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Weather: Sunny and Mild
This was my second high country foray for the year. Late weather and my general roundness in the mid-section had scuttled my plans for Mammoth in May and Raymond Lake a few weeks ago. It was my first backpacking trip of the year and first trip into the Desolation Wilderness, I was excited. The plan was to hike 3 hours along a jeep trail and meet my brother in law and his family at Barrett Lake. Barrett Lake is a popular destination among the High Sierra jeep set as was in evidence by the broken tail lights and oil stains along the way. The trail wasn’t yet open to Jeeps so only backpackers could make it in.
I would characterize the fishing as OK. The fish were there and in good numbers but didn’t seem to have that aggressive opportunism that I was hoping for. In other words, we had to work for fish. (Life’s tough, I know.) We fished 3 lakes. Lawrence Lake, Top Lake and Barrett Lake. My brother in law, Chad, his brother and father had arrived 3 days earlier and pretty thoroughly fished some of the surrounding lakes. They’d determined that Lawrence Lake was the lake to concentrate on. They’d been able to pick up a hand full of fish from Lawrence each day it seems- brook trout in the 10- 15 inch range. I arrived at camp at about 11am and after setting up my tent and munching a bit, Chad and I headed for Lawrence. We met the others on the trail on their way back for lunch. They each had a fine fish in hand, ready for the frying pan. Lawrence was a pretty typical sierra lake for this elevation (7,800ft). A large lake with lots of fallen timber and submerged boulders, it didn’t look particularly fertile. The Brook Trout however where large and this would tend to indicate either a very fertile lake or a lake which had last received a plant 3 or 4 years ago. Plenty of lake side vegetation and trees made casting difficult. A poor cast would end up donating your fly to the local shrubbery. Chad has a keen eye for spotting trout and as we made our way along the shoreline he spotted the largest of the trip. He dropped his size 16 BH PT in front of the trout. I had a good vantage point slightly above Chad so I narrated the fish’s intensions. “It’s sees it”, I said as the fish started to move toward Chad’s fly. The fished cruised behind a rock where I couldn’t see it. I paused, not knowing where the fish was and said “strike”. Chad reacted fast and the game was on.
The 15 inch Brook trout didn’t give up much a fight. Chad was a little tense as we landed it. This was his “money” fish (worth $5.00 if we could land it as the largest fish landed during the trip) and was soon to be dinner. I lipped the fish like a Largemouth Bass. I didn’t know Brook Trout had teeth. Brown Trout yes but Brookies? I’d never given it any thought until now. The Brookie had several sets of teeth. Teeth along the edge of it mouth and along it’s tongue. I squirmed like a little girl as the wiggling trout dug it’s teeth deeper into my thumb. Chad measured the fish against the rod I had built him. Most of my rods have measurement markers that are rarely used, especially at this elevation. They’re placed at 16, 18 and 20 inches. His fish measured just shy of 16 inches. It was his money fish to be sure. We next fished Top Lake. Top was much smaller than the map indicated. It was much more intimate than Lawrence, my kind of lake. We made our way counter clockwise around the lake and immediately sited fish but missed their strikes. The fishing here was much more consistent than at Lawrence simply due to the fact that we could see many of the fish we were casting to.
Top Lake was supposed to hold Golden Trout. My hope for this trip was to confirm this fact. As we made our way around the lake it had become apparent that Brook Trout dominated. It was also apparent that I wasn’t fishing well, my hooking ratio was about the same as my landing ratio at 18%. I also pulled a rookie move and was quickly succumbing to my peculiar form of dehydration. There were fish to be had though and when fishing lakes like this, spotting them is half the fun. Chad was fishing well and quickly improving his position in the “most fish caught” category in this weekend’s contest. I think the contest categories where “first fish”, “largest fish”, “most fish” and “last fish”. Chad’s brother picked up the first fish and I believe Chad picked up the largest ( the only money category), most and probably last fish categories. We had made our way to the second inlet
stream when Chad spotted a large fish near a rock. I was too busy thinking
about getting back to camp to notice. My dehydration was getting serious and
I wanted to finish fishing the perimeter of the lake (I do have my
priorities) and head back to camp as soon as possible. Chad let me have first crack at the fish and after about a dozen casts, I was into what we thought was a hot Brookie. The fish went buck wild, diving under the bank, into rocks and generally making things difficult for me. It started to run down stream toward the lake and when I turned it back we got our first real glimpse of the fish as anything but a shadow under the water. It was a Golden Trout! A large one, 14 inches against Chad’s rod and the coolest thing……..he got it all on video tape. Sunday, Chad and his friend fished Lawrence Lake while I fished the outlet stream to Barrett Lake. I’d never dehydrated on a backpacking trip before and I was a little concerned about the hike out. Lawrence was 500 ft above Barrett and I figured I didn’t need the extra climbing. My foot was giving me trouble and I wasn’t quite sure how I felt. Besides, someone had to wait at camp until the fire burned down. I milled about camp, relaxing and taking in water, until the firewood had burned down. I put the burning coals out with ice cold stream water. A stone cracked and split from the sudden shock. I made my way to the outlet stream. Chad had spotted some fish at the mouth of the stream the night before so I decided to start there. I made my way down to a large plunge pool and started catching fish quite by accident. All my carefully placed dead drift nymphs had caught me two fish. I was reeling in my hanging line, getting ready to switch positions when a Brookie grabbed my fly as it wiggled past. It was a pretty aggressive strike and this far “aggressive” is not a word I would have used to characterize these fish. Intrigued, I made another cast and reeled in my line. Wham! Fish on! The fly barely traveled two feet before it was pounced on. And so it went, I “spin” fished for the next half an hour, landing four additional fish all in the half foot to 7 inch class. I tried different retrieves but none worked as well as simply reeling in my line and like the saying goes, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!” I returned to camp and we made the 3hr hike back to the cars. Next Desolation Wilderness Chronicle
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