Did you read?  We had 180% normal precipitation in the southern sections of the High Sierra this past winter, which reminded me of our very successful trip back in ’95 when we packed to my favorite golden trout lake on Fourth of July weekend.  The lake still had a foot of ice covering every inch but about a 100 by 20-foot section at the inlet.  There, huge, hungry goldens were stacked up ready to spawn in the current.  It’s hard to judge when a lake’s ice-out will occur each year.  At 10,700 feet, could have the lake this time around avoided the record June heat most of California experienced and still be blanketed by a layer of white?

    My schedule this week allows me four days off in front of Independence Day weekend.  It’s good to get in and out o’ there before all the holiday yahoos spoil the place.

    As per standard practice, a week early I pack my rover for the three-hour perilous 4x4 trail leading to the truck camp.  This involves bringing my camper shell down from the rafters, mounting it to the truck bed and throwing all the basics like fish poles, bucket, coolers, stove, lantern and spare tires in there to start the process.  Then during the week, more gets put in until I am down to a bag of food from the frige and a duffel of clothes from the bedroom.

    Wednesday mornings at 6:00 my on-call shift ends, the truck is fully loaded, all I have to do is turn the key and I’m off for an 11:30 arrival in the mythical town of Fishop.  It would figure Ops calls me at ten ’till requesting I check a printer.  Even though I found nothing wrong, that momentum shaker loped off another fifteen minutes from departure time.

    I get in the truck and start driving.  Always focused, a ½ mile from the house I remind myself what my first stop is going to be; a 25-pound block ice for the FOOD cooler near Downtown Corona.  Ah crap, I forgot my FOOD bag in the frige.  I hung a U-ie and was back at the pad in a flash.  I grabbed it, placed it gently in the ice box then toured the house to see what else laying around I should instead have in the truck.  Ah yes the clothes bag lying there on my bedroom floor.  It would be a bummer at 10,000 feet to not have any clothes besides the sandals, shorts and T-shirt I was currently wearing.  Just for funzies let’s make one more scan around the garage for any forgotten items.  All clear, we’re off!

    I found myself in Lone Pine at 10:30.  This is where I usually pick up my wilderness permit for the area I will be camping overnight.  Actually the legal wilderness boundary is about 20 feet from the lake’s outlet, so really I could camp anywhere outside the wilderness without a permit.  Problem is, pitching a tent there will add 20 minutes to the morning hike around to the other side of the lake to the killer fish spot.  This doesn’t fit into my plans, especially when I like to get up at 4am to be over there by 4:30.  The less of a hike at that hour is always good.

    I pull up to the usual ranger station in town to find it abandoned.  The note on the window states I should turn around and go two miles south to the junction with SR198, where I will find a new inter-agency outlet.

    Once there, I find information and souvenirs from the area plus a staff representing the BLM, USDA Forest Service and others.  I go up to the nice uniformed ranger lady and ask in my usual way, yes I would like a wilderness permit for Outoftheway Lake in the Biker Creek drainage.  She asks, when will you be hiking in?  I say, tomorrow 6/29 until Saturday 7/1.  She replied with something, of which I only heard, I can’t give you a permit until 11:00 tomorrow morning.

    A slight however noticeable shudder of panic ran through my soul.  I said, well if I drive up to the trailhead today and camp it would be kind of a hassle to come  all the way back here at 11:00 tomorrow for a permit.  After a small discussion of which every point I was way mistaken, she said, I can write you a permit for tomorrow at 11:00 this morning.  Oh, now I got it.  I checked my watch, I had to hang out another ten minutes.

    I sensed I was already upsetting them by being an idiot, so I didn’t inquire any further to find out if there was a policy change this year.  In all previous years, I obtained permits for the John Muir wilderness at any hour for any day.

    At 11:00 I ventured back in, where another lovely ranger took my order.  Yes, Outoftheway Lake on Biker Creek please, going in tomorrow, leaving Saturday.  She gets on her computer and asks which trailhead I will embark from.  Would that be Palisades, Biker Creek or Parchers?  Then I explain at the truck camp where I am going to park, there really isn’t any sign anywhere up there that officially gives the place a name.  I always called it the end of the road where the head is.  It’s the only head within 100,000 square miles up in there.  You know where that’s at?

    Apparently this one wasn’t in the mood for splanations.  Under her gaze of severe stink eye syndrome, she tells me she’s having a bad day (at 11:00 already).  She asks the senior ranger lady where Outoftheway Lake is, her mentor tells her Biker Creek.  Then the cranky ranger tells me, see I told you, Biker Creek.  More stink eye for another 15 seconds, alas a big 8 ½ x 11 black and white paper prints out, we all sign it.

    It’s a new form this year, looking like it came from DRS/VPS.  I happened to have my old fashioned form from last year handy, you know, the basic handwritten small green one.  I compared signatures.  Sure enough, it was the same ranger broad who last year wrote me the same permit no questions asked, at 9 in the morning.

