Upper Rock Creek -LLV- Grand Slam

[teejay]

My goal was to catch a brook, rainbow, golden and brown trout –a “grand slam”- from the waters of the Little Lakes Valley, all within a 24 hour period. I have prior successes in the area catching rainbow trout and, of course, the ever present brookies. However, the limited angling options in the area for the brown, and especially the golden trout, would prove to be an obstacle in obtaining my goal:

I left home later than planned and made it up to the ranger station in Bishop where I thankfully was able to obtain my wilderness permit and rent the requisite bear canister just before closing time. I arrived at the Mosquito Flats trailhead and headed up the canyon –meeting a few day hiking stragglers who were headed back down to the parking lot, a weary but happy bunch.
I made camp about mid way up the valley and only had a brief amount of time to rig up and squeeze in some fishing before it was dark.
It wasn’t to long before I hooked into a brook:
http://i948.photobucket.com/albums/ad322/teejaygrady/Little%20Lakes%20Valley%20-Box%20Lake/IMG_1566.jpg

Followed by a rainbow which eagerly smacked one of City Dad’s foam winged specials:
http://i948.photobucket.com/albums/ad322/teejaygrady/Little%20Lakes%20Valley%20-Box%20Lake/IMG_1567.jpg

Sundown over lakeside camp:
http://i948.photobucket.com/albums/ad322/teejaygrady/Little%20Lakes%20Valley%20-Box%20Lake/IMG_1579.jpg

Things were looking good at this point. Less than 15 minutes fishing and two down, two to go in securing my goal. I managed another small rainbow and a few more brooks before having to call it a night. At this point I was also pleased that I was not experiencing any of the usual onset issues of altitude sickness. The only variable that I can attribute this to, is a deviation from my routine in choice of fast food in Bishop. In the past, I always hit the Taco Bell and loaded up on Mexican food. This time I stopped at McDonalds where I purchased the double cheeseburger meal deal (burger, small fries and soda) and an additional double cheeseburger from the dollar menu. I don’t know what it was about this particular meal (the dill pickles?), but it seemed to stave off the symptoms on this particular trip.
After a restful nights sleep and a nice breakfast, I headed up the trail past Long Lake where I veered of the main trail and followed the inlet stream of Long up to the Treasure Lakes. There is a fair use trail that climbs up through the willows and then flattens out along a meadow until a talus filled chute is reached. It’s then up the rock blocks of the chute before topping out at the outlet of Treasure Lake #1. It wasn’t easy going.
Long Lake:
http://i948.photobucket.com/albums/ad322/teejaygrady/Little%20Lakes%20Valley%20-Box%20Lake/IMG_1578.jpg

Cross country route to Treasure. View down to Long Lake:
http://i948.photobucket.com/albums/ad322/teejaygrady/Little%20Lakes%20Valley%20-Box%20Lake/IMG_1577.jpg

Topping out at outlet from Treasure:
http://i948.photobucket.com/albums/ad322/teejaygrady/Little%20Lakes%20Valley%20-Box%20Lake/IMG_1576.jpg

Now, it was my understanding that of the four lakes that make up the Treasure group, lakes 1&2 are supposed to have brook and goldens, while 3& 4 have goldens only.
With that understanding in mind, I wasn’t too surprised when I pulled this guy out of Treasure #1:
http://i948.photobucket.com/albums/ad322/teejaygrady/Little%20Lakes%20Valley%20-Box%20Lake/IMG_1568.jpg

I caught two more brooks quickly in succession, thought, “Okay, lets see what the next lake has to offer”, moved on to Treasure #2, where I quickly caught even more brookies. The grey quill wing fly provided to me by City Dad proved to be a brook trout magnet at these lakes.
Treasure Lakes #1 & 2:
http://i948.photobucket.com/albums/ad322/teejaygrady/Little%20Lakes%20Valley%20-Box%20Lake/IMG_1572.jpg

Although I was having fun, I couldn’t help wondering out loud, “where are the goldens”. I moved a very short distance up a cascade to lake #3 and was immediately pleased at this lakes ample size. This thrill was short lived however after noticing the lack any surface activity, previously observed at the two lower lakes in the chain. I made a circuit around half of this lake and made repeated casts with various offerings and only saw two small very skittish fish close to shore.
Treasure Lake #3:
http://i948.photobucket.com/albums/ad322/teejaygrady/Little%20Lakes%20Valley%20-Box%20Lake/IMG_1573.jpg

