Tundra

Eastern Sierra snow bow season has come and gone once again.  Since I missed my opportunity in the winter of 2014/2015 due to some unexpected living conditions, I made it a point to put some time on the upper Owens this year.  Let me tell you, this is one brutal unforgiving fishery when it wants to be.  It can be a river of a million perfect drifts without a single bump, on top of that you have crowds on the river worse than Disneyland.  I decided to fish the river during a snowstorm with the usual suspect.  We thought it would thin the crowds as we are both gluttons for punishment.  Punishment, it was.

This was a two day trek into the tundra conditions of the upper Owens Valley, snow shoes and frozen fly lines.    My first day on the river I hooked into a damn beast of crowley lake migratory rainbow trout.  The beast took a black crystal bugger on a dead drift.  It felt like I snagged a log, I set the hook and it took me for a fast and furious ride down river.  Rewind about two hours.  I was rigging my line, debated whether I should run 4x or 3x tippet.  I had a gut feeling that 4x was going to be too light, but I rigged it anyways... every damn time.  Fast forward to my fight with what I can estimate to a trout in the 26" range.  I'm yelling to my buddy to come help, doing what I can to keep it away from the riffle water.  Well... you probably can guess what happened.  My advice go one line size heavier than you think.  You can always adjust down if the fish are line shy, but you can't always get a second chance hooking a trophy on the same trip... at least in these high pressured fisheries.  Until next year.

Its been awhile

One of my favorite trout fisheries of the western Sierra gave me a sweet memory of the fine specimen brown trout that inhabit the waters.  It has been awhile since I have caught and landed such a beautiful trout in this size range on the west slope.  The fishery may take some time to heal due to a lightening induced inferno earlier this summer.  If anything, the forest will benefit from the blaze since western bark beetles have devastated the pine population along the river banks and canyon slopes.

Enjoy things while they last.

The Return

Been away from the river and the fly gear has been packed away since winter.  Life has been busy and time to tie flies, explore new trout water, drink a cold beer in front of a camp fire seemed to be a distant memory.  Its about time I make a change.  Pulled out the old maps and studied the blue lines, checked flow charts and one call to my fishing buddy was all that was needed.  Time to throw some tight loops and dry flies.

Lots O' little KRR 

Getting Bigger

Oh Yeah

Some siesta time mid day

Some ankle busting rattler infested terrain

Big bug river.  Yellow Sallies on the emergence was the happening.

                           

                               Surprisingly good mountain house flavor.  Will buy again.

                           

                             Penstemon heterophyllus

Mimulus sp.

Fire scorched Arctostaphylos sp.

Basalt columns on the canyon rim.

The Last Pale Light in the West

I took five days to trophy hunt in northern California.  The Truckee river left me with a bittersweet taste after losing what would have been my personal best brown trout.  Kypezilla has been on my mind ever since.  Those 20+ inches of copper colored scales, butter yellow fins and belly, kyped out jaw… yeah that big buck has haunted me ever since.

The clouds gray and ominous driving northbound.  I was out of the loop of the wildfire situation in the greater Tahoe region.  Work has had me in zombie mode and tunnel vision of the Truckee river from when I last remembered it, was all that I could see.  National weather warnings interrupted the dull beats of modern country music, all that would come in frequency driving through rural California.  Stubborn as I am, I still had my sights locked on the river, smoke and all.  Only the grim reaper would be able to pry my flaming charred hands away from kypezilla.

The Donner pass looked like a highway to hell.  A caravan of Oregon firefighters blazed passed, disappearing into the smokey horizon.  I was told that approximately 3,000 firefighters were trying to pacify the fire.  I probably should have turned around and headed to the Trinity river.  As the Truckee river came into sight, I immediately realized this is not the river that I once remembered.  Car sized boulders were denuded from the river, flows were low enough to make sections a stillwater fishery.  I knew there were sections of massive elevation change and rapids still had to exist.  I gave myself two days to figure it out.

I battled it out day after day.  Stripping streamers, dead drifting crays, everything that made sense for the time of year.  Crayfish were molting in the slow runs and I figured the big browns would be feasting on lobster dinner.  I worked a section methodically, swimming my rabbit strip streamer in between the boulders.  Electricity.  The line went tight and my streamer was hammered by a hog.  As usual I failed to seal the deal and everything went limp.

Frustrated and ready to throw in the towel.  I called upon the Obi Wan Kenobi of the Truckee river.  I met BigFly on the LT a few years back.  Ever since, I check in with him every now and then to see how the river is doing.  One of these day's i'll be lucky enough to get out on the water with him.  After a lengthy conversion, he steered me in the right direction and I was on my vise tying up some new patterns.  Think smallish caddis pupae, the type that hatch in October.  Only once have I seen this magnificent hatch while on the Deschutes river in central Oregon.  It is a bug that can nearly match the massive salmon fly in size.  After tying a handful, I headed downriver to give it a run.

