I think this is an extremely important topic and I'm sure glad to see the excellent discussion. Just for your reference, I'm one of the acquaintances that Zen Leecher mentioned who goes on an 8-15 day hiking/fishing trip every year. I'm also a Trail Blazer which means I am a volunteer for the WDFW backpacking fish into high lakes.

Alpine Lakes are more fragile then low lakes for several reasons. The growing season is extremely short. Only a month or two in some cases. The lakes are not as productive as low lakes, so it takes longer for fish to grow. That means that the lakes have to be planted with very low densities of fish and they need a long time to grow to any size. So the fishing in high lakes tends to me more fragile. It is also more hit an miss then typical low lakes. Some lakes are only planted every 10 or more years. The vast majority are planted every 3 to 6 years and many are small. I've planted as few as 25 fish into a lake. That creates opportunity for someone to go find fish, but it won't be able to handle any kind of publicity and still be a viable fishery. Although you may find fishing great one year, it can be poor the next. I have many stories of lakes where the word got out on good fishing and the lake was fished out soon after. I even ran into a guy who bragged about catching every fish out of a small lake.

Another consideration with high lakes is their wilderness nature. The problem isn't just the fish being caught before they have a chance to grow, but the shoreline impacts by anglers and campers.

I don't have any problem with reports posted on large lakes on trails. I don't like to see reports posted on any x-country lakes (they won't be x-country for long), especially small x-country lakes. I think those lakes should be left for people to seek out. Too many people will ruin the fishing and change the very nature of the place.

If you get me started on high lakes I'll talk all day. I'll force myself to stop for now.

Brian