Giving up on lake #3, I moved over to lake #4, the smallest in the basin:
http://i948.photobucket.com/albums/ad322/teejaygrady/Little%20Lakes%20Valley%20-Box%20Lake/IMG_1574.jpg

Upon first glimpse of this lake, I entertained visions of it being packed with goldens, but after scoping it out from a rocky vantage point overlooking the lake, this is apparently not the case. The lake is deep and although I couldn’t see if any fish may be lurking down in the depths of the middle, the paucity of fish visibly cruising around the shore was discouraging. However, the occasional rise still gave me some hope. After trying even more offerings on this lake, I tied on a beadhead nymph that was also provided to me by City Dad. The first cast with this fly resulted in a hookup with a nice golden which, as I reeling it close to shore, dashed for a rocky lair, sawing off the tippet in the process. Having no more beadheads in my possession, I tied on a semi weighted hares ear pattern and repeated the previous moves which resulted in this guy. Not wanting to repeat loosing the fish, I snapped a quick picture before landing:
http://i948.photobucket.com/albums/ad322/teejaygrady/Little%20Lakes%20Valley%20-Box%20Lake/IMG_1575.jpg

It was getting late, time to head back to camp. As I passed Long Lake, I made a couple quick casts at the outlet area and caught a small rainbow. Although there was still enough daylight left to head down to Mack and try for a brown, at this point, I just didn’t have any more energy left.
The next day, I packed up and headed down to Mack Lake where the plan was to lounge around and fish. The morning started out with blue sky and no clouds but as the day progressed, a change in the weather was evident:
http://i948.photobucket.com/albums/ad322/teejaygrady/Little%20Lakes%20Valley%20-Box%20Lake/IMG_1582.jpg

At this lake, I managed catching seven brook and finally my first brown of two:
http://i948.photobucket.com/albums/ad322/teejaygrady/Little%20Lakes%20Valley%20-Box%20Lake/IMG_1584.jpg

I made a hasty retreat back to the car as the thunder started booming, arriving just before the clouds began to dump.
Although I didn’t reach my goal in the time allotted for the task. I still accomplished catching four species of trout from the LLV.

[SierraPeaks]

What an incredibly good report...and great pics.
Thanks and congrats on a memorable trip.

[Piss on Myspace]

damn man, absolutely gorgeous...I can just smell that fresh air...
awesome report , pics make me want to get in the truck now...
congrats from one hd rat to another

[BIGBASS MB]

very nice report, I can't wait till I go up there in Sep.. Thanks for the Pics.
MB

[bstolton]

Awesome report and pics, congrats on the grand slam. Was just up there at the end of july and had a great time also. Leaving in 2 1/2 weeks for june loop can`t wait.

[n2H2O]

how did you like those snow flurries?? we hiked up to Francis lake on Saturday for a few hours and had snow flurries most of the way... on and off. we got back to the truck around 6 and it was cold.. ill have to back pack that area next year... so many lakes, so little time. \

oh yeah.. we didn't have much luck @ Francis tossed in a few lures with no action. the Gf started to get hypothermic on me so we cut the trip short.

[flytyingreloader]

THAT was one of the most beautifully written and illustrated reports I've read here. VERY well done!

[Sierra_Smitty]

Epic report & pics.

[Natural Lefty]

Teejay, I read your report last night but had to go to bed so didn't reply. (Dang morning classes). Congratulations on an excellent trip and report. I had always wanted to go to the Treasure Lakes of LLV but never have been there. (I have been to the ones behind South Lake when they all still had Goldens.) I guess only the highest lake there still has a decent Golden population -- reminds me of 20 lakes basin, where a bunch of the lakes are supposed to be Golden lakes, but most of them have been taken over by Brookies. I used to catch lots of Brown Trout in LLV, but very few Rainbows. i wonder if the populations of those have shifted too. I also caught an occasional GR hybrid there before, with the Golden part probably descended from Treasure Lakes fish.

