Eastern Sierra Closer Trip 2011 - Nov. 4th to Nov. 6th

[RiverWalker]

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Hello everyone! Now that my fingers have thawed out, here's my report from our recent trip from the 395 North. I have one word for you....COLD! The original plans were to move around and hit Intake 2, South Lake, Bishop creek, Convict Lake, Upper Owens, Lake George, Rush Creek, Gull Lake, Grant Lake, and the Little Virginia Lake. Unfortunately Good ole Mother nature had other plans for us. It basically snowed on us every day with a few breaks here and there. The snow itself wasn't too bad, it was the 10mph winds that accompanied with it. I never had my wet hands stick to my reels until this trip and I've fished in horrible conditions in the past. It was quite an experience but I would do it again in a heartbeat regardless of the 16 to 28 degree conditions!

Since the forecast in Bishop indicated rain, we decided to head to Convict Lake for some float tubing action since I would rather deal with the Snow than being wet. We arrived at about 4 am and decided to try to get a few hours of zzz's before suiting up. At about 6:00 we realized that a tube session wasn't going to happen because the snow was now coming down rather heavily and the winds picked up and were making white caps.

We then decided to head back down South a little to check out Rock Creek. By then, the sun came out a little but the road up was covered with snow. No problem though, Between four of us, we C&R's 18 pan sized Rainbows. I caught all of mine (8) on a Yellow/Red/Black Panther Martin. Here's some pics....
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After RC, we headed to Mammoth to check in and try to defrost the ice locks that built up on the straps holding our float tubes to my rack. Once accomplished we headed to Lake George to float tube. Collectively we C&R'd only about 15 small Rainbows. All were caught jiggin trout worms in orange or driftin those gulps pinch crawlers in orange as well. Sorry no pics. It was down right freezing at this point (16 degrees) and the snow was coming down hard. Visibility was about 15 feet. I wasn't about to fiddle around with my camera phone with numb hands while tubing. Here's a picture of the road leading to Lake George. I had a blast driving on the fluffy snow!
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The next day we headed to one of my favorite creeks in the Eastern Sierras...Rush Creek! Decided to hit THE spot first. As we arrived, we saw a older man leaving with a stringer of 15 Browns between 20" and 24". All KIA! My heart sank! To top it off, he told us that the day before there was another group in THE spot and he watched them catch and kill/keep 25 more! Even though I was pissed, I didn't say anything to him because I guess it's in his right to keep a limit I suppose. We'll I figured that he was with 2 other guys since they had 15 on the stringer only come to find out that there was only 1 more guy walking up as we were walking down. Ughh! So we get to the spot but it only had room for 2 of us. We work the pool for about 20 minutes or so before making some adjustments and my buddy finally landed a nice 20". My two other friends looked bored and so I figured we should move on to a spot that had more room for all of us instead of all trying to work a 5 by 5 foot pool. Right on cue, a guy comes walking over and we start talking. Come to find out it's Matt44. Cool guy! We talk a bit and then we gave him our spot to keep it in the FNN family. (That place was crowded. Other peeps were trying to fish it from top, from the front side and across) Matt44 completely slayed the Brownies after we left! See his post! Great job Matt! After we left, we basically worked almost the entire section opf Rush creek from Silver Lake to the Grant Inlet. Between us 4, we landed 3 nice Browns in the 20"-22" inch range and about 15-20 bows. The largest being about 15". All Released! All caught on either trout worms and Trout magnets.
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Between Saturday night and Sunday morning it dumped a lot more snow over night so we weren't able to check out until about 11:00 am. On the way home we hit Convict Lake to fill up a quick stringer of SnowBows to take home. And that we did. We must of caught over 30 Bows within a few hours and kept about half. All were caught with either orange trout worms or on those gulp pinch crawlers. The scenery at Convict was simply stunning! Until the next time!
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[billy b]

Nice goin ... sorry that the weather held you back some .. but those are purdy fish! How are you fishing those pinched crawlers/ I bought some and tried to thread them like a powerworm and fish them the same way ... but no luck

THANKS

[FSHNLIC]

Nicely done!!!! Gorgeous pictures

[RiverWalker]

Hey Billy B. The weather held us back big time but we still had a blast. Those pinch crawlers really work well. Almost too well. I felt kind of guilty using them. I try to use artificials for the most part but when the going gets tough, I have no shame changing it up when needed. Better then a skunk! I think because the water was so cold on this trip, the fish were pretty lethargic and weren't as willing to chase things around. I usually kill em up there using Red/Gold Thomas Buoyants and kastmasters but this year I don't think I got one hit on hardware. Well except for at Rock creek using panther martins. We just rigged the pinch crawlers with a split shot and size 8 or 10 mosquito hooks. Threw them out there and reeled them in with a extremely slow retrieve with a twitch or pop every now and then. You could even just toss them out and let them sit like your using power bait too if you want.

