Carrie
09-05-2007, 10:46 PM
This past Labor day weekend (9/1-2/2007) was an amazing weekend! Scary….fun….and lots of adventure! Now most people who have read my reports know that I work at Manzanar – the Japanese relocation center during WWII. Well…..as always my weekends living up here are quite spontaneous and a majority of the time I never know what is going on or what will happen next. Well this is quite a story…..
On Friday August 31st I finally got to meet Cory (Fear No Trout). Immediately after I had just realized that there was this huge derby going on in the Sierras where you could possibly win a million dollars. Of course I didn’t know about it until that Friday when it started. I was originally supposed to go home and visit family and friends but once I found all of this out I decided to stay and enter the derby.
Now before all this I got to hear more info about Cory’s fishing display at Manzanar. It is soooo much more entertaining to hear about it in person with him standing in front of the display….haha!
Cory explaining the display to a few people:
http://i188.photobucket.com/albums/z121/cjhearn_photos/0831071223.jpg
Cory and I in front of his fishing display:
http://i188.photobucket.com/albums/z121/cjhearn_photos/0831071235.jpg
Now Cory had some friends with him and plans to stay in a cabin at June Lake Loop over the weekend so we thought of making plans to fish together. So Saturday rolled around and I got up at the crack of dawn and made my way over to Convict Lake to register for the trout derby. Now there are rules to this game so let me splain if some of u really don’t know anything about it:
Basically it was $50 to register which comes with a hat, pin, chapstick, keychain, different types of worms and a full bottle of gulp along with a bunch of magazines/coupons and a ticket to a bbq/live music in the Village at Mammoth.
Now the rules are that u can catch a fish at 15 lakes in Mono county- Convict, June Lake Loop, Bridgeport Lakes, and the Mammoth Lakes. After registering at one of the many check-points one goes out and gets their fishing on! The challenge: to catch a tagged fish. If one catches a tagged fish they are entered into a drawing where u will automatically win something (i.e. a fishing rod, free fly fishing tour, bait and cash). Also, one lucky winner who caught a tagged fish gets their name drawn and has a chance to win the million dollars. U open a set of 40 envelopes and the first five of a kind is ur prize – a boat, a Ford F50 truck, a vacation in Mammoth or the Million Dollars. Next, the one person to catch the most tagged fish gets $2,000 and the first people to catch a tagged fish from any of the lakes at June Lake Loop gets $250. Lastly, everyone gets a chance to have their name drawn at the end who was in the event and they give away vacation packs to June Lakes, Bridgeport, Mammoth, etc.
So of course I was willing to take this challenge on and at least have some fun doing it!
Registration at Convict:
http://i188.photobucket.com/albums/z121/cjhearn_photos/0901070636.jpg
So of course I make my way over to a good spot at Convict lake and set up my poles. I get my waders and shoes on and get right in the water with my spinning reel. Within 2 hrs or so I still wasn’t getting any bites.
Me at Convict:
http://i188.photobucket.com/albums/z121/cjhearn_photos/0901070706.jpg
So of course I have to make my rounds and decide what lake to go to next. This takes me some time to figure out. So I drive up past Mammoth Lakes and go straight to June Lake Loop. I start driving around and it was pretty packed. I decide to try Silver Lake for a few hours.
Silver Lake:
http://i188.photobucket.com/albums/z121/cjhearn_photos/0901070957.jpg
Me with the derby hat on by the lake:
http://i188.photobucket.com/albums/z121/cjhearn_photos/0901071312.jpg
Unfortunately, once again I wasn’t catching anything. I was using gulp eggs, craws, power worms, bang and spinners. At this point I decided to go up to where I always catch fish – Virginia Lakes.
So here I feel like I am on a treasure hunt trying to find the tagged fish to enter the drawing to win something. So I drive up to Virginia Lakes. Now a side note to all this…..I had been trying to get in touch with Cory to fish with him but phone reception up here is pretty bad! So I couldn’t get in touch with him to fish with him.
I set up my gear at Virginia Lakes and decided I am going to use my nightcrawlers. Ohhh! I had a hard time getting used to touching them. I grossed out badly and looked the other way as I ripped them in half….haha!
