Back in the day, Rhett Bain of Pinedale loved going to Soda Lake, about five minutes northeast of the western Wyoming town.
It’s easy to get to, and the fishing was about as good as gets. It seemed that just about every cast from his fly rod would yield a strike from a big brown or brook trout.
“It was unbelievable fishing,” he told Cowboy State Daily. “It was a great place to just take some beer and go get away for a while.”
Locals and visitors loved it, said Bain, who runs Reel Deal Anglers fishing guide service.
“People would travel to Pinedale specifically for the opening day of fishing season at Soda Lake,” he said.
Not anymore.
Bain said he hasn’t bothered to go to Soda Lake for the past few years because the quality of fishing there has taken a nosedive.
‘It’s Been Bad’
Why Soda Lake’s legendary trout fishing has all but dried up is a matter of debate.
Some say a nearby Wyoming Game and Fish wetlands project hurt the lake’s inflows.
Game and Fish thinks the lake has been dropping because of a persistent drought.
Bain thinks massive algae blooms in the lake have been killing all the fish.
Whatever the reason, other Pinedale locals agree that Soda Lake has gone from a prize fishery to essentially a waste of time.
“It’s been bad. Like, bad to the point where guys will be out there all day and see maybe one fish,” Alex Hepworth, who works at the Two Rivers Fly Shop, told Cowboy State Daily.
There was a “huge die-off” of fish at Soda Lake about two years ago, local outdoor enthusiast and fishing guide Paul Ulrich told Cowboy State Daily.
Soda Lake’s decline goes much farther back, Game and Fish Pinedale fisheries biologist Pete Cavalli said.
The trout population there peaked nearly 30 years ago, he said.
Game And Fish Blames Drought
There were once tens of thousands of trout in Soda Lake, but recently the numbers have dropped into the hundreds, Cavalli said.
“The highest number of trout observed in Soda Lake was in 1997,” he said. “The population estimate that year was nearly 47,000 adult trout — approximately 58% brown trout and 42% brook trout.”
After that, the number of fish “declined rapidly,” he said.
“The number of adult trout in the lake had dropped to approximately 1,500 — approximately 69% brown trout and 31% brook trout — in the fall of 2004 and has remained relatively low since then,” Cavalli said.
Counts last fall put the lake’s population at “400 adult trout,” about 53% browns and 47% brook trout, he said, although the lake has since been restocked.
Game and Fish surmises that drought caused Soda Lake’s long decline.
“The water level is currently about 8.4 feet below the water level recorded in 1995 and is approximately 13.9 feet below its high-water line,” Cavalli said.
‘Those Things We Learned In High School Chemistry’
Bain said he thinks that the chemical makeup of the lake lends itself to algae blooms, which can kill the fish off.
It’s essentially Soda Lake’s Achilles’ heel, he said.
“It’s called Soda Lake for a reason. It has to do with the pH levels there. You know, those things we learned about in high school chemistry,” Bain said.
Soda Lake Still Being Stocked
Game and Fish hasn’t given up on Soda Lake.
It isn’t well-suited for natural trout production, so the agency has frequently stocked it, and will probably continue to do so, Cavalli said.
Despite its struggles, the lake has produced some whoppers over the years, he added.
“Soda Lake is known for both the large brown trout and the large brook trout that it can produce,” Cavalli said. “Brown trout in excess of 15 pounds and brook trout exceeding 3 pounds have been caught in Soda Lake.”
The lake doesn’t have suitable spawning habitat for trout, so “every trout ever living in Soda Lake was the result of stocking hatchery fish,” Cavalli said. “Both brown trout and brook trout are stocked annually, although the number stocked has been reduced through time as survival has declined.”
Brown trout were stocked there this spring, and brook trout should be stocked later this summer, Cavalli said.
Anglers can look up fish stalking records anywhere in the state through Game and Fish’s website, he added. It might take a few weeks for the latest stockings to show up in the database.
Mark Heinz can be reached at mark@cowboystatedaily.com.
