Henry's Lake

Overview

Henrys Lake sits at about 6,470 feet in the northeast corner of Idaho, 15 miles from Yellowstone and ringed on three sides by the Continental Divide. IDFG lists it at 6,077 acres, and it is shallow and rich: fast growth is the rule, 18-inch trout are common, and IDFG's own line is that large trout are the norm here, not the exception. Three fish share the lake. Yellowstone cutthroat are the base, rainbow-cutthroat hybrids, the cutbows, are the trophies that grow fastest, and brook trout that would be small anywhere else reach sizes that draw ice anglers all winter. None of this is a wild fishery in the way the old copy claimed. IDFG stocks more than a million fingerlings a year, every hybrid is hatchery origin, roughly 90 percent of the cutthroat are, and the Henrys Lake hatchery on the shore and the tributaries (Targhee, Duck and Timber creeks) are where the wild component spawns. What matters on the water is the weed. Fish cruise the edges of the beds and the spring holes, and a float tube or pontoon working a leech, scud or balanced leech under an indicator along the weed margin is the standard approach, with chironomids from the opener and Callibaetis and damsels by early July. The lake ices over early, often by late October or November, and IDFG extended the season so it can be fished through the ice; it is now open year-round, with catch-and-release from February 15 until the Saturday of Memorial Day weekend and a two-trout limit after that. Idaho's Henrys Lake State Park, the county park and the IDFG hatchery access are the main launches.