Fremont Lake

Overview

Fremont Lake lies a few miles north of Pinedale at the foot of the Wind River Range, a long, narrow glacial trough that the USGS measured at slightly more than 185 meters deep, about 610 feet, which ranks it among the ten deepest lakes wholly inside the United States. Its surface is about 20.6 square kilometers, close to 5,100 acres, at an elevation near 7,420 feet. Pine Creek is both the inlet at the north end, where it has built a sandy delta into the lake, and the only outlet at the south end, where a low dam built in 1934 regulates releases for irrigators downstream. Wyoming ranks it second among the state's natural lakes behind Yellowstone Lake. The water is cold, clear and chemically dilute, which is why the fish are spread thin and why the lake trout, the main draw, are deep-water fish most of the year. Visit Pinedale lists rainbow, brown and lake trout along with kokanee, and the Pinedale Boat Club runs fishing derbies in summer and on the ice in winter. For a fly rod the realistic windows are ice-out and fall, when lake trout come within reach of a sinking line along drop-offs and the edge of the Pine Creek delta, and the shallow north end where the creek spreads into the lake. Wind is the daily fact here: it comes up most afternoons, which sailors love and float tubers do not, so fish early. The upper and lower boat docks and Sandy Beach off Fremont Lake Road are the public access points, and Pine Creek below the dam runs right through Pinedale, where the city parks give easy access to browns and rainbows.