Marley
04-25-2010, 10:33 PM
It wasn’t until noon Thursday, when we found ourselves north of Mojave, that I was certain that we would actually make it to Big Pine and our first night’s lodging. I didn’t know if we would make it on up to Mammoth and ultimately Crowley until well after noon on Friday. Work is different now, and issues were trying to arise. But things have a way of working out and it was soon clear that we would be able to stay the weekend.
Mom always makes the trip, and my brothers and their kids join us in Mammoth. This year, as did last year, found the family too busy with their lives to be able to make the trip, so Mom and I had to tough it out without them. She has the blown half-crawler thing down to a science and needs only a little help tying knots in the light line that is becoming almost impossible for her to see. I guess things start looking kinda fuzzy when you’re 74 years old.
We were the only guests on the condo complex we’ve stayed at for years, so we didn’t have to be at all quiet when leaving at 3:45 Saturday morning. No one else was on the road in town, and only a handful of headlights and tail lights on Hwy 395 told a story of much-lighter-than-normal crowds. We would later estimate at least a 20% smaller crowd but that’s purely anecdotal and without a lick of science.
Marley’s Secret Spot was wide open this year and we quickly claimed our turf. One thing conspicuously absent was wind. There wasn’t even a whisper until about 11:00 Saturday morning, and we didn’t get any kind of appreciable wind until 1:00 or so and it blew for only about 45 minutes, calming to a nice breeze. Nothing at all like last year’s dangerous morning conditions of whitecaps and foam stringers across the lake.
Ice-out conditions had the fish hungry and up close to the shoreline, feasting on the insects hatching in the warming, shallow water or cruising around and enjoying the marginally warmer climes. Whatever the reason, we found our fish to be holding tight to the shoreline, taking our baits at depths close enough to our lawn chairs to actually see the take, had we only been looking. All but two of our limits of fish came from water that was ten feet deep or shallower.
I had two fish in the basket before sunup, Mom quickly caught up with two of her own before 7:30 when the bite slowed dramatically. It was a pick bite on larger model fish from then until we left with limits at 2:00. Not that the fish weren’t biting, it’s that the bite was more of the typical grab-and-go of a cold-water bite than the whammo-slammo bite that I have come to enjoy out of Crowley trout. We had trouble setting the hook and wound up with a lot of corner of the mouth hooksets and a lot of farmed fish. I lost one that was easily 5 pounds, Mom lost one a bit smaller. I had one taker that gave two huge headshakes when I swung and then shook the hook.
My limit weighed 11 pounds 7 ounces, Mom’s went just over 8 pounds. Mine was anchored by a 3-8 male rainbow in spawning colors, Mom’s biggest weighed 1-14. All sported rich, orange-colored meat, the kind you get by growing up in a cold, mineral- and insect-rich lake over the winter months. That’s the reason we fish Crowley; the quality of the fish is just so far and away above any other water up there.
All of our fish were caught on my beloved blown half-crawler (which were purchased at Big Pine High School Friday morning), with the one exception of my fifth fish coming on an M&M.
This was my 27th opener, and I hope I have at least 27 left. It’s something that everyone who loves the pursuit of trout should do at least once in his angling lifetime.
Mom always makes the trip, and my brothers and their kids join us in Mammoth. This year, as did last year, found the family too busy with their lives to be able to make the trip, so Mom and I had to tough it out without them. She has the blown half-crawler thing down to a science and needs only a little help tying knots in the light line that is becoming almost impossible for her to see. I guess things start looking kinda fuzzy when you’re 74 years old.
We were the only guests on the condo complex we’ve stayed at for years, so we didn’t have to be at all quiet when leaving at 3:45 Saturday morning. No one else was on the road in town, and only a handful of headlights and tail lights on Hwy 395 told a story of much-lighter-than-normal crowds. We would later estimate at least a 20% smaller crowd but that’s purely anecdotal and without a lick of science.
Marley’s Secret Spot was wide open this year and we quickly claimed our turf. One thing conspicuously absent was wind. There wasn’t even a whisper until about 11:00 Saturday morning, and we didn’t get any kind of appreciable wind until 1:00 or so and it blew for only about 45 minutes, calming to a nice breeze. Nothing at all like last year’s dangerous morning conditions of whitecaps and foam stringers across the lake.
Ice-out conditions had the fish hungry and up close to the shoreline, feasting on the insects hatching in the warming, shallow water or cruising around and enjoying the marginally warmer climes. Whatever the reason, we found our fish to be holding tight to the shoreline, taking our baits at depths close enough to our lawn chairs to actually see the take, had we only been looking. All but two of our limits of fish came from water that was ten feet deep or shallower.
I had two fish in the basket before sunup, Mom quickly caught up with two of her own before 7:30 when the bite slowed dramatically. It was a pick bite on larger model fish from then until we left with limits at 2:00. Not that the fish weren’t biting, it’s that the bite was more of the typical grab-and-go of a cold-water bite than the whammo-slammo bite that I have come to enjoy out of Crowley trout. We had trouble setting the hook and wound up with a lot of corner of the mouth hooksets and a lot of farmed fish. I lost one that was easily 5 pounds, Mom lost one a bit smaller. I had one taker that gave two huge headshakes when I swung and then shook the hook.
My limit weighed 11 pounds 7 ounces, Mom’s went just over 8 pounds. Mine was anchored by a 3-8 male rainbow in spawning colors, Mom’s biggest weighed 1-14. All sported rich, orange-colored meat, the kind you get by growing up in a cold, mineral- and insect-rich lake over the winter months. That’s the reason we fish Crowley; the quality of the fish is just so far and away above any other water up there.
All of our fish were caught on my beloved blown half-crawler (which were purchased at Big Pine High School Friday morning), with the one exception of my fifth fish coming on an M&M.
This was my 27th opener, and I hope I have at least 27 left. It’s something that everyone who loves the pursuit of trout should do at least once in his angling lifetime.