Virginia Lakes:
http://i188.photobucket.com/albums/z121/cjhearn_photos/0901071312a.jpg
Now I am fishing in my waders in the water and within five minutes I catch a 4in brookie. A very cute and pretty fish! Unfortunately, as I was about to take a pic of it …..it got off the hook and swam away….argh!....lol. Now I kept getting bites the rest of the day and caught a few more brookies that were tiny so I did C & R. Now I am SOOOOO glad I did this! In the middle of fishing at Virginia Lakes I had met a family who was fishing right next to me. There were several people fishing near me but not next to me. Basically, the family yells at me and says…..there is a bear behind u! I had no clue how to react to that. I was just thinking….ur joking! Uhhh….no!! I look to my right and here is this big bear.
Me looking over at the bear:
http://i188.photobucket.com/albums/z121/cjhearn_photos/me_bear.jpg
(This pic is in thanks to the family: David, Christine, Sam and Ellie who emailed this to me)
The bear down stream from me:
http://i188.photobucket.com/albums/z121/cjhearn_photos/bear.jpg
So of course I can’t run away from it. There is a group of people to my right and left watching me by myself next to this bear. They all start yelling at it and throwing rocks. It slowly walks away from me and the family (David and Christine) slowly tell me what to do cuz I was just frozen. Slowly I listen to Christine who is acting like my mom…lol. I walk towards them with their kids and stand next to them along with all the other people. They are all looking at me asking me if I am okay. Of course I really didn’t know what to say. Slowly the bear comes back and it finds my fishing gear. It sits down next to my stuff and starts going through it. Luckily I didn’t keep my fish cuz it would’ve taken them and ripped my stuff to pieces. Then slowly the bear walks away and goes behind all of us. Some of the men come out and yell at it so it leaves. Now it goes to the other side of the lake. At that point I run over to all my stuff and thank the family. Their kids r freaking out so I get my stuff and walk quickly back to the car. Half of the fishermen knew who I was at that point and ask me if I was okay….LOL.
That was the end of the first day of the derby for me and with no tagged fish! That night I got in touch with Cory and find out that they were fishing the same lake as me. But they had just left before I got there. So I find out that they all will be fishing at Virginia Lakes again on Sunday so I tell him I will join them.
Here is all my stuff prepared for the last day of the derby:
http://i188.photobucket.com/albums/z121/cjhearn_photos/0901071918.jpg
So the next morning I get up at 4am and drive all the way up to the same lake again. I find Cory and his crew of 7 or 8 people….LOL. We all make our way over to the far side of the lake past the bridge.
That morning:
http://i188.photobucket.com/albums/z121/cjhearn_photos/0902070818.jpg
Now there were a ton of people so I fished further down from Cory and met all kinds of fisher guys and gals!
People all fishing near me:
http://i188.photobucket.com/albums/z121/cjhearn_photos/0902070753.jpg
I set up my fishing pole but right before I set up Cory (FNT) taught me the inflated night crawler trick and how to string them on my mosquito hook. So with more new knowledge I make my way over to set up my gear. I started fishing around 7:30am and everyone around me is catching fish. No action is happening for me so I start trying gulp eggs, craws, worms and then I decide to set up my second fishing pole.
Here I am in the water in my waders trying my luck to catch a fish:
http://i188.photobucket.com/albums/z121/cjhearn_photos/0902070907.jpg
Now as I get my second pole out there a few minutes later I got a fish! It was pretty small tho. I got a little 7 in rainbow. Now I was using gulp dough and they were loving that. At this point many people were leaving so I went and set up my gear next to Cory and started fishing more. He had caught several fish at this point.
Cory fishing:
http://i188.photobucket.com/albums/z121/cjhearn_photos/0902071139.jpg
So of course we got to share more Manzanar stories and my digging stories. It was a blast!! We met several other fishermen who we were telling about Manzanar and the fishing network. I felt like I was advertising.
Now another cool thing I learned was to fish using the open bail affect (I think that is the right name? Cory correct me if I am wrong.) Basically, I learned a new technique that was better than my own that helped me reel the fish in and set the hook. Thanks for the tips FNT! I learned a bunch of new things while fishing that day and all kinds of new brands of rods that would be good to buy for the future.
Anyways, within a few minutes with my two rods out I caught a nice 12 in brown.
Here he is:
http://i188.photobucket.com/albums/z121/cjhearn_photos/Picture02-1.jpg
That was my first brown! Exciting! Again for some reason they were hitting on gulp dough. The next fish I caught was a dual effort between me and Cory. The fish got stuck on both our lines so Cory cut his line and I reeled the fish in. Another rainbow around 10 inches or so. I really wanted a tagged fish and the others fishing with us caught several fish but none of them were tagged. I felt like these lakes were really fished out from the derby so I was having a hard time catching much….let alone a tagged fish.
