First off I'd like to say hello, I just recently joined the forum. I am an avid outdoorsman and I've been fly fishing for a few years so I'm excited to now be a member of the forum. Now to the reason I'm posting this thread. I was hoping to get out to Chester lake this weekend but I see that is it closed due to bears, so going up there is out if the question. I've been to Chester quite a few times and have always had a really good time so I hope it re-opens sometime soon! As an alternative for this weekend I was thinking Smuts Lakes, Rummel Lake, or Smith Lake. Anyone been up to these lakes recently or have some input or suggestions? Taylor Lake is on my list but I would like to save that one for another weekend.
I went up on sunday to hike into headwall lakes which starts in the chester parking lot as well and was unpleasantely surprised to see the bear closure. My own damn fault for not checking the k-country advisories before leaving
So I ended up doing the burstall lakes hike across the road, didn't even fish the lakes though, the water didn't look fishy. Welcome to the forum!
Used to hike lots in that area. You had mentioned Rummell. Be extremely careful at Rummell. We spotted a big male griz in that area about 4 out of 5 times. In fact my buddy that I usually went hiking with decided he had a day off in the middle of the week and went without me. Once at the lake he thought he was ok. Then he spotted the griz across the lake. The bear got into the water and swam towards him. He took off quickly. As he tells it he was followed by the grizzly for quite a bit and was lucky to be able to tell me of the story. I think he had something still in his pants when he told me. So not saying to not go. But be extremely careful if you do go. You might want to try Rawson, or if you want a farther hike try Three Isle.
__________________ Fishing isn't always about catching fish.
Sometimes you just have to take a deep breath, look around, and admire what mother nature gave us.
Be careful at Rawson also. Most times I have gone up there I have spotted bears at the back of the lake. We had a female with a cub come around the lake to us once and my buddy was taking too much time to put away is expensive fly rod. I kept yelling at the bear and telling my buddy if we don't get going the fly rod would soon be trash along with us. With both of us yelling the bears finnaly turned around and went to the back of the lake where we watched the cub swimming for quite awhile. It seems like the whole Kananaskis area has a healthy griz population.
Chester lake closure
Linear Mode
