When we reached the lake it looked like a fisherman's paradise. Perfectly calm, deep blue water, trout dimpling the surface, and large logs generously sticking out into the water to provide ample casting space. The only problem was that the mosquitoes were still out in force, although drenching my body in repellent seemed to help some. Without even bothering to take off my pack I stopped to address a large rise two feet from the bank and was rewarded with an instant strike. The trout jumped my fly after about ten seconds but it was long enough to convince us that we had found a place to camp for the night. After coaxing another much larger and much more fleeting strike, I abandoned all pretense of cool disinterest and threw off my backpack to circle the lake. Trout continued to forage near the banks, sipping terrestrials from the surface and after another hour of stalking behind trees and tiptoeing down shaky logs my patience was rewarded when a nice 13-inch 'bow came up and inhaled my bivisible.

That a lake this small contained fish this large was a pleasant surprise. The hardest part was finding the fish; it seems that numbers of trout go down as the average size goes up. After I spotted a cruiser and placed an ant pattern or black caddis in front of it, the trout would rise surely with all the trust of an alpine lake fish that never sees fishing pressure. Once hooked however, the 'bows fought with vigor and twice my 5x tippet snapped from the pressure. We wondered where the rainbows came from because the lake was only supposed to have brook trout and there was no tributary for spawning. There was a stream flowing out of the lake but the only water source in seemed to be springs that bubbled up from the shallow lake bed. We spied some depressions in the muddy lake floor and surmised that, like brookies, these rainbows had adapted to spawn in the lake itself.

The following morning yielded four more rainbows ranging from 11-14 inches, some fat, some slender, all beautifully colored and all wonderful fighters. We left Hidden Lake with reluctance as two spin fishermen who had camped at Crater Lake the night before told us the fishing there was lousy: "Twenty years ago," one of them said, "Crater was hot and Hidden had nothing. Now I'm catching 16-inchers here and finding nothing in Crater." This was disheartening information, as Crater was the main destination of the trip. Still, we had to give it a shot so the promise of even larger rainbows and brookies called us another mile up the slope towards Crater Lake.

That afternoon we headed back down the ridge, eating lunch at Florence and then exploring the San Joaquin below the dam. This beautiful tail water is a slow, wide meadow stream for about seven miles below the lake and boasts one of the most classic fishing backdrops you're likely to find. The crystal clear water made the fishing challenging though and was eerily reminiscent of the infamous meadow section of Hat Creek. One sloppy cast put down all the fish in that stretch of the river and after spending ten minutes stalking a nice 13-incher holding in a channel near the edge, I took one step too far and the fish darted under the bank. We tried heading upstream after that where we knew people were catching stockers. A couple of rainbows were steadily rising and I managed to land one on an emerger and get a few more bites while moving upstream. We reached the bridge where the DFG stocks and sure enough trout were everywhere. Strangely though, none would rise and when I placed a fly directly on top of a fish it wouldn't even notice. The beauty of hatchery fish, I thought to myself. Maybe if I had a Powerbait pattern…

The trout weren't numerous but Hidden Lake's rainbows were larger than anything I've caught in high mountain lakes before. I usually see one or two large fish in each lake but these lunkers are the exception, not the rule. To find a fishery that's relatively close and boasts an average trout size upwards of 12" is a treat in itself. And while this trip wasn't an exercise in sheer catch numbers, I discovered enrichment through fishing yet again. One such highlight was looking out at the water in the morning from our campsite and watching a pod of small 'bows rising consistently just out of reach of my normal cast radius. I decided to practice casting for distance for a bit so I hopped over to a peninsula jutting out into the water giving me plenty of back cast room and started double hauling. I didn't seriously think I could get my emerger close to the pod, but fifteen minutes and three hookups (including one that wrapped me around an underwater log just before I could land it) later I had managed to sling my fly line a good twenty feet past any of my previous attempts and scored at least a tiny feeling of accomplishment.