Sunday Night in the Spanish Peaks

My buddy Ryan and I took the dogs up to Deer Lake on the 17th. It was my first backpacking trip with my new dog... Zeus, and the same went for his Yellow Lab puppy, Pony. It started off a bit cold, but nice enough for the 5 1/2 miles up to where we camped near Deer Creek. Ryan was trying to get an elk with his bow, and my goal was to catch a trout or two up in either Moon Lake or Deer Lake.

We got up there in time for Ryan to take an evening hunt, so I lounged around the campsite for awhile and kept the dogs entertained. Actually, vice versa. Zeus wasn't sure what to make of the camp we had set up, so he just continued to circle it like a curious wolf. Ry didn't end up having any luck that night, so we just filled up on dehydrated Spaghetti, Beef Stroganoff, then topped it off with some Blueberry Cheesecake. Not bad for re-constituted cheese cake, it even had some graham cracker crumbs to throw on top.

We were pretty beat from the hike, so we hit the hay early. Ryan got up to hunt, so I piled the dogs into my tent to keep warm and "slept in".... meaning I was probably up at 7:30 or so. After some oatmeal and some Java Juice Coffee Extract. (This stuff is money... no coffee grinds, no need to boil water, no press.. just tear open the pouch and pour it into warm or cold water) I'm really not one to shamelessly plug a product, but Ryan and I used it, and it's great, so I'll tell people about it.


I cruised up the trail another mile or so to Moon Lake witht he dogs, where I quickly hooked into a little rainbow on a brown wooly bugger. First cast... I was pumped, thinking I'd be railing 'em all day. Then of course I broke off my bugger and had no more browns in the limited bug selection I brought with me.

They wouldn't eat grey. Damn. They wouldn't eat green. Damn damn! Oh well, at least I caught one. (right)

Ry came up about that time and we hiked up to Deer Lake... It's a beautiful spot, and where we saw some fresh bear tracks near the shore. They couldn't have been there long, since there was only an inch or two of snow on the ground and it was melting pretty quickly. It was approaching 60 and blue bird at this point... mid afternoon. Gorgeous day.


I ended up catching a grayling on a dry, which was my first one in over 4 years... so that made me feel better about flailing on the trout in the other lake. We ended up elkless, but we definitely had a great time with dogs and being out in the cool Montana autumn air.