Crawler
06-15-2008, 02:03 PM
So for the second weekend in a row, I headed up to the eastern sierras. :Envious: This time 'round I commandered the Lady friends Nissan Altima, grabbed up two willing participants, and left town friday night around 8pm. This time headed straight to rock creek to scout out little lakes valley, and see how walking a few miles at 10,000'+ works for me.
We arrived at Rock Creek around 1am and decided to sleep in the car on the side of the road. :Envious: It was cost effective, we didnt have to setup camp, and we were already dressed and ready to go when the sun hit us at around 6am the next morning. :Envious:
After a quick stop at the Rock Creek store for a fresh pack of crawlers, we headed straight up to Mesquito flats and promptly busted out the stove and made some authentic Rock-Creek-stream-water coffee. :Cool: We headed up the trail at around 7:30am.
We walked straight past the first four lakes and decided to stop and catch a few handfulls of fish at the fifth lake on the trail, Long Lake. On the way towards the backside of Long, I saw a HUGE fish about 6' from the shore. It had to be at least 5lbs. I assumed it was a brown, but I didnt get a good enough look as he slowly swam off. We fished the south side of the lake for about an hour and a half catching numerous brook trout. I started out flylining a piece of crawler and caught three in three casts, in about 1 minute. I then tied up a needlefish and began casting. I had two chasers and two hits. No fish. I then tied on a panther martin and got no love for about 20 minutes. Then I tied up a fly and bubble (no water in bubble) and caught about 4 fish this way, 2 or 3 more with a crawler trailer on the fly. All small brooks from 5-9".
Next we headed up the trail to check out Chickenfoot lake. This lake is huge and I would assume it harbours large fish. We only caught 2 or 3 brooks from here. This lake looked to be about 40% covered in ice. We headed back on up the trail after about 30 minutes of fishing.
Next we went up past the morgan pass turn off and headed to what I believe are the gem lakes. This last section of our hike was 90% snow. We stopped just before the trail crosses the creek below gem lakes, to catch another 10 or so creek fish. Continuing up the trail we arrived at gem lakes. We stopped and I caught 5 or 6 brooks in a few minutes while my willing participants sat in the shade and took a break. By this time it is about 3pm and we decide to walk back and fish the fourth lake on the trail, Box lake. I know the treasures are just around the corner from here, but we were told that they were still almost completely ice, and I decided to save them for a future trip.
We get back to Box and pull up a helping of shade on the east side of the lake near the inlet. I rig up split shot floating crawler style, toss it as far as I can, rig the rod so it wont be pulled into the water and lay down and take my boots off. Ahhh, that was a nice 30 minutes or so. :Envious: After not love for 30 minutes I toss another split shot on and cast as far as I can to get the bait *almost* into the moving water at the inlet. BAM! insta-fish. Pull him in and its a HEALTHY brook. Same size as the others but MUCH fatter. Crawler still intact and slid up the mainline slightly, I cast back out and repeat, about 10 times. :Envious:
Next I moved up stream a tiny bit and fished a nice hole just before the water dumps into the lake. Toss it in, BAM! Insta-fish again! I bring him up...and to my suprize its a rainbow! NICE! I put him back and start catching rainbows out of this hole and a few others in the direct area one after another after another. What was really cool about this perticular hole was that there were two disctinct variations of rainbow. One type looked black in the water. TOTALLY covered in spots. The other type looked gray. Looked to me like the grey variety definetly dad some golden in its lineage. They were even shaped differently. The light colered ones were fat and round. The dark ones were longer and thinner. I tried to get some pics and my camera decided it was going to take my zoom away and replace it with manual focus. :Rolls Eyes:
After a couple of hours at Box we walked back down the trail past Heart, Marsh, and Mack lakes to the trailhead. We sat on the bear boxes for a long time resting. After 30min or so I got up to put my gear in the car, and found that my feet were very sore. I knew the best thing for me at the time was to sit down and get off my feet for a long period of time. I also know that the 5 hour drive home was just enough time to make my feet feel better. So off we went, leaving Mesquito flats at 7pm. We hit the 395, set the cruise control at 75, and hauled *** home. Getting back at midnight to a shower and a familiar bed. Not to mention being home this morning for my fathers day breakfast. :Cool:
Total fish count had to be somewhere in the 60-70 fish range between the three of us. All brooks except for about 10 rainbows, one of which was a bleeder and is now residing in my fridge. :Envious:
http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a276/yotamasters/sierras_6-14-8_littlelakesvalley064.jpg
http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a276/yotamasters/sierras_6-14-8_littlelakesvalley063.jpg
The willing participants.
http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a276/yotamasters/sierras_6-14-8_littlelakesvalley066.jpg
http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a276/yotamasters/sierras_6-14-8_littlelakesvalley071.jpg
http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a276/yotamasters/sierras_6-14-8_littlelakesvalley073.jpg
http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a276/yotamasters/sierras_6-14-8_littlelakesvalley001.jpg
http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a276/yotamasters/sierras_6-14-8_littlelakesvalley002.jpg
http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a276/yotamasters/sierras_6-14-8_littlelakesvalley003.jpg
http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a276/yotamasters/sierras_6-14-8_littlelakesvalley005.jpg
http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a276/yotamasters/sierras_6-14-8_littlelakesvalley006.jpg
http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a276/yotamasters/sierras_6-14-8_littlelakesvalley008.jpg
http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a276/yotamasters/sierras_6-14-8_littlelakesvalley010.jpg
http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a276/yotamasters/sierras_6-14-8_littlelakesvalley012.jpg
http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a276/yotamasters/sierras_6-14-8_littlelakesvalley013.jpg
Hold for even more pics.
