I want to begin by saying thank you to Jared and his bothers for welcoming us and making us comfortable. I can't wait to get back up to Parchers in three more weeks!
What a blast! We arrived Thursday night around 9PM and checked into our cabin so excited we could barely go to sleep. It was about 42 degrees when we arrived and we awoke to frost in the morning. A quick breakfast and off we went to South Lake for some fishing.
It was a little nippy at about 45 degrees and breezy, but the sun was strong and we forgot the sunscreen. The water was icy cold and so were the fish which made them a little lethargic and not so much fight.
We set up at boiler cove and initially the catching was slow. Grandpa was catching about 2 to every one that OFG caught using power bait and pink power worms. I was determined to catch something on a lure and it took me about 4 hours of changing different things before I finally decided to sit down and fish. I caught most of mine on an inflated nightcrawler within 30 minutes and finished off our limit. Then it was a nice hike back up to the car.
We met an old timer who was fishing near the launch ramp who shared how he had caught and released about 35 fish using live crickets. It was nice shooting the breeze with him while we caught our breath. Once back at the cabin we were happy to sit back and enjoy the scenery and get ready to cook our steak and potatoes on the open fire. We walked around and talked to a few others who were less fortunate than ourselves, but they were having a great time never the less.
Saturday we woke up to wind gusts and decided to go down to Bishop and hit the Owens. It was about 90 degrees in the valley, but the water was cold.
No sooner did OFG thow in her pink power worm and she got slammed by a nice quality rainbow. Unfortunately we forgot to bring a net and it spit the hook at the shore. :( Later OFG confided that she never had any confidence in powerworms, but I think that is changed forever now. ;)
We caught a couple of small browns which were also released and then decided to try PVR. OFG once again got rid of the skunk with the first fish at this location, but Grandpa couldn't seem to entice a bite. I floated a few crickets and then used inflated nightcrawler for nata and noticed a lot of fish surfacing. At that point I decided to switch to a bubble and slowly jig a wooly bugger in olive. That seemed to be what they wanted because I caught 4 right away in the 2 -3 pound range. Like I said before, we didn't have a net with us, and it was difficult to bring the fiesty fish up on the shore, so 3 were released right at my feet, but I managed to keep one. It was a lot of fun and I wanted to stay, but we decided to call it a day.
We didn't get back to the cabin until 10:30 PM Saturday Night and the sky was scattered with stars - It was unbelievable! Once again, as tired as we were from the days activities it was hard to go to sleep knowing we would be on our way home the next morning. But morning did come, we said our goodbyes and went our seperate ways. We got a call a little later from OFG that she stopped at Intake II and caught something really nice. I hope she got a picture of it and shares it with us.