I mentioned we had a cat with kittens before. Well, I was on vacation, the mom cat got sick, minor for her but major for the babies when they got it. We were trying to nurse the kittens back to health but they stopped feeding, and continued to be infected. We were able to bottle feed one of them, but they all died, even that one, so we were pretty sorrowful. That messed up my summer vacation, but with no kittens left, we did decide to go to Mammoth on Wednesday (too late to fish on Wednesday). So yes, we did have a trip. We hardly got any fishing pictures, because with no time to charge the digital camera, its batteries ran out before long. Anyway, it wasn't a Sierra Grand Slam trip, but I wanted to tell everyone that fishing up there is doing okay from our perspective, though it wasn't great. We went to Mammoth because we were planning to go there in June but wound up staying at my brother's house. I managed to coax my wife to go to Big Virginia Lake and hike into Blue Lake and the "Brookie Pond" (as I call it) below Blue Lake on Thursday. I have never seen any reports from these places so I thought they were worth mentioning. I caught 6 Brookies (small, about 6-7 inches which is common there) and a baby Rainbow. My wife didn't catch any because the good spot involved wading through the creek to get to the other side of the Brookie Pond. Well, that's to be expected while fishing with the wife. She was miffed at me for making me shoes so wet (no waders). We also caught 1 Brookie at Blue Lake. We went fishing around Mammoth the next day, several areas. The wind was howling at Twin Lakes, but the Mary Lake area was calm -- really strange. All the fish we caught (6 of them) were in one of the inlet creeks to Mary Lake, in an area where I am surprised we got through without a machete or without sinking up to our knees in the muck (wet shoes again, but it was fun). One of the fish was a good size Brookie I measured at 11 1/4 inches, while the rest were Rainbows that looked stockerish, but Eunice caught the biggest one, thankfully, not huge but over 12 inches. We also witnessed another guy catch a Rainbow in a another creek. My pictures are still on the camera, and things have been pretty crazy around here, but just a shout out to let people know we made it to the Eastern Sierras and there are lots of places out there with fish to be caught. Oh, and Eunice insisted on only going to places she had never been to before, which prevented us from going to some of my favorite spots. Oh well, there are so many places to explore, so it's no problem. Most of the fish were caught on worms, but I caught one or two with a Pheasant Tail Nymph behind a bobber and missed some strikes. I was too intent on helping out my wife to explore artificial possibilities that much. We did keep the fish except for a couple of small ones from the Brookie Pond and had a couple of good trout dinners, especially the Brook Trout.

I am glad to know at least that there are Goldens in LLV, Teejay. There are also supposed to be Goldens in Mills Lake above Ruby Lake, by the way. Treasure Lakes sounds like quite an adventure. My pictures show Eunice beneath the Twin Lakes waterfall, Eunice beside Blue Lake with pole in hand, Eunice casting into Lower Twin Lake, the scenery at Big Virginia Lake, etc. You get the idea. The camera went dead after the Twin Lakes waterfall picture. Dang, I really would have liked to have a picture of my Brookie from the Mary Lake inlet. Now, nobody will believe me, I guess.

[Beancounter]

Man, your pic of "View down to Long Lake" hit your discription perfectly.
Made me feel as though I was there.
Thanks for the great report!

[teejay]

Thanks to all for the comments. Fortunately I missed the snow flurries in the high country and the flash flood that closed down Hwy. 395. I’m going back up Rock Creek way in a couple weeks to try a few different lakes.
Lefty, I looked up Finch Lake on the topo, traced your probable route, and all I can say is “holy crap” … I think I'll pass on that one. Anyway, it’s Nice to hear that you made it up Mammoth way. Good job on that brook trout from the creek.

[Natural Lefty]

That brook trout from the creek was actually one of several about that size that bit that day, but was the only one we hooked somehow. At least I managed to land it. Yesterday my dad told me about another creek near Mary Lake where he used to catch trout when I was too young to fish or remember anything that happened (like 2 years old). I'm saving that one for next time. The day we left Mammoth, August 28, they were predicting snow the next day, but actually, a little snow fell on my car while we were driving through Mammoth. That was "cool" for sure.

I don't think Finch Lake was that difficult to get to. Maybe it looks harder on the map than it is. I do remember my brother took another route back to our campsite at Long Lake which he said was a real adventure with snow fields and possible glaciers, but I went back the way we came.