeared to have a good one on the line, I did the 100 yard pole dash to help her if needed. A couple minutes later, she landed a beautiful, 15 inch pink-meated holdover Rainbow Trout. I am guessing that the Rainbows were all holdovers from last year, but the Apache Trout we caught were newly stocked. When I went back to my pole along the dam, my fishing neighbor told me that a fish had almost pulled it into the lake while I was gone, so he grabbed it, but the fish got off. Maybe that had been my chance at a big one too, but oh well... I was grateful that my neighbor at least kept me from losing my pole. This was the replacement pole for the one that got pulled into Lake Perris last fall, and it has been a lucky pole for us ever since. (For example, I caught the Walleye and Eunice caught the Trout and 2 jumbo perch all on that pole at Starvation Reservoir.) I guess that pole got lucky again.

A while later, we both tried the dam. By this time, it was after 7 p.m. Eunice caught the second of her Apache Trout there, while I tried my Zug Bug, and finally got a strike to stick. It turned out to be a pretty little 3-4 inch, baby Brook Trout, which I promptly put back after identifying it. I guess the Brookies are breeding pretty prolifically at Sunrise Lake, although I can't be sure that all of those surfacers were Brook Trout. If only we could have caught one of those adult Brookies, maybe another 4 pound, 15 ouncer.

By the way, monsoonal moisture was in the area, and it kept raining on and off lightly all afternoon, but it was pleasant weather that day.

The next day, we decided to go to another reservation lake, Hawley Lake, which turned out to be a disapointment. I only saw one trout caught while I was there, which appeared to be about 7 inches. I was too far away to see what kind it was but I think it was a stocker Rainbow. I also saw a stocker Rainbow on one family's stringer. Everybody else seemed pretty much fishless. I did find out that if you dropped a worm into the rocks near shore, there was a horde of little Green Sunfish biting. I wound up catching 4 of those, then went back to trying for trout to no avail. Eunice also tried for trout there by the corner of the dam with no success. Thus, I convinced Eunice to try a different spot at Sunrise Lake, by a resort which I saw on the map. While fishing at Hawley, there were a couple of brief downpours with thunder, lightning and the whole bit, but they only lasted a few minutes.

When we got to the resort, we took the short but steep gravel road down to the lake, and got to fishing. Eunice soon caught another small, 7 inch Apache Trout on a worm, and continued getting bites. Meanwhile, I was trying a Krocodile lure in an attempt to catch something bigger, and since I saw a father and son catch a few trout on Panther Martin spinners at Sunrise the day before. We could see a heavy strorm to the east, though, and before long, it approached and enveloped us. We retreated to the car and waited for the rain to subside, for about an hour, but it never did. Eunice kept telling me it would only last for a few minutes, and I kept telling her this was a major storm and not likely to go away. We ended up sitting in the car, just laughing. There we were sitting at the top of the world, with the heavens descending upon us. What a way to end our fishing trip! This was the second torrential thunderstorm we had been caught up in during the trip, by the way. At least Utah and Arizona were being well-watered.

We finally put our soggy equipment in the car, turned on the engine, and drove all the way to Globe, AZ for the night, with rain falling most of the way. Of course, you probably heard about and/or experienced the moisture of these past few days. It even rained some here in Moreno Valley yesterday, part of the same system. Oh well, as I always say, rain now means fish later...

The darker picture is an attempt to do a close up via photoshop on an Apache Trout I caught at Sunrise Lake. That's the best I could do but it looks fuzzy. Anyway, there are some nice clear photos of large ones on the internet.

The other photo shows Eunice's large Rainbow she caught there.

[smokehound]

Sweet! Chalk one up for the Heritage Trout Challenge!

Nice, lengthy reports! You guys had a blast!

[old pudd fisher]

Thanks for part 3, it sure was fun to read and put the lid tight on that Power Bait jar, you may need it years from now,

[SirBluegill]

Awesome Report! I loved the visual I got from "There we were sitting at the top of the world, with the heavens descending upon us."

[Natural Lefty]

Smokehound, they have a hatchery on the reservation where they actually grow Apache Trout, and they are now quite common on the reservation and surrounding areas, which is a good thing to see. They used to be endangered, I think, but not now. I suppose not many people on this site have even heard of Apache Trout, and I only knew about them from studying trout fishing possibilities in Arizona. They also have some native Apache Trout streams with pure populations on the reservation, I think, and some of these streams are off limits to fishing for Apache Trout breeding purposes. They are a really cool fish! The streams in the White Mountains of AZ even, where pretty meager, even this year. The only decent flow we saw was the north fork of the White River which was about 10 feet wide, yet, these trout have evolved and survived in streams like such as that one.

Yes, Old Pudd Fisher, Eunice will probably catch another limit of big trout on it 15 years from now. Hopefully we won't have to wait that long though.

Sir Bluegill, that was the last thing I thought of putting in this post. It seemed like a fitting ending. By the way, we went on the Skywalk platform over the Grand Canyon at the beginning of the trip (before any fishing), so you may notice that the photos are labelled "Skywalking." I think that visual goes perfectly with the Skywalking theme.