I began working one of my favorite runs and immediately began getting grabs on the caddis nymphs.  A few in the 14" range and 16" rainbow.  Still not the monsters I was searching more, my thirst was not yet quenched.  The sun was setting low on the ridge and a few locals were sitting on a big hole about 50 yards from me.  As the light faded to dark, the locals set their beer cans aside and pulled out their fly rods from the truck.  They gave me a cold one and watched them throw mouse patterns at the edge of a submerged log.  It didn't take long before I saw my first trout blow up on a mouse.  I was shaking with unrelenting energy.  I wanted to experience this myself.  I called my fishing buddy Charles to help me devise a game plan.  As always the plan gets sucked into a vortex by paranormal forces beyond my power.  The next day, winds were up at the crack of dawn and smoke was about as heavy as it could be.  The Truckee was left in my rear view mirror and hopes of that big brown was to be saved for another day.  I'll be back.

My last hope of a two handed grip n grin was to drive north.  The Trinity flows were up in the 3000 cfs and just recently lowered to 450.  Ideal flows for this river and steelhead for sure would have made it up this tributary.  I followed the pale light set between a funnel of black clouds.  Rain began pouring and lightening flashes set off like paparazzi on the red carpet.  One disaster into the next.  Long story short, I got a short sweet taste of chrome.  Its going to be a long lonely winter with a cold dim light waiting for me at the end of the tunnel.

Synthetic Trout

Measured 26" and shy of seven pounds.

I fished with Ben, one of the pro staff members at my local fly shop.  We failed to connect with the stocked tailwalker trout the week before and only managed a few large mouth bass.  The holiday weekends must have hammered this fishery hard and we planned on a second attempt the day after trout stocking.  Since the trout in this lake typically pod up in schools, it is relatively easy to produce a take limit (5 trout per angler).  Although it is not always easy to find the pod, especially when boats are only allowed to travel at trolling speed.  In other words... it took all day.

It was a red-eye day for me since my work shift began at midnight.  Twelve hours later we are sitting in the middle of a sun scorched lake casting our fly rods to unwilling fish.  Massive bass and blue-gill have already staged into the shallow spawning grounds, uninterested in any fly pattern in either of our boxes.  By mid-afternoon we switch our quarry to target what we essentially came for.

The trout stocked in this lake are typically Lassen strain or Nebraska Tailwalker.  The Tailwalkers are actually hard fighting fish for being farmed raised.  The size range can be anywhere from 2lbs - 12lbs.  While these are no majestic wild born fish, they can be finicky and a challenge to accept a fly.  Ben brought a stomach pump and pulled a load of gray and black midge larva from the trout.  I have seen the success of several midge fly fisherman at this lake, however I lack the patience to pursue such a task, instead I strip streamers made of radioactive colors to entice these fish.

We fished until the dim lit glow of the sun reflected off the lake.  The fish seemed to jump into our boat at this point and it became mindless fun.  My last cast produced a heavy pull and the bend in my 4wt z-axis curled under the boat.  The king of the trout pod decided to rumble.  I pulled it out from depths below the boat and steered in into open water.  It gave me a few hard runs until it flat lined into cardiac arrest.  Its not often one gets to see a trout have a heart attack.  Just one of the highlights of fishing for synthetic fish fed on a synthetic diet.

LMV Midge Larva

After it slammed its head boat side.  Don't worry it wasn't released.  We made some salmon sized fillets.

214 Days Later

Things have been pretty turbulent since last June.  Most of my favorite trout water within reasonable distance have been fishing poorly due to a devastating drought year.  By early summer the streams were   unseasonably low and I headed north, in search of big water and big trout.  My journey took me to the Truckee river, pitting my skills against some brutal water and beastly fish.  On my second day, I finally found what I was looking for, a monster brown.  It took five split shot and a size 4 double tungsten stonefly nymph to hit rock bottom.  My line came to a abrupt stop, I swung the tip of my Winston 6wt downstream and set the hook on the giant.  A ferocity that I have never experienced overcame my rod and all I could do was hold on.  The mighty brown surfaced and with graceful ease, it gave a head shake and released itself back into the deep.  Devastating is a understatement.

