ACCESSORIES
Lightweight inflatable rafts with oars allow you to explore the entire lake. Some hikers carry float tubes, fins and waders. If you take such a craft, make sure you include a personal floatation device in case your inflatable suffers a mid-lake puncture. Don't expect that you'll be able to swim to shore in cold mountain water.

Sunscreen, insect repellent, a hat and polarized sunglasses are necessities. The harsh effects of a day in the sun are magnified at 8,000 feet; you'll want to apply sunscreen early and often. Mosquitoes and black flies can drive you off the water if you leave the DEET at home. Put a bottle in your pack. Polarized sunglasses not only protect your eyes from errant casts, they allow you to see in the water and spot shoreline-cruising fish.

Today's digital point-and-shoot cameras have remarkably advanced features and quality. Drop one in your shirt pocket where it will be handy when you hook that huge rainbow. You can snap several quick shots before gently releasing her to provide sport for another angler.

WHERE TO FISH
Mountain fish are like all other fish. Their survival depends on two things: access to food and protection from predators. Structure provides them with both.

Structure may be a rockpile, a submerged log, an underwater ledge, a weedbed amidst a rock, or a sandy bottom. Structure is wherever there's a transition from one type of shoreline to another such as grass to tules, tules to willows or willows to trees. Structure is where sunlight changes into shadows or where an inlet stream introduces warmer or colder water into the lake.

In early season, a log that has fallen partway into the water absorbs more of the sun's rays and warms the water. The warmer water triggers insect hatches sooner than in the surrounding area, which means that this is where you'll find fish. In summer, that fallen log provides shade. In all seasons it provides a place for trout to hide from otters, herons and other predators.

Knowing that the fallen log provides what fish need also gives you clues about how to fish that spot. Instead of clambering out on it to give yourself some casting room, make a few casts around it, paying particular attention to the shady area and where the log disappears into the depths. After you've caught the fish hanging around the log, then you can hop onto it and make longer casts into the lake and along the shoreline.

Early in the season, northwest shores warm first and should be fished thoroughly. Dark bottom materials absorb radiant heat, so those are good early-season areas as well.

Look for points of land extending into the lake since they provide casting room and usually have deeper water on one or both sides.

Inlets are natural conveyor belts for food. Moving water constantly washes ants, beetles and other good-tasting treats toward waiting trout. The stream introduces oxygen into the lake water, which in turn attracts bugs and other foodstuffs, which attract trout -- which attract anglers. Cast where the stream current mixes with lake water. Fish stay in calmer warmer to conserve energy, then dart into the current to snatch edibles.

Trout in lakes are always on the move, looking for food. Polarized sunglasses help you spot those cruising fish so that you can cast to them before they spot you. It takes steady nerves to avoid yanking your fly away from an onrushing mouth, but if you do pull it away too soon, toss your fly back to where you last saw the fish. Cutthroat will often strike again.