Our first fishing pack trip at Santa Margarita Lake

I fell in love wit Santa Margarita Lake the first time I went there. The scenery is spectacular, the trails are awesome, and the fishing is in my opinion, the best in the county. We spend at least two days month out there either fishing, picnicking, or horseback riding.

We have two horses that just love going on the trail. Unfortunately, Chief just turned 27 and cannot do the extended pack trips we’ve been dreaming about. Last weekend we decided to do a scaled down version at Santa Margarita Lake. We parked our trailer near the second launch ramp, packed our fishing poles and a container of Honey’s Bait nightcrawlers and rode 40 minutes to the end of the dirt road. We ground tied our horses, set up our poles and got a bite on our first cast! It was a beautiful and big lake trout! We were ecstatic.

We fished for about an hour, and had a few more nibbles, before we packed up and headed back to the trailer for lunch. It was a perfect first pack trip for Chief and made for a really great Saturday at the lake.

Picture caption: Joshua holding our prize trout. Chief is the bay and white paint horse who is 27 years young and Piper is my nine year old Palomino.