May 28th- Hilton Creek, McGee Creek, McCloud Lake

Sunday was a strange day. No doubt about it- weird.

We’d plan to drive back down to Bishop. I’d drop Vita off at the craft fair and  fish the Owens for an hour. Then we'd come up to Mammoth and hike up to McCloed Lake for a picnic.

I’d never seen so many road toasters (RVs) at the Owens before. It looked as if there was a convention going on, the place was absolutely packed. I pulled up beside one and said hi. The folks where none too friendly though, so I ignored them and geared up. The river was high and I decided to fish from the bank. When I reached my chosen fishing hole, I was disappointed that I chose not to wear waders because the river definitely looked wadable. It was high but it looked as if someone had dumped a bunch of extra gravel in the river and simply widened it. Weird.

I threw on a Gold Bead Soft Hackle Hairs Ear and the Birds Nest that worked so well on Hat Creek. This time of year the PMD nymphs are active and either of these two flies should have picked up fish. They didn’t. I spotted a fish just a rod length up stream so I decided to go for him. No interest.

The Owens has a lot of caddis, both green and amber, so I decided to swap the Fox Bird’s Nest for a Green Bird’s Nest of the same size. Both can represent caddis but perhaps color might make a difference. It did.  A fish slammed and then proceed to make off with my fly. I tied on another (I only had three)  and another fish slammed the fly. I was determined not to lose this fly, so I horsed the fish to shore and quickly landed the large jawed brown.

The fly fishing cognoscenti say that of the hatch matching characteristics, color is the least important. It was interesting to see how in this case, color was very important. Same fly, same size, different color.

It was starting to get late so I made my way up to the bridge, where I parked my car. A couple of casts under the bridge usually brings a fish so….I made a couple of casts. Noticing a fish working the surface down stream a bit, I cut off my nymphs and tied on a caddis cripple. The caddis cripple is always a great searching pattern for California waters. I made a few roll casts and finally got the fly to float into the feeding lane of the fish. The fish made a few strikes at my fly then lost interest.

Felling rather unfulfilled, I crossed the bridge, walked around my car to an eddy on the far side of the river. I was literally feet from my car. I peered into the water hoping to see some fish. After a long hard gaze, I managed to spot one working the seam of the main current. I made a couple of casts with my dry but the fish could care less. I clipped the dry and tied the Green Bird’s Nest back on. I made a well placed cast and watched my red amnesia leader butt as my fly drifted down stream.

The line paused. I was rewarded with a hot fish from the river and a cold stare from my road toaster neighbor. The fellow had been watching me from his lounge chair and acted as if he was trying to stare me down. Weird.

Feeling somewhat fulfilled, I hopped in the car. On the way back to Mammoth, I decided I wanted to do some more exploring. Fish and Game Stocks  just about every creek, lake and pond off I395 between Bridgeport and Bishop. I’d heard that both Hilton and McGee Creeks were fishing well and I wanted to check them out.

We pulled of the road just as I395 meets Crowley Lake. After a few wrong turns through some very nice country side, I pulled out the map. We’d gone left when we should have gone right. No problem I thought, although this would bring us through a residential community.  We crossed the creek and turned left on the access road.

To the left of the road the creek ran underneath a canopy of trees; between the trees and the road was a horse corral. Nothing too unusual about this. 200 meters up the access road though, someone decided to dump a house. It was smack dab in the middle of the road.. There were children playing and it wasn’t really clear whether the road continued to the right or the left. It was weird. Not liking to infringe on other peoples property, we turned around and headed to McGee Creek.

McGee Creek was weird as well. At the base of McGee Creek was a small campground, small road toasters mostly and pretty packed. Fortunately, there was a road that followed the creek up into the mountains. We followed the road up the mountain. It was a mostly pleasant drive. From the road we could clearly see different parts of the stream, which was in a word- raging!  The mountainside was fairly steep and creek took it’s cue from that. About half way up the road, you come to another camp site.

This site had a bunch of trailers arranged in almost a military fashion. The fact that one of them had a LARGE confederate flag  hoisted in the air with the Star & Stripes (Old Glory) smaller and lower made Vita nervous and me raise an eyebrow. Weird.  I’m not usually one for this Confederate Flag = White Supremacy bit, but when you’re in the middle of nowhere, and the flag is twice as high and large as the flag of your country, you have to wonder. Regardless, we decided not to stop for tea and continued up the road.

We passed some horse stables and finally reached the end of the road. The creek was raging all the way. The road ended at a trail head with a parking lot, obligatory latrine and map. The map showed that the trail followed the creek up to a group of lakes. Fortunately, a group of flyfishers was making their way back down the trail when we arrived. They’d attempted to hike up to one of the lakes. They thought it was a mile, in reality it was 7. They were in one of those disgruntled moods that fly fisher get in when things don’t go exactly their way. “Fishing’s supposed to be good in the creek” I quipped. “Yeah, if you can find a flat spot” One of the fishers shot back as they stepped into their SUV.  That said it all.

Back in Mammoth, Vita and I headed up to the Mammoth Lakes. Our plan was still to picnic at McCloed lake after all.
 

