Dinky lakes

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overheadx2
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Dinky lakes

Post by overheadx2 »

My wife has been on injured reserves with a stress fracture in her foot and therefore has missed this whole season. It’s pretty much healed now and she wanted to do a fun, easy hike to make sure she doesn’t reinsure it. I am thinking about Dinkey lakes. I know it gets crowded, but was thinking by Sept 21st it might be a little quieter. There seem to be a few lakes off of the main trails like island, finger bowl or cliff lakes. Any suggestions on best fishing and most secluded. I realize I won’t be alone, but looking for some solitude. Thanks.
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AlmostThere
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Re: Dinky lakes

Post by AlmostThere »

Dinkey from Willow Meadow is fairly straightforward as a hike. The road on the other hand is best navigated in a truck or other high clearance vehicle if you want to keep your ride intact. The only route to drive is from Tamarack - Rock Creek Road from the south is closed due to a bridge failure. They graded the road in most of the way (timber sale), but the last mile to the trailhead is pretty darn rough. Going in from Courtright you'd have paved road all the way in.

Fishing is pretty heavily impacted. You'll catch brook trout from most of the lakes. Mystery and Island and Fingerbowl have rainbows, and golden-rainbow hybrids in Island. There's a lot of illegal campsites as well. If you want to be totally alone, find the use trail west of Swede and head up the hill to Eastern brook or Rainbow Lake. Little Lake is also off the beaten path. A lot of people crowd Island and First Dinkey - there were 50 campers at First Dinkey a couple weeks ago. I often camp at Second Dinkey as there are no fish, so less likely to be a ton of people.
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windknot
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Re: Dinky lakes

Post by windknot »

For solitude, Eastern Brook and Rainbow (as AlmostThere mentioned) or Fingerbowl will be your better bet as the use trails there are not as frequented as the main trails. Little and Bullfrog aren't on the way to anything and so are less visited as well.

Best fishing depends on not only your personal preference (i.e. quantity vs. size) but also which year this happens to fall on during the stocking cycle at some of these lakes. For guaranteed catches, I've found First Dinkey, Rock, and Cliff to be the most consistent. If you're fine trading frequency of catches for a chance at larger fish, then I've seen a wider distribution of sizes at Island, Fingerbowl, Rainbow, and Bullfrog in the past (brookies, rainbows, and goldens). Second Dinkey has apparently been stocked at least once in the last 11 years, but I've never seen fish there.
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overheadx2
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Re: Dinky lakes

Post by overheadx2 »

thank you for the replies. I will head over to rainbow and maybe hike the sisters. spend a day hiking to some of these off the beaten path lakes for a possible bigger fish while the wife sits around camp and read. sounds like it could be a nice time now that some solitude might be an option. Thanks again, Phil
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maverick
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Re: Dinky lakes

Post by maverick »

Fish = Fingerbowl Lake

Solitude = Eastern Brook, Rainbow, and Fingerbowl
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I don't give out specific route information, my belief is that it takes away from the whole adventure spirit of a trip, if you need every inch planned out, you'll have to get that from someone else.

Have a safer backcountry experience by using the HST ReConn Form 2.0, named after Larry Conn, a HST member: http://reconn.org
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Re: Dinky lakes

Post by Snowtrout »

My wife and I made the trek through most of the lakes in late July. For us fishing was awful. Didn't get a bite at first Dinkey (after spending almost 2 hours there), saw and caught nothing at second Dinkey, Rock lake was the best lake for catching 8-9" brooks, Island lake population seems to be declining to the heavy fishing pressure resulting in only a few bites for us, Fingerbowl had maybe 3-4 total fish in the lake but they were big brooks at 12-14" , South lake we had a bunch of bites and caught a few 12" goldens and Swede lake was tough with one 12" rainbow caught after fishing for over 2 hours.

Most people were at Rock, Swede and Island, with Island taking the prize with over 30 people up there and one very loud large group annoying everyone.
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