We arrived at Rock Creek around 1am and decided to sleep in the car on the side of the road. :Envious: It was cost effective, we didnt have to setup camp, and we were already dressed and ready to go when the sun hit us at around 6am the next morning. :Envious:
After a quick stop at the Rock Creek store for a fresh pack of crawlers, we headed straight up to Mesquito flats and promptly busted out the stove and made some authentic Rock-Creek-stream-water coffee. :Cool: We headed up the trail at around 7:30am.
We walked straight past the first four lakes and decided to stop and catch a few handfulls of fish at the fifth lake on the trail, Long Lake. On the way towards the backside of Long, I saw a HUGE fish about 6' from the shore. It had to be at least 5lbs. I assumed it was a brown, but I didnt get a good enough look as he slowly swam off. We fished the south side of the lake for about an hour and a half catching numerous brook trout. I started out flylining a piece of crawler and caught three in three casts, in about 1 minute. I then tied up a needlefish and began casting. I had two chasers and two hits. No fish. I then tied on a panther martin and got no love for about 20 minutes. Then I tied up a fly and bubble (no water in bubble) and caught about 4 fish this way, 2 or 3 more with a crawler trailer on the fly. All small brooks from 5-9".
Next we headed up the trail to check out Chickenfoot lake. This lake is huge and I would assume it harbours large fish. We only caught 2 or 3 brooks from here. This lake looked to be about 40% covered in ice. We headed back on up the trail after about 30 minutes of fishing.
Next we went up past the morgan pass turn off and headed to what I believe are the gem lakes. This last section of our hike was 90% snow. We stopped just before the trail crosses the creek below gem lakes, to catch another 10 or so creek fish. Continuing up the trail we arrived at gem lakes. We stopped and I caught 5 or 6 brooks in a few minutes while my willing participants sat in the shade and took a break. By this time it is about 3pm and we decide to walk back and fish the fourth lake on the trail, Box lake. I know the treasures are just around the corner from here, but we were told that they were still almost completely ice, and I decided to save them for a future trip.
We get back to Box and pull up a helping of shade on the east side of the lake near the inlet. I rig up split shot floating crawler style, toss it as far as I can, rig the rod so it wont be pulled into the water and lay down and take my boots off. Ahhh, that was a nice 30 minutes or so. :Envious: After not love for 30 minutes I toss another split shot on and cast as far as I can to get the bait *almost* into the moving water at the inlet. BAM! insta-fish. Pull him in and its a HEALTHY brook. Same size as the others but MUCH fatter. Crawler still intact and slid up the mainline slightly, I cast back out and repeat, about 10 times. :Envious:
Next I moved up stream a tiny bit and fished a nice hole just before the water dumps into the lake. Toss it in, BAM! Insta-fish again! I bring him up...and to my suprize its a rainbow! NICE! I put him back and start catching rainbows out of this hole and a few others in the direct area one after another after another. What was really cool about this perticular hole was that there were two disctinct variations of rainbow. One type looked black in the water. TOTALLY covered in spots. The other type looked gray. Looked to me like the grey variety definetly dad some golden in its lineage. They were even shaped differently. The light colered ones were fat and round. The dark ones were longer and thinner. I tried to get some pics and my camera decided it was going to take my zoom away and replace it with manual focus. :Rolls Eyes:
After a couple of hours at Box we walked back down the trail past Heart, Marsh, and Mack lakes to the trailhead. We sat on the bear boxes for a long time resting. After 30min or so I got up to put my gear in the car, and found that my feet were very sore. I knew the best thing for me at the time was to sit down and get off my feet for a long period of time. I also know that the 5 hour drive home was just enough time to make my feet feel better. So off we went, leaving Mesquito flats at 7pm. We hit the 395, set the cruise control at 75, and hauled *** home. Getting back at midnight to a shower and a familiar bed. Not to mention being home this morning for my fathers day breakfast. :Cool:
Total fish count had to be somewhere in the 60-70 fish range between the three of us. All brooks except for about 10 rainbows, one of which was a bleeder and is now residing in my fridge. :Envious:
http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a276/yotamasters/sierras_6-14-8_littlelakesvalley064.jpg
http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a276/yotamasters/sierras_6-14-8_littlelakesvalley063.jpg
The willing participants.
http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a276/yotamasters/sierras_6-14-8_littlelakesvalley066.jpg
http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a276/yotamasters/sierras_6-14-8_littlelakesvalley071.jpg
http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a276/yotamasters/sierras_6-14-8_littlelakesvalley073.jpg
http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a276/yotamasters/sierras_6-14-8_littlelakesvalley001.jpg
http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a276/yotamasters/sierras_6-14-8_littlelakesvalley002.jpg
http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a276/yotamasters/sierras_6-14-8_littlelakesvalley003.jpg
http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a276/yotamasters/sierras_6-14-8_littlelakesvalley005.jpg
http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a276/yotamasters/sierras_6-14-8_littlelakesvalley006.jpg
http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a276/yotamasters/sierras_6-14-8_littlelakesvalley008.jpg
http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a276/yotamasters/sierras_6-14-8_littlelakesvalley010.jpg
http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a276/yotamasters/sierras_6-14-8_littlelakesvalley012.jpg
http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a276/yotamasters/sierras_6-14-8_littlelakesvalley013.jpg
Hold for even more pics.