    So I get to Fishop slightly delayed but no deal breaker.  The plan is to shop for bait, tackle, Sheepherder bread, jerky and a couple steaks for the barbeque before making the three-hour climb up to the truck camp.

    So far the trip’s only real problem arose when Bait Shop One had everything I needed except garden worms.  Last year I caught a lot while using those guys.  The proprietor gave me a story about the worm supplier.  It seems instead of cultivating them in a warehouse, he actually digs them out of the natural valley ground.  He blasted his shotgun over the heads of a flock of birds that was in his field slurping the slime strings down like s’ghetti.  With that the grower got into a heap of trouble, being fined thousands.  He is not allowed to go back to harvest the killer bait while the birds hang.  Sounded to me like the yellow-billed cuckoo, but the shop keep wasn’t sure.

    I tried Bait Shops Two and Three, they said sorry but we all get our worms from the same place.  Oh well, I did manage to find a tub of baby nightcrawlers, but those are so big they’ll probably scare the fish.

    With all the supplies on the list accumulated, I parked on the dirt road as soon as I hit it, cracked open the day’s first brew and let the air out of my tires down to 30 pounds, which makes for more traction and a smoother ride over the rough stuff.  I kind of had to hurry with the air thing due to nature’s accumulation of moisture in the atmosphere.  You probably saw the weather reports the past week (6/26) of the monsoon flow heading up from the tropics into Southern California.  Watching the radar map the past two days I calculated today (6/28) I will have hit the crescendo of the system.  Right when I angled into the first switchback up the mountainside a big black one cut loose and started pouring.

    Another great reason to pick up the pace was the other truck sneaking in behind me.  Two times I have been passed way down here, only to have to follow the person for three hours all the way to my favorite campsite just to watch them pull into it.

    The good news was as I drove up the highway and through town listening to the local radio station, the weather guy said ‘we’ are in for major thunderstorms this afternoon.  That means the storms will be their heaviest over the valley.  Usually they’d say ‘isolated thunder showers over the mountains’.

    As I crested over the mahogany and pinion ridge to get my first viewing of the creek canyon below, BAM!, a big white one hit ground a hundred feet in front of me.  The boom hit me in sync with the lightning.

    Not to worry, soon as I overcame the second creek crossing up into the high plain at 10,000 feet, the skies began to clear and I could see the downpours over the valley as advertised.  For the record I never saw or felt another raindrop the rest of the trip.

    Finally at the truck camp I found the whole place perfectly abandoned.  I saw some relatively fresh tire tracks, so it wasn’t like I was the first one here this season.  Kind of boring at the moment.  I set up my tent, and barbecue, ate two steaks with all the side fixin’s and was in the bag by 8.

    Thursday morning I didn’t even get up until 6.  What an amount of refreshing sleep one can experience up here in the tranquility.  The mind seems to become one with is the small creek that rushes down to the meadow.  Such an effort it was to pull myself out of a melted, relaxed state.

    First thing was to fire up the stove and get the percolator going.  Second was to heat up the iron skillet for the traditional backpacker’s morning fueling; Sheepherder’s Bread French toast and twice-smoked bacon from the Meadow Farms Mahogany Smokehouse.  While all that was cooking, down came the tent.

    After breakfast I started to arrange equipment back into my truck while pulling other items out to be stuffed into a backpack that will make camp for two nights at the lake.  The trick is to have the truck organized and ready, so that when in two days you come out, all you have to do is throw the pack in, put your tennis shoes on, dump the fish on ice and tare off.  I was somewhere around ½ complete with cramming my pack when I found I was missing a little something; MY GODDAM FISH POLES!!

    If there were anyone camping in the canyon within two miles, they’d’ve heard a scream echoing throughout as if Tarzan were in town.  I checked all the nearby trees, on the ground – everywhere – my green zippered backpack rod case is not here.

    That just about pissed me off.  Now what?  A couple options came to mind: get the hell out and go home tail ’tween legs or make a Fishop run to shop for two more rods.  The pot odds for this trip was too great, I can’t fold’em now.  The logistics weren’t too good.  It is already 10:30, I won’t get to the Kmart until 13:15, it will take 30 minutes to select something half way descent, then another three-and-half hours to return to camp.  That’ll put me back here by 17:30.  Conclusion?  I just lost a fishing day.  Why?  Because I won’t be properly acclimated, I have to eat again, and I still have two more hours to pack the pack.  It would be dark before I can start waliking.

    Somewhat depressed but still motivated I set out for an exciting shopping spree.  Oh goodie!  Shiny new fish poles!  Some good news here; I did not see anybody anywhere along the trail.

