The sierra phantom?

[falcor49]

Anybody heard of him? Hes a old man who lives in bishop at pleasent valley resevoir and claims to hold the record for every trout species in the sierras.He also sales fancy bobbers that look like christmas decorations.Anybody know who i`m talking about?

[baadfish69]

Anyone who has been to the Sierras enough, probably knows who the Phantom is. Ive met him a couple times, and bought his glitter flies. He is quite the story teller, and an amazing guy if you ask me. Im sure he stretches the truth about things, but thats just him.

I posted this on another thread when someone mentioned him......but Ill do it again for ya.....might give ya a little insight on the man.



http://ovtomatohead.blogspot.com/2008/10/some-bastards-hit-sierra-phantom.html


BF69

[tpfishnfool]

Yea that old fart has been hit by cars trying to cross 395 a few times and is still around to tell about it !! You can find him drinking coffee in front of some of the local hangs..

[Joshua]

He is a unique person :ROFL:. He makes the sierras a more interesting place

[daveg456]

" A week later, he says that he walked from Bishop to South Lake and back to go fishing. "

If anyone has made the drive from Bishop to South Lake, you know that that is a long arse drive. Dude is legend status just for walking it just so he can go fishing. I guess Intake 2 or the creek was just not good enough for him. lol. If it was me, I would have hitch hiked or layed in the middle of the road and pretended I sprained my ankle or something until someone stopped so they could give me a lift up to the lake.

[Sierra_Smitty]

I know Phantom well because his favorite lake to fish is South Lake, where we own the landing. He is an exceptional story teller and has an even more exceptional imagination.

My top 5 all time favorite stories he's told me....I could probably do a top 20 list but I'll leave that to your imaginations. And yes folks, he really has told these whoppers...I've heard them.

1. He taught Olympic Gold Medalist Peggy Flemming how to ice skate on South Lake.
2. He lived out behind South Lake many a winter - his pet Bear and pet Mountain Lion would sit with him at the campfire to protect him.
3. One time, during a freak August snowstorm which dumped 8ft of snow, he singlehandedly saved 500 people that were camped at the back of South Lake from certain death by hiking them and their gear to safety.
4. He gets calls from weather authorities from as far away as Australia because he's the only one who can predict what the weather will be like 6 months from now.
5. He holds every world record for every freshwater game fish in North America.

He is one tough old guy - but I have yet to see him walk to South Lake in the last three years. He always gets a ride up the hill and then thumbs his way down to Bishop or rides his bike down the hill. Also, despite his amazing glitter flies - he fishes with nightcrawlers.

Good times,
Smitty

[retired96]

Smitty,would you clarify your statement of Owning South Lake, do you mean you own resort and not the lake itself. Just curious as to what you meant by owning the lake.

[chivo]

a big story teller. I hold the crappie records in antartica

[Sierra_Smitty]

Smitty,would you clarify your statement of Owning South Lake, do you mean you own resort and not the lake itself. Just curious as to what you meant by owning the lake.

We own the marina and the right to do business at the lake (boats, docks, boat shack etc). Socal Edison technically owns the rights to the water. The USFS owns the surrounding land and technically the lake bottom.

[jeff4321]

sierra phantom once saved 72 people from the back of south lake carrying them out one by one on his back in the middle of a snow storm. he also caught a 60 lb locklaven brown out of long lake and it took him 3 days to hike it out.

sierra phantom- aka THE MAN

[Troutman65]

I hope he don't get hit by any more cars.:Wink:

[VineAssist]

I heard he can surf 20ft waves too.. I also heard he is a lover not a fighter but a fighter so dont get any ideas. I also heard he dosnt drink beer but when he does he prefers Dos XX

[troutdog]

Hands down Jimmy is the Irvine Phantom :ROFL:

"stay thirsty my friend" :Wink:


TD

[Troutman65]

Hands down Jimmy is the Irvine Phantom :ROFL:

"stay thirsty my friend" :Wink:


TD


Ditto :!!!::!!!:

:ROFL::ROFL::ROFL:


Your too funny Jimmy:!!!:

[TroutOnly]

i love the phamtoms storys of the back country fishing ,i bought some flies from him and listened to his storys down at schatts several times,,,T/O

[Marley]

The Phantom's pretty cool. Had lunch "with" us once at Schatt's. He talked, we ate. I even bought a couple of his orange flies, thought they looked very much like my beloved Mirashad in flame. One of my favorites? His hide-covered fishing pole.
And you know what? I ALWAYS believed that anyone who could accomplish the things he has, MUST be a 'crawler tosser. My man!

[phantoms protoge]

I know Phantom well because his favorite lake to fish is South Lake, where we own the landing. He is an exceptional story teller and has an even more exceptional imagination.

My top 5 all time favorite stories he's told me....I could probably do a top 20 list but I'll leave that to your imaginations. And yes folks, he really has told these whoppers...I've heard them.

1. He taught Olympic Gold Medalist Peggy Flemming how to ice skate on South Lake.
2. He lived out behind South Lake many a winter - his pet Bear and pet Mountain Lion would sit with him at the campfire to protect him.
3. One time, during a freak August snowstorm which dumped 8ft of snow, he singlehandedly saved 500 people that were camped at the back of South Lake from certain death by hiking them and their gear to safety.
4. He gets calls from weather authorities from as far away as Australia because he's the only one who can predict what the weather will be like 6 months from now.
5. He holds every world record for every freshwater game fish in North America.

He is one tough old guy - but I have yet to see him walk to South Lake in the last three years. He always gets a ride up the hill and then thumbs his way down to Bishop or rides his bike down the hill. Also, despite his amazing glitter flies - he fishes with nightcrawlers.

