A fishing tour of Bishop & surrounding area

[sansou]

After years of hearing people extol the virtues of Sierra trouting, I finally made the 6 1/2 hour trek this past weekend. At the expense of boring you Sierra connoiseurs with this Sierra-newbie's report, I'll let the pictures do the talking:

Disclaimer: all fish were C&R'd, all fish caught on hardware, with exception of a few cheating instances of dipping my San Juan Worm & bubble in a little salmon egg juice. Ha ha!!

Early saturday morning, we hit Route 168 and made our first stop at Intake II. It was 29 degrees out at 8 am.....there was ice around the shore! Caught one measly rainbow, but saw a couple gigantic ones swimming around. Only one other fisherman around.

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We continued up the road after a 40 minutes or so of messing around Intake II, and fished the creek in Aspendell very briefly for one missed fish. You probably could nail a bunch of these small brownies fishing with bait if one wanted to....


Next stop was North Lake. Very nice lake, chock full of fish. In the space of an hour, I caught approx. 5 brown trout (nothing big), but did farm a cutthroat at the bank! I was a little miffed at that.[attachment=7:a18c8]Bishop Nov 2007 013.jpg[/attachment:a18c8]
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I even fished the inlet stream to North Lake! Too much fun...
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(I'll have to add the rest of the trip & pics in a couple hours once the server cooperates...)

[City Dad]

C'mon, Sansou, you tossed the small ones up into the bushes now, didn't you?

Nice pics. Just looking at that icy water made certain parts of my anatomy contract.

I look forward to the rest of your pictures

[one_leg]

Finally................................you know how I felt upon being there.

O_L

[IncredibleHuck]

Great pix of the trip! I cant wait to see the rest of them!

[Mike274]

Sansou,

Well then, what's the verdict, did any of us lie about that mistical place called the Sierra's? It is definately God's country! FYI, when temps are below freezing limit the time the fish is out of the water. Their gills can actually freeze as do our hands when fishing up there this time of year.

Thanks for the great pics and report. Look forward to seeing the rest.

Mike

[sansou]

PARTE DEUX DU VOYAGE......

(sorry about the Salmo Trutta Interruptus, but I kept losing my report earlier)

...so continuing up Route 168, and after working North Lake a little, by late morning we made it to the entrance of Lake Sabrinaw. Along the road at the entrance, one finds this great little pool of water. It had been thoroughly worked over by the salmon egg/PB crowd unfortunately, but I neverless gave it a dozen spins of the lure to no success. It appears they stock the stream with big rainbows. I was kicking myself in the butt for not bringing my 3wt..... This is the perfect place to continue learning how to work some dry flies as you can see everything perfectly... Next time.
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LAKE SABRINA: absolutely gorgeous. The water level looked really low, but was gin clear. I had one decent hookup on a slab spoon (trying to work it deep), but otherwise no love. There were a few fishermen, maybe a dozen or so, with a couple fish everyone was claiming to be Alpers. This is one lake I would love to troll...
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After eating a quick sack lunch and spincasting a little, we were once again off to explore the adjacent southern other valley. Our first stop was at Parcher's just to look around....no one home, although there was a Camry parked in front of the shop with the trunk open and a strung fishing pole....
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Just up the road on the way to South Lake, we came across a beautiful marsh/pool. I couldn't resist throwing a couple tiny spinners (Size 00 Mepps/Aglias). One tiny brown got duped.
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We finally made it to South Lake. Very pretty place. The water level looked to me to be very low (I estimate from the tree line maybe 40 feet+???) Looks like behind the island is a stream feeding the place according to the USGS map. Looks like a fishy place to me.....!!
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On our way down from South Lake I stopped at a number of places along the creek, with each quick stop getting 3 or 4 casts. One memorable spot (I think called "Willow Campground") had a nice pool that had 2 humongous rainbows along with a few decent size browns. It looks as though many have given this pool a shot as the trees on the other side were strewn with powerbait and hooks and stuff... I got there just as the sun was being eclipsed by the mountains (maybe around 4 pm)....it got cold real fast once the sun set.
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[sansou]

PARTE TROIS DU VOYAGE !!

Leaving the pool at Willow Campground, and since the girls wanted to go swimming at the hotel pool, I dropped them off in Bishop and made a solo beeline to Highway 6 where it crosses the Owen River. I figured I had 2 hours of sunlight left. I wasn't quite sure what to expect, as my initial thoughts were that it was kind of dumpy in that area. There were a few fishermen around, all having excellent success with rainbows using salmon eggs (the fireball variety). I cheated and tied a really small bubble with a San Juan which I dipped in crushed salmon egg juice. It was WIDE OPEN thereafter. In fact, it didn't matter what you were using. After I realized the first few trout were swallowing the San Juans, I switched to a spinner after losing my last SJ fly. I didn't see or catch any browns in this stretch, but was told that the "Five Bridges" area has some large ones... I was giving away the bleeders to this one old guy, who in turn was more than happy to share local fishing spots.
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[nandob25]

Beautiful pictures.

i've never been up there... looks like a lot of fun.

Thank you for sharing.

[sansou]

If I haven't bored you enough yet....

PART QUATRE DU VOYAGE !!