Fishing slowed down considerably in my life thereafter.  I needed a break.  The trout fever had made me looney.  I put down the fly rod in exchange for a longbow.  Archery and bowhunting became my new obsession however it didn't take long until the river was calling me back.  Thanksgiving was approaching and traditionally the Upper Owens river begins to fill with migratory trout from Crowley Lake.  These fish are not your typical river run rainbows.  These muscle bound trout are steel-head like in appearance and size.  Well, maybe half the size..  These are a fish of a thousand casts and it took me at least twice that to finally connect and land a beautiful 22" hen.  A follow up trip in late December was not as successful as people were swarming the river to test their skill and luck against these beauties.

Without a lick of snow in the weather forecast it looks like my trout season may be coming to a close.  Stay tuned.

Mercury Rising

Fishing large mouth bass by morning, dry fly fishing for wild trout by evening, running down lost fishing buddies by midnight.  It was a long day... however I still woke up by 5:30am for the morning hatch.


The plan was to backpack a short ways into the wild trout section of the Kern River.  Tuck and Joseph were to meet us on the river sometime in the evening.  Erika had some red and white lacey string to mark our campsite.  I told Tuck to stop when he finds lingerie string hanging from one of the trees.  By midnight, beams of light and muffled chatter rattled Erika awake.  A shoulder shove later, I was awake and disoriented.  We figured it was the guys and I scrabbled up the trail and began  running.  Nearly forty five minutes later our fishing party is finally united.  A few Sierra Nevada's and a few hours later our fishing adventure begins.


The first evening prior to meeting with Tuck and Joseph had phenomenal dry fly fishing.  I only fished about one hour that evening.  Between 7pm-8pm one of the largest Caddis hatches I have ever witnessed unfolded in front of me.  Countless trout were rising, tail whipping, jumping in a feeding frenzy.  My hands trembled as I couldn't seem to tie my knots fast enough.  A tan size 16 deer hair caddis tied on a TMC 2312 did the trick. 

With the epic hatch I had experienced the prior evening, I was expecting  legendary dry fly fishing all day.  By mid morning, yellow sallies, golden stone flies, caddis, sulphur duns were all buzzing around.  Yet.. not a single rise.  The air temp was already pushing into the high 80's.  By noon the temperature must have already hit 100 degrees F.  But lots of bugs.

Golden Stonefly

Yellow Sally

PMD

I abandoned the dry fly and setup a two nymph rig.  Large stonefly as the point fly with a yellow sally nymph as the trailing fly.  I gave Erika a primo piece of water and instantly we were rewarded with rapid fire takes.

Talon Scars

By 3pm the fishing died.  It was hot and we were tired.  We hiked a few miles back to camp and met up with Tuck and Joseph.  We all snoozed for a few hours to rest before the evening hatch.  I headed downriver with Erika while the guys went upriver.  The hatch wasn't as impressive as the night before, however we both got more than we could count.  I was most successful on a size 16 x-caddis.

We were entertained by hundreds of swirling caddis surrounding a Black Diamond Apollo light,  as the center piece of our night.

Headwaters

I woke up semi charged from the brutal lake Perris beat down.  My breakfast consisted of two advil chased with a cup of black coffee.  Without hesitation, I pulled the creekin' gear out of storage and drove off into the morning mist.

It just happens that exactly one year ago I backpacked into this fishery with Erika and Charles.  It was a much different fishery back then and I knew that the future of this fishery depended on it's headwaters.  Many pools that held many 14"+ trout had receded deep into underground aqua firs. I hiked on determined to find water and wild trout.

1yr ago this pool filled halfway up the boulder.

 Mariposa Lilies were showing their blooms, however the population seemed smaller this year.  I believe the species in sequence is C. plummerae and C. invenustus. 

The big-cone Douglas-fir were fruiting along the trail.. One of my favorite local conifers as it is endemic to the transverse range mountains. 

I finally find what I am looking for...

and plenty of these...

I also noticed a species of Mimulus that I do not remember seeing in the past.  At first glance I thought it was the common monkey flower M. guttatus.  Although, the flowers looked larger, the stems were shorter, leaves were smaller and overall plant was more compact. 

The remaining pools at the headwaters were loaded with a healthy population of rainbow trout.  If these pools remain through summer we should have a healthy supply of trout ready for downstream migration.  Let's just hope we get a wet winter.

My Happy Place

I took advantage of the three day Memorial day weekend and returned to my happy place with Erika.  Not much to say other than it was as beautiful as ever.  The river was not as low as I originally expected it to be either.  The water temperature was incredibly cold.  So cold.  Wet wading could only be tolerated in short bursts until I felt body parts turn to ice. The golden stoneflies were hatching as well as sulphur dun's and a blizzard hatch of midges just before sun-fall.  Most of my fish were caught on a size 10 golden rubber legged stimulator.   I suspect this fishery to be prime mid June- July. 

Setup the garage.  I think it will make a nice place to tie flies and drink some brews during a sierra storm.

I am returning for you soon.