[RiverWalker]

Thanks FSHNLIC! Wish we fell into some of the weather you did while you were up though. Can't wait for the opener. Since we couldn't hit it hard like usual, this trip did nothing to satisfy my ES itch! It was just a tease!

Here's a few pics of the icicles that formed on my ride. It was pretty cool!
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[bstolton]

Nice job braving the weather and still getting on the fish. Be up there this weekend, hope we can get on some nice fish also. Maybe the weather won`t be so hard on us.

[Matt44]

Nice report randy it was good meeting you out there! Nothing beats fishing in weather in the teens haha! I know if I can't make it up for one more trip ill be counting the days down tell the opener

[MexicanPistachio]

Great report and what beautiful picture you took. My hat goes off to you for sticking it out with the weather, I for one would of ran back home with no regrets.

[TROUT MASTERS]

Thanks for the report and for the great pic's,
i will be up there this friday.hoping that the weater will give me a brake to fish the loope.
Nice bows and browns.
Thanks.

[John Harper]

Should have put in a call to CALTIP, looks like your spot is doomed. Nice hotspotting.

John

[RiverWalker]

Hello John. I definitely would of considered calling CALTIP if I was witnessing these 2 guys taking over their limits in action but it was kind of pointless because they were leaving just as I was walking down to the creek. As I mentioned, I didn't even realize that they took more then their limit until I saw only 1 more guy walking by us instead of the two I was expecting. By then we were already near the creek and figured those guys were long gone. It's definitely is not MY spot. I stumbled upon this spot years ago by accident while covering and scouting the entire Rush creek system. But in no way do I claim it to be my spot. What exactly do you mean by 'Nice Hotspotting'? Are you implying that I only target the glorified Hot spots? I read that you made a similar comment to Matt44. As my post outlined, I was fishing up in the Sierras for 3 days and hit THE spot for about 20 minutes before moving on even though knew the pool was still full of fish. You call that Hotspotting? I kind of agree with you about the spot being possibly doomed though. That is if people like the ones I witnessed keep doing what they did and not having any consideration for the future of the fishery.

[John Harper]

Both of you have given enough information about where you fished that a blind squirrel could find the place. The creek you call out makes it just so easy for people to harvest all those fish. And they obviously are all over it.

Maybe try to at least disguise the name of the place, is that too hard?

Just sad to see all the decimation of those beautiful fish.

John

[RiverWalker]

Thanks Bstolton, MexicanPastacio, and Trout Masters!

Pretty good pics for a Android camera phone huh? Technology these days! haha. Good luck up there with the catching and weather! And for your safety too! Those icy road were straight treacherous in places. Be safe! After counting down the days before my trip and making the long drive, I wasn't about to let Mother nature ruin our trip. She could slow us down but she couldn't completely stop us! hahaha. Layer up!

[RiverWalker]

Thanks Matt. Good meeting you too. Fishing in that weather was quite the experience. I just wish I took some pics while float tubing Lake George. You couldn't even see the color of our tubes it was covered with so much snow while we were out there. Hope you could make it back by next week. I know my wife wouldn't let me go back so soon! Although the last closer she did. Nah! I'm not going to push my luck! =)


Nice report randy it was good meeting you out there! Nothing beats fishing in weather in the teens haha! I know if I can't make it up for one more trip ill be counting the days down tell the opener

[RiverWalker]

Look John. I share your concerns and I am also sad at the decimation of those beautiful fish too. I just think you're barking up the wrong tree here. What information did I expose that people didn't already know? I never once posted any pictures where people could further identify the exact spot being mentioned by looking at the background in my pics. I never described where to go or gave any directions. As a matter of fact, a poster asked where to go on Rush on Matt44's thread and I told him how nice and productive the entire stretch of Rush is. I've referred to it by calling it THE spot. I don't get it. In fact, most of what I wrote about the place was about the BS I witnessed. If you could locate where I was talking about solely based on anything I personally wrote then you are one smart Squirrel!


Both of you have given enough information about where you fished that a blind squirrel could find the place. The creek you call out makes it just so easy for people to harvest all those fish. And they obviously are all over it.

Maybe try to at least disguise the name of the place, is that too hard?

Just sad to see all the decimation of those beautiful fish.

John

[John Harper]

Well, I'm just pointing out how quickly a prime location can be wiped out by those with no consideration of others. Then again, what else is new.

John

[RiverWalker]

Totally agree and I shared the same sentiments in some of my previous posts

[TroutOnly]

BEAUTIFULL PICS ,,,,,,GREAT REPORT,,,,,,,,,,,PICTURES AND THE STORY TO GO WITH IT,THATS A FISHING REPORT,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,t/o,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

[Greg Madrigal]

way 2 slay Bobby. One word 4 ya.......fuh-reezing!