Good times,
Smitty

6. He invented the Corn Dog
7. He can hear a bird fart from a mile away
8. Invented Glitter Flies
9. He invented the Triple Lutz
10. He was one of the Army's first rangers and helped train others for high altitude survival

[phantoms protoge]

The first time I met the Phantom was in 1989, we camped at willow camp ground just below Parcher's Village. He wandered in at dusk with his glitter gear and told us we could buy the best fishing flies ever made for $3 a piece. We had dinner with him, drank beers, smoked and he camped out in our camp site with us and told us stories all night until we all passed out.
The next morning he continued to try to sell us those flies. But, happenstance would have it "Power Bait" was so hyped in 1989, we thought he was just an old hobo trying to sell us crap. Phantom then lead us to South Lake where many others were fishing. There was still snow all over and the lake was mostly frozen except where the water fall fell in and a few other spots along the shore where people had thrown large rocks and whatnot to break the ice.

No one was catching anything. But, as soon as the Phantom threw his split shot baited bait caster in with his glitter fly and a GIGANTIC night crawler squished onto the hook he pulled in a GIGANTOR torpedo rainbow trout. It was the biggest trout I had ever seen. To our surprise and dismay, the Phantom threw it back!!! He then said "that's a small one". Everyone on the lake saw him pulling in these HUGE fish and rushed our hole. The Phantom pulled in his line and moved to the other side of the lake where a lot of fishermen had left their spots to go where we had been. BAM ... not even seconds into his 4th cast he was pulling in even larger trout, how that was even possible none of us could believe our eyes. I wish I still had those pictures. They were lost in a storage when I moved out of an apartment and forgot about that storage compartment in the garage.

Now me and my friends wanted to buy those flies and woudln't you know it, they went up in price by $10. Everyone on the lake was buying them! Not many had the needed secret ingredient "jumbo nightcrawlers" or the proper split shot, nor the knowledge how to dance them around at the bottom of the lake like Phantom did, so they had mixed results if any even after buying them. But, since we had been so hospitable to David, he caved and gave us all free flies and showed us how to use them. Before you knew it we were all pulling in gigantic fish. The next problem, how the hell were we going to carry these fish back? We had all caught our limit within 20 minutes and the fish were GIGANTASOURS! I've never had a better fishing day than that day since and it's been 35 years.

Anyway, I've got so many stories with this guy. He may have sounded like a fake with all his stories told like a carnival soothsayer, but he was the real deal.

He taught me so much about high altitude survival, how to fish, how to build a fire, different kinds of wood, how to hunt, how to make glue out of deer hooves, how to camp out undetected,, how to track animals (game trails), how to make hooks out of hangers, how to make traps, how to use Cayenne pepper to keep bears and mountain lions away from your camp site. How to store food (you bury it or hang it) safely. Which lakes you could drink out of and which you couldn't. How to filter water. The list goes on and on. Mostly he taught us how to enjoy nature and camping. that was truly his love in life.

Every summer after that I would go to willow camp grounds and the Phantom would show up like some wizard out of a Tolkien novel. He was an honorable man who loved to share his knowledge with anyone that would listen. If you knew how to use his flies, if you listened to his instructions, you'd never stop catching the best, biggest fish there are. He knew where all the different fish were. Goldens, browns, brookies, Cutthroat and a few that I've never heard of or found in books or online.

One time we were hiking up to the treasure lakes from the back of South Lake through a ravine. David said, SHHHHHHHHHHHH, be quite! with a furled brow and all the serious angry look he could give. Reminded me of Don Knotts when he gets serious. We then hooked right straight up the shale side of the canyon. Every time I tried to ask what we were doing he'd hush me SHHHHHHHHHHH!!! An hour went by and I was getting pissed. Finally, I saw it. The top of something tan moving just below the trail that we had left. It finally came up and sniffed around where we had gone up the steep shale and revealed itself. It was a full grown mountain lion! I don't know how TF Phantom knew that thing was tracking us, but I just about crapped my pants when I saw this thing. We had no gun. What would we do if this thing found us? We were only 50 yards up from him in a slim pocket of trees. He was an old man, I was 19 yrs old and had no clue how you kill a wild mountain lion hell bent on eating you. ****, I was so out f shape up there in that low oxygen as it was. The mountain lion never saw where we were. We were down wind, well it was blowing south and we were east of it, way up there and the shale had a distinct smell that I think blocked our own scent. She wandered off and we never saw her again. But, we did high tail it back down to South Lake. Once there we told our story, but I don't think a good percentage believed us. It was the look on their faces, you know? You can just tell when people think you are full of ****, that kind of oooh yeah sure you did look. On our way back when we felt safe I got the best lesson in fishing and mosquitos of my life anyway. We cut through a very thick forest (because we were scared shitless of that mountain lion coming back after us), full of streams we had to cross. Once we got a few miles in we sat and ate lunch. We stayed quite and I prayed the Phantom could hear or somehow sense if that monster was still after us. After about an hour of sitting very still and quite, the Phantom announced that "We're all clear of that sucker now, no worries". That is when he taught me how to fish in streams. How to read where the lazy water was below a boulder eddies where the current dropped and there's a large deep hole for the torpedoes to live in. I've never seen such large trout pulled out of streams so seemingly small. But we pulled some monsters that day. Just floating his glitter flies down past them with a giant gob of nightcrawler on it as usual. The man was an expert in fishing, hiking and survival up there. Of that I know first hand.

There are many more adventures I've had with David. I could type it out all day long. I just don't have the time, nor do I think this thread will read it anyway.

If you haven't heard, someone wrote a book about the Phantom. It's called "Without a Trace: The Life of Sierra Phantom" here it is on amazon https://www.amazon.com/Without-Trace-Life-Sierra-Phantom/dp/1540324885