Canoes into the Wilderness

Spicer Reservoir

by Mike McGuire

June 2009

Gary Trott, Minnesota born and raised  grew up paddling the Boudary Waters National Park .For several years he has promoted the idea of a Sierra wildernes canoe-in fishout. This year we got it together. Gary, Dave and Carel Peterson, their two dogs Zorro and D'Artagnan, EJ Melzer and myself got ourselves to Spicer Meadow Reservoir on a Friday in the middle of June.


Gary advertised wilderness camping in comfort. Since it takes an awful lot to sink a canoe, we would not be on iron rations like the backpack trips. However the reservoir is narrow but long--six miles to paddle, the last half no motors allowed. There was wind both going out and coming back so some care in boat handling was called for


Two hours of paddling got us there and we set up camp and went fishing.  Most us expected typical fairly small Sierra stream trout and didn't bring nets. What was happening was a spawning run from the lake and the fish were not small, running 14 to 18 inches.  This made for some interesting landings, but most of us worked it out one way or another. The fish weren't interested in dry flies, but most of the ususal nymph suspects fished deep worked quite well.



We all lost count of how many fish we caught and released, but we did indulge ourselves the invitation of a few to dinner


These fish were red and pink fleshed fom feeding on scuds in the lake


After two days of this we were up early on Sunday to try to paddle out before the wind came up. We made it about halfway, and then the rest of it was some work. All in all this was a great trip and we will be doing it again.