Silver Lake in Fremont County: How and When to Fish It

• Overview

  Silver Lake is set in Fremont County, Idaho. The water sits 6,132 feet up. At about 168 acres, a day is enough to walk the shoreline properly. The margin runs to about 3.6 miles in total. Some 18 miles away sits Ashton, the nearest settlement. It is 176 miles to Billings, the nearest city. One jurisdiction covers this water end to end.

• Where to Fish on Silver Lake

  No published figure covers depth, so learn it as you fish. Standing timber shows when the level drops, and fish sit against it. Rip-rap along the wall holds fish that the open bank never does. Records held for Fremont County cover rainbow trout, cutthroat trout and brook trout. Protected fish appear in the records for this area, so treat the list as information, not an invitation. Take Silver Lake a stretch at a time.

• Seasonal Patterns

  Temperature averages peak at 60°F in July and bottom out at 16°F in January. Cold winters and warm summers give a wide working range. The lid usually goes in late April, which opens the strongest weeks of the year. The lid tends to go about late April and return around mid November. Fishing peaks soon after break-up and again before the cold returns. At Silver Lake the season follows that pattern closely.

• Tackle & Baits

  Access status is simply unknown for this water. A carry of half a mile from the nearest parking is the price of fishing here. Mapping records toilets within half a mile. For the trout, small spinners and a box of nymphs cover both approaches. Check locally before you travel, because a wasted drive is a long one. A polite question at the farm gate opens more banks than anything else. Golden Lake, 1.8 miles away, makes the obvious fallback. Where Silver Lake is concerned, a local answer beats a written one.