Now FNT caught well over his limit but only kept one fish. It was around 2 lbs and was twice the size of my 12 inch brown.
Pic of Cory and I with our fish:
http://i188.photobucket.com/albums/z121/cjhearn_photos/0902071342.jpg
All of us who fished together with all our fish at the end of the day:
http://i188.photobucket.com/albums/z121/cjhearn_photos/0902071344.jpg
My collection of fish at the end of the day:
http://i188.photobucket.com/albums/z121/cjhearn_photos/0902071355.jpg
So we all fished until around 2pm. I luved it!! We all had so much fun, and I learned lots of new things!! I brought the fish to my car and ran into the family who basically helped me get away from the bear the other day. I went inside to eat lunch at Virginia Lakes and their kids were all excited and talking with me….:) David and Christine came up to me and showed me the pics of the bear and asked me for my email so they could send me the pics that are shown above! They were such nice people and did an awesome job helping me! They told me to stay away from bears ….haha!
After lunch I drove down to Mammoth for the awards ceremony in the Village at Mammoth. I got food and Citizen Joe performed. Now in the middle of this bbq was a big festival. There were fly fishing demonstrations so a guy taught me how to cast a fly rod. Then I went over to another station where a guy gave me a talk about how to tie a fly. What fun!!
Eventually they presented all the tagged fish winners with prizes. Now the guy that got his name drawn to win the million dollars didn’t get the million dollars. He matched up the envelopes and won a mammoth vacation. He looked very disappointed….LOL. All the tagged fish winners got free rods and bait.
Now many of the people I met fishing from all my lakes were there so I went and talked to some of them. Many of them caught tagged fish so they showed me their stuff. One of the guys got a free fly fishing lesson/tour. Lucky!
But what a weekend. Thanks soooo much for fishing with me FNT and if there is anything you would like to add to this report ….go ahead!
And thanks to the family: David, Christine, Ellie and Sam for helping me. That was a life saver!
Pic of the logo on the jackets given out for the derby:
http://i188.photobucket.com/albums/z121/cjhearn_photos/0902072333.jpg
I had a blast this weekend, even tho I didn’t catch a tagged fish, and definitely was entertained by all the surprises. This derby happens every year in the Sierras so I recommend that all of u come out if u can. It was really fun!
Now this coming weekend one of the volunteers at Manzanar has two fly fishing rods so he is going to take me out on Sunday and teach me how to cast and fly fish. What fun!
On Friday August 31st I finally got to meet Cory (Fear No Trout). Immediately after I had just realized that there was this huge derby going on in the Sierras where you could possibly win a million dollars. Of course I didn’t know about it until that Friday when it started. I was originally supposed to go home and visit family and friends but once I found all of this out I decided to stay and enter the derby.
Now before all this I got to hear more info about Cory’s fishing display at Manzanar. It is soooo much more entertaining to hear about it in person with him standing in front of the display….haha!
Cory explaining the display to a few people:
http://i188.photobucket.com/albums/z121/cjhearn_photos/0831071223.jpg
Cory and I in front of his fishing display:
http://i188.photobucket.com/albums/z121/cjhearn_photos/0831071235.jpg
Now Cory had some friends with him and plans to stay in a cabin at June Lake Loop over the weekend so we thought of making plans to fish together. So Saturday rolled around and I got up at the crack of dawn and made my way over to Convict Lake to register for the trout derby. Now there are rules to this game so let me splain if some of u really don’t know anything about it:
Basically it was $50 to register which comes with a hat, pin, chapstick, keychain, different types of worms and a full bottle of gulp along with a bunch of magazines/coupons and a ticket to a bbq/live music in the Village at Mammoth.
Now the rules are that u can catch a fish at 15 lakes in Mono county- Convict, June Lake Loop, Bridgeport Lakes, and the Mammoth Lakes. After registering at one of the many check-points one goes out and gets their fishing on! The challenge: to catch a tagged fish. If one catches a tagged fish they are entered into a drawing where u will automatically win something (i.e. a fishing rod, free fly fishing tour, bait and cash). Also, one lucky winner who caught a tagged fish gets their name drawn and has a chance to win the million dollars. U open a set of 40 envelopes and the first five of a kind is ur prize – a boat, a Ford F50 truck, a vacation in Mammoth or the Million Dollars. Next, the one person to catch the most tagged fish gets $2,000 and the first people to catch a tagged fish from any of the lakes at June Lake Loop gets $250. Lastly, everyone gets a chance to have their name drawn at the end who was in the event and they give away vacation packs to June Lakes, Bridgeport, Mammoth, etc.