Sunday morning us again in an adventurous mood, despite last night's mediocre dinner in town (the steakhouse next to the Holiday Inn express). I decided to hit the outflow from Pleasant Valley Reservoir. In terms of fishing I would say for me this was the highlight of the trip (though North Lake was outstanding as well!). I spent 40 minutes fishing the lower end right where the gates are at. On my first cast I caught a rainbow, and I was bummed, thinking this would be a repeat of last night's fishing the Owens in town. After switching up to a larger sized spinner (P Martin with yellow body), I cast far upstream and across the bank and was hammered by the largest brown I caught all trip. This SOB took me across the stream and under the grass. It is hard to tell from the pics, but he has the beginnings of a kype (lower jaw was hooking a bit). It took some doing to get him in without busting the line. I plan on coming back here in the winter if it is open and truly spending some time fishing these waters! Thereafter, it was open season on the small browns. Lots of fun, but we had to leave to make our quick exploratory trek southward on the 395...
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Look at the size of this crayfish claw!! Yikes!!
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Thereafter, we made a quick no-fishing stop at Klondike Viewing Park (right outside of town). The water was murky.
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Again, as we worked southward, we stopped at the outflow of Tinnemaha (sp?) Reservoir. The water was flowing good, but it was murky. The fishing was excellent for stocker rainbows, as I nailed two in the 20 minutes or so that I was there.
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Another highlight of the trip was a stop and visit to Manzanar. Keep the good work up Cory!!
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After yet another mediocre meal (Mt. Whitney restaurant....sorry.), I conned the wife into 20 minutes of fishing at Lake Diaz. No hits at all on the lures. I did not notice a fish rolling in the shallows and as best as I could tell it was a carp. The water was laden with silt, very low visibility. I would imagine this lake holds resident smallmouth?
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FIN !!

[IncredibleHuck]

Wow! Great report! I'm glad you enjoyed your time up there in the Sierras! Now if only I could make it up there before the 15th, i'd be one happy man! I think im going to have to wait till the opener to get up there instead.

Once again Thanks for those great pictures!

[one_leg]

Them are some real nice looking browns!

Rich, you gotta troll Lake Sabrina because it's a lot bigger than it looks and it is real beautiful. Rent the pontoon because it has a bar-b-que on it.

Thanks for the pics/report.

One_Leg

[Beeracuda211]

Nice Report Rich... I love the pics... especially the one where the craw tried to snatch at your lure and your tore that suckers arm offf!! LOL Now it has one arm... you could have saved him and gave him to One Leg for a pet... lol

The one with the "sandbath" didn't live i'm assuming... lol

B/C

[WJC71]

Great report :lol:
Thanks for all the pics
Heading up to those same spots Thursday and Friday

[tpfishnfool]

Great report and pics!! Eastern Sierra's in the Fall... Priceless

[Carrie]

Nice report! What nice browns u caught. And u know....one funny thing....I drove right over that pass on hwy 6 Sat evening. In which u were probably fishing there. It was my intent to fish there but it seemed a bit crowded so I took myself somewhere else....haha. Too bad cuz I prob would've ran into u. Pleasant Valley reservoir and the lower owens are very nice. Usually seems pretty wide open out there. Anyways, it is good to see u got to fish quite a few spots! :D

[City Dad]

Great pics, man. Some really nice fish!

[Beancounter]

Those are some great pictures.
I'm planning to take that same route this weekend. :banana:
Thanks for the preview.

[breeze71]

Great report & pics Rich. Nice looking fish!

[Wingnut]

Tres Bon Sansou, tres Bon! Awesome report & beautiful pics. One of these days I've got to get away for a trip like that. Fabulous! :mrgreen:

[diamondbear]

GREEAATT PHOTOS , I sure miss going there in the fall , thanks for sharing // db

[Troutoholic]

Great report and pictures Rich! The Owens is for the most part always wide open, it's my go to spot when the lakes are not producing. Glad to see that you had the opportunity to fish many spots up there.

[Granny Fish]

Great pictures Rich, glad to see you finally made the trip. Next you try for some back country fishing for some native goldens.

[TroutOnly]

GREAT REPORT AND PICS SANSOU, I LOVE THOSE DARK COLORED BROWNS YOU CAUGHT ,YOURE THE KING OF THE SPINNER BAITS,,t/o :banana: :banana: :banana: :banana: :banana: :banana:

[Rick James]

how do you fish the san juan worms? on a fly rod? or split shot em on spinning gear?

[howstar]

WOW :P great report :arrow: Thanks for sharing :banana:

[Nessie Hunter]

Awesome Rich.. Great report & pics... :banana:

You 'will' be back..... 8)

[troutslayer05]

Great Report man. Thats a huge brownie.

[steve092]

Nice pics, and nice browns.
Those must be awesome to catch.

[*CatAddict*]

Awesome report Sansou,

I'm making the same trip later next week.

[DreStyle]

Rich, awesome report man. I can't wait for next season.

[Robert trout hunter]

oMG THE WATER IS SOOOOOOOO CLEAR NICE PICSS AND AND ....EVERYTHING

[budman8]

Rich those are some awesome pic's! Looks like you had a great time!
I heard you like to crank them lures out there!

Budman8

[See Chris Fish]

Wow!! What a report!!
Thanks for the journey.

[BIGRED KILLA]

Great job out there Sansou.Nice looking trout and GREAT JOB ON THE CPR.!!






Bigred

[Dalizzy07]

man ive always wanted to fish in Bishop looks like a exciting place to fish and spend time with family

[fisherkid47]

Thoes are some beautiful browns!! Awesome job on getting them :banana:

[feesh]

great report and nice pics!

feesh

[bones]

Great Job Rich. I'm heading on up there at the end of this week. Those browns are real nice. God knows that I've caught my fair share. Did those Bownies get some air time in on the fight? I always love how they fight........verrrry high spirited...LOL
Thanks for sharing. The story got me anxious to get my azzz up there ASAP.