McLeod lake is a small lake above Horseshoe Lake which holds Lahonton Cutthroat trout. The regs there are zero limit, single barbless hook. The trail to McLeod starts at the Horseshoe Lake  and just when this day couldn't get any weirder, it did.. The road to Horseshoe Lake was closed and the Mammoth Police were turning back cars. It seems that the soil around the lake has a carbon dioxide content 90 times normal or some such thing. This has resulted in the death of trees surrounding the lake and can also lead to human illness and death if.

I asked the cop if that meant we couldn’t go to McLeod? “No you can go, you just can’t drive your car.” The sign says run for your life, but the cop says go ahead. No problem, we’ll walk the extra half mile.

Vita grudgingly got out of the car. She was neither turned on by the sign warning us to keep out nor the thought of hiking an extra half mile. We made our way down the snow filled street to the lake. Warning signs and tape surrounded the lake. They explained that to stay safe you should stay out of low lying areas because CO2, which is heavier than air, will sink.

The signs also suggested that you stay in well ventilated areas. Now, at 9,000ft in the middle of the mountains I’d guess that just about anywhere is well ventilated, but maybe not. We decided to stay in the wind. My theory was that even in the low lying areas, it was so windy that the CO2 would be magically swept away. The sign also warned that if you felt short of breath or dizzy, to leave the area at once. This sign was obviously not written for Bay Area low landers, such as ourselves, who get dizzy walking across the street at such altitude.

We followed the signs to the trailhead and as Vita’s luck would have it, it was covered with snow. She gave me one of those looks which told me she did not favor snow hiking. Not a problem. We had a lake. I had a rod. We trucked over to where the ice was just receding on Horseshoe Lake.

I’ve always heard about how good fishing was on lakes at ice-out. Simply toss your fly out on the ice, pull it back over the edge and wham, fish on! This technique is used with big ugly streamer type flies over lakes with good populations of fish. I on the other hand was armed with big ugly dry flies (Royal Wulffs) and over a lake who’s fish population was questionable. After all, the CO2 must dissolve pretty regularly into the lake water and if it could kill trees (which breath CO2) it seemed to me it could easily kill fish. Horseshoe Lake was the one place in Mammoth where we hadn’t seen any squirrels, chipmunks or other critters.

The fish chose not to reveal themselves and after a half hour or so we headed out for dinner. As we left, some spin fishers came and plopped themselves out in front of the open water. They seemed as clueless as us.

After dinner, I returned to Hot Creek. The first thing that I noticed was that the river was much dirtier than it had been on Friday. At first I didn’t think much of it. The river gets progressively worse each day and in the past I’d always figured it was due to run off. Even a spring creek must get some run off in such a mountain filled region.  Then I noticed grass floating downstream and looked up. Two anglers were wading up stream.

They were far enough up stream to seemingly not have a direct affect upon my fishing but they were. Each time they moved, tufts of aquatic weeds and grass floated downstream. Now I understood why the river conditions deteriorated. This annoyed me. Most anglers at Hot Creek don’t wade. There is a sign that asks you not to.  I myself only wade to land a fish. I also wade, very shallowly,  the small gravel area at the midstream riffle.  This area has no vegetation and wading here isn’t a choice. Despite this, my nymphing tactics from Friday where paying off. The fish where smaller but they were still there.

After and hour of nymphing and 5 fish, I decided to fish a dry fly. I went fishless on the dry but still had fun.

In disbelief. I looked downstream at someone who appeared to be spin fishing (Hot Creek is fly fishing only.) I couldn’t believe my eyes. I’m not a snob and I love to spin fish but I’ve noticed an increase in non-regulation fishing at the rivers where I like to fish. It bothers me, people just don’t care about the regulations or the fish they are supposed to protect. Fish are a limited resource which everyone can enjoy so long as they are not exploited. I’m particularly troubled by the blatant poaching and non reg fishing at the Lower Stanislaus and Owens River below Pleasant Valley Reservoir.

I always give someone the benefit of the doubt before I walk over and rain on their parade. This fellow was still too far away for me to see clearly. Maybe was fishing a streamer and simply using his reel to strip his fly in….Nope, he’s got a spinning reel. Maybe he simply didn’t know the regs I thought. I’d been a victim of confusing regulations myself this weekend. Perhaps there simply wasn’t a sign where he came on the to river. I was standing about 15 feet from a regulation sign and he was coming my way. I watched to see if he would read it as he walked by. He didn’t. I took off after him.
 
 

May 29th- Scouting the June Lakes Loop

Monday continued the scouting theme. Vita and I took the scenic route out of Mammoth, looking for new lands to hike and fish. We also drove the scenic June Lakes Loop. The drive was hilly and pleasant, with lakes and streams around just about every turn. Rush Creek on the far side of the loop looked inviting, especially those section between lakes.

Our trip home via Tioga Pass was delayed when a forest fire broke out just above Lee Vining. I’d overheard a fire fighter saying the cause was a careless camper or hiker, which is too bad. Some people don’t realize the damage a poorly disposed cigarette or poorly extinguished camp fire can do. We pulled off 395 and watched the fire race across the hill side for a while. We then pulled off at Mono Lake, a favorite place of Vita’s to take in the history offered by the visitors center. Until as recently as the 70’s, there were still Native Pieta Indians summering on the west side of the lake and wintering on the east. The history of the Lake makes and interesting story and the lake is finally rebounding after years of abuse.

Our trip ended the same way as it started, with a trip over Sonara Pass.

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