So of course I was willing to take this challenge on and at least have some fun doing it!
Registration at Convict:
http://i188.photobucket.com/albums/z121/cjhearn_photos/0901070636.jpg
So of course I make my way over to a good spot at Convict lake and set up my poles. I get my waders and shoes on and get right in the water with my spinning reel. Within 2 hrs or so I still wasn’t getting any bites.
Me at Convict:
http://i188.photobucket.com/albums/z121/cjhearn_photos/0901070706.jpg
So of course I have to make my rounds and decide what lake to go to next. This takes me some time to figure out. So I drive up past Mammoth Lakes and go straight to June Lake Loop. I start driving around and it was pretty packed. I decide to try Silver Lake for a few hours.
Silver Lake:
http://i188.photobucket.com/albums/z121/cjhearn_photos/0901070957.jpg
Me with the derby hat on by the lake:
http://i188.photobucket.com/albums/z121/cjhearn_photos/0901071312.jpg
Unfortunately, once again I wasn’t catching anything. I was using gulp eggs, craws, power worms, bang and spinners. At this point I decided to go up to where I always catch fish – Virginia Lakes.
So here I feel like I am on a treasure hunt trying to find the tagged fish to enter the drawing to win something. So I drive up to Virginia Lakes. Now a side note to all this…..I had been trying to get in touch with Cory to fish with him but phone reception up here is pretty bad! So I couldn’t get in touch with him to fish with him.
I set up my gear at Virginia Lakes and decided I am going to use my nightcrawlers. Ohhh! I had a hard time getting used to touching them. I grossed out badly and looked the other way as I ripped them in half….haha!
Virginia Lakes:
http://i188.photobucket.com/albums/z121/cjhearn_photos/0901071312a.jpg
Now I am fishing in my waders in the water and within five minutes I catch a 4in brookie. A very cute and pretty fish! Unfortunately, as I was about to take a pic of it …..it got off the hook and swam away….argh!....lol. Now I kept getting bites the rest of the day and caught a few more brookies that were tiny so I did C & R. Now I am SOOOOO glad I did this! In the middle of fishing at Virginia Lakes I had met a family who was fishing right next to me. There were several people fishing near me but not next to me. Basically, the family yells at me and says…..there is a bear behind u! I had no clue how to react to that. I was just thinking….ur joking! Uhhh….no!! I look to my right and here is this big bear.
Me looking over at the bear:
http://i188.photobucket.com/albums/z121/cjhearn_photos/me_bear.jpg
(This pic is in thanks to the family: David, Christine, Sam and Ellie who emailed this to me)
The bear down stream from me:
http://i188.photobucket.com/albums/z121/cjhearn_photos/bear.jpg
So of course I can’t run away from it. There is a group of people to my right and left watching me by myself next to this bear. They all start yelling at it and throwing rocks. It slowly walks away from me and the family (David and Christine) slowly tell me what to do cuz I was just frozen. Slowly I listen to Christine who is acting like my mom…lol. I walk towards them with their kids and stand next to them along with all the other people. They are all looking at me asking me if I am okay. Of course I really didn’t know what to say. Slowly the bear comes back and it finds my fishing gear. It sits down next to my stuff and starts going through it. Luckily I didn’t keep my fish cuz it would’ve taken them and ripped my stuff to pieces. Then slowly the bear walks away and goes behind all of us. Some of the men come out and yell at it so it leaves. Now it goes to the other side of the lake. At that point I run over to all my stuff and thank the family. Their kids r freaking out so I get my stuff and walk quickly back to the car. Half of the fishermen knew who I was at that point and ask me if I was okay….LOL.
That was the end of the first day of the derby for me and with no tagged fish! That night I got in touch with Cory and find out that they were fishing the same lake as me. But they had just left before I got there. So I find out that they all will be fishing at Virginia Lakes again on Sunday so I tell him I will join them.
Here is all my stuff prepared for the last day of the derby:
http://i188.photobucket.com/albums/z121/cjhearn_photos/0901071918.jpg
So the next morning I get up at 4am and drive all the way up to the same lake again. I find Cory and his crew of 7 or 8 people….LOL. We all make our way over to the far side of the lake past the bridge.
That morning:
http://i188.photobucket.com/albums/z121/cjhearn_photos/0902070818.jpg
Now there were a ton of people so I fished further down from Cory and met all kinds of fisher guys and gals!
People all fishing near me:
http://i188.photobucket.com/albums/z121/cjhearn_photos/0902070753.jpg
I set up my fishing pole but right before I set up Cory (FNT) taught me the inflated night crawler trick and how to string them on my mosquito hook. So with more new knowledge I make my way over to set up my gear. I started fishing around 7:30am and everyone around me is catching fish. No action is happening for me so I start trying gulp eggs, craws, worms and then I decide to set up my second fishing pole.
Here I am in the water in my waders trying my luck to catch a fish:
http://i188.photobucket.com/albums/z121/cjhearn_photos/0902070907.jpg
Now as I get my second pole out there a few minutes later I got a fish! It was pretty small tho. I got a little 7 in rainbow. Now I was using gulp dough and they were loving that. At this point many people were leaving so I went and set up my gear next to Cory and started fishing more. He had caught several fish at this point.
Cory fishing:
http://i188.photobucket.com/albums/z121/cjhearn_photos/0902071139.jpg
So of course we got to share more Manzanar stories and my digging stories. It was a blast!! We met several other fishermen who we were telling about Manzanar and the fishing network. I felt like I was advertising.
Now another cool thing I learned was to fish using the open bail affect (I think that is the right name? Cory correct me if I am wrong.) Basically, I learned a new technique that was better than my own that helped me reel the fish in and set the hook. Thanks for the tips FNT! I learned a bunch of new things while fishing that day and all kinds of new brands of rods that would be good to buy for the future.
Anyways, within a few minutes with my two rods out I caught a nice 12 in brown.
Here he is:
http://i188.photobucket.com/albums/z121/cjhearn_photos/Picture02-1.jpg
That was my first brown! Exciting! Again for some reason they were hitting on gulp dough. The next fish I caught was a dual effort between me and Cory. The fish got stuck on both our lines so Cory cut his line and I reeled the fish in. Another rainbow around 10 inches or so. I really wanted a tagged fish and the others fishing with us caught several fish but none of them were tagged. I felt like these lakes were really fished out from the derby so I was having a hard time catching much….let alone a tagged fish.
Now FNT caught well over his limit but only kept one fish. It was around 2 lbs and was twice the size of my 12 inch brown.
Pic of Cory and I with our fish:
http://i188.photobucket.com/albums/z121/cjhearn_photos/0902071342.jpg
All of us who fished together with all our fish at the end of the day:
http://i188.photobucket.com/albums/z121/cjhearn_photos/0902071344.jpg
My collection of fish at the end of the day:
http://i188.photobucket.com/albums/z121/cjhearn_photos/0902071355.jpg
So we all fished until around 2pm. I luved it!! We all had so much fun, and I learned lots of new things!! I brought the fish to my car and ran into the family who basically helped me get away from the bear the other day. I went inside to eat lunch at Virginia Lakes and their kids were all excited and talking with me….:) David and Christine came up to me and showed me the pics of the bear and asked me for my email so they could send me the pics that are shown above! They were such nice people and did an awesome job helping me! They told me to stay away from bears ….haha!
After lunch I drove down to Mammoth for the awards ceremony in the Village at Mammoth. I got food and Citizen Joe performed. Now in the middle of this bbq was a big festival. There were fly fishing demonstrations so a guy taught me how to cast a fly rod. Then I went over to another station where a guy gave me a talk about how to tie a fly. What fun!!
Eventually they presented all the tagged fish winners with prizes. Now the guy that got his name drawn to win the million dollars didn’t get the million dollars. He matched up the envelopes and won a mammoth vacation. He looked very disappointed….LOL. All the tagged fish winners got free rods and bait.
Now many of the people I met fishing from all my lakes were there so I went and talked to some of them. Many of them caught tagged fish so they showed me their stuff. One of the guys got a free fly fishing lesson/tour. Lucky!
But what a weekend. Thanks soooo much for fishing with me FNT and if there is anything you would like to add to this report ….go ahead!
And thanks to the family: David, Christine, Ellie and Sam for helping me. That was a life saver!
Pic of the logo on the jackets given out for the derby:
http://i188.photobucket.com/albums/z121/cjhearn_photos/0902072333.jpg
I had a blast this weekend, even tho I didn’t catch a tagged fish, and definitely was entertained by all the surprises. This derby happens every year in the Sierras so I recommend that all of u come out if u can. It was really fun!
Now this coming weekend one of the volunteers at Manzanar has two fly fishing rods so he is going to take me out on Sunday and teach me how to cast and fly fish. What fun!