    At the Kmart I examined something like 40 rods before I selected an identical pair, the Berkeley Lightning Rod 6’5’’ 4lb test model.  At $30 each, together they were less than one of my precious Fenwicks that are in the tube leaning up against the wall next to the water heater in the garage.  It took me the ride down to town to remember where I left them.  And why didn’t I see them yesterday when I forgot all the other stuff and re-scanned the area before I took off?  Scary.

    Right on schedule I was back at camp at 17:30.  I continued packing and cooking a chicken breast and potato thanks to the Vons next door to the Kmart.  Since the skies were clear and the local weather report had no T-storms lined up, all I did was throw down a plastic tarp, unroll my Thermarest and sleeping bag for a place to crash tentless for the night.

    Friday I was up at 6 getting ready.  I didn’t bother cooking, I just boiled water and ate the dehy scrambled eggs and sausage patties that were scheduled for this morning anyway.  I hustled up, having everything packed and ready to hike by 9.  At a quarter ’till my worst fear happened (besides forgetting stuff), another truck with three dudes pull up, strap on their packs, grab their rods and start walking.  I kept saying to myself please please please don’t go to Outoftheway Lake.  Go to Biker Lake where the brookies are lean and boney.  I watched as they stayed on the Biker Lake trail into the woods.

    It only took me 40 minutes non-stop to make my way cross country to the outlet of the lake.  This time I went up the same way I have come down a few times, marking the first time I have ever done that in the twenty years I have visited.  I normally go up and down a different way each trip.

    As I ambled along the north shore toward the prime inlet campsite I see the lake is full and healthy with lots of golden trout surfacing, many tadpoles wiggling and the usual few frogs jumping.  It looked like the three fire rings along side the lake that are always there have not been used yet this season.  As I cross the sandy delta of the inlet I met up with fresh footprints leading right to my favorite campsite.  Crap, it’s one of those dudes from the trailhead making his first casts in my spot.

    As I set up camp and readied my rods I saw the other two dues come out of the trees to join their bud.  After twenty minutes of casting this and that, they seemed to lose interest, stood up and started walking.  I always fish this side of the lake the first day in order to save the better other side for the early mornings.  I kept murmuring, don’t go over to the other side of the lake, don’t go over there don’t go over there.  What did they do?  Right.  They went over there.

    At this point it was almost 11:00 and I was ready to cast.  Out went my Power Bait while I brought in a 1/16 oz gold Kastmaster along the bottom.  The latter trick netted me my largest ever golden trout of 18 ounces back in ’97.

    As the dudes meandered through the trees and the small bog at the back of the lake I watched as they cautiously negotiated the boulders to the good spot.  At first it looked like they didn’t know where they were going until Mr. Herefirst showed the other two the trick by immediately climbing atop of the ancient rock slide all the way up and over to my favorite platform rock.  Dam.

    Already two in the afternoon, I had no bites casting the Power Bait way out, close in, right in the middle and basically all over the place.  One time I saw a 14-inch colorful golden cruise by close to shore, in front of whom I placed my Kastmaster.  He followed it up for five casts before becoming about as bored as I.

    Since the lake was full of 1-inch goldens milling about, I broke off the Kastmaster and started flinging a ½ inch trout pattern countdown Rapala in case there was a big one around who likes to eat small ones.  Nothing.  Tried 1/3 of a night crawler at every depth and location just like I did with the two lures.  Zilch.

    I saw Mr. Herefirst catch a golden looking around nine inches, which he threw back.  I could tell he and the other two in his crew were about fed up, as they slowly got up from their rocky slumber, packed up and started walking out.  They kind of went out with a bang.  Near the boggy meadow at the back of the lake, Herefirst whips out a small caliber pistol and empties it into a old tree stump.  Thanks a frikin lot for enough noise to spook the fish more than they already are.

    With them appearing to be following the inlet creek upstream to Biker Lake I was pretty sure I would have this lake all to myself the rest of the night.  Although the evening rise was as spectacular as I have always seen here, I caught nothing.  Not even a bite.  I tried the bubble and various flies trick, landing the rig where several fish were rising.  I couldn’t get any of them to boil on my dunn, adams, wooly bug or hare’s ear.

    I spaced into a theory which states since the advent of Power Bait, everyone has been coming up here catching a bunch.  I used to catch ten on the goo every time I came.  The lake has been stocked only once since 1968, which means all the fish in here are the descendants of those originals via the annual spring spawn at the inlet.  If all the PB lovers have been caught, now only prodigy of PB haters abound.  This was evidenced by all the fish I caught here last year while tossing the garden worms.

    By nine o’clock it was dark enough for me to need to use my headlight.  Disheveled, disjointed and every other dis you can think of, I ambled back to camp to boil some water for a dehy stew dinner.  How low can you get.

    After dinner I spent a half hour setting up my outfits for the morning: one with the standard ¼ oz. egg sinker holding down a #18 bronze treble tied to three feet of 2 lb leader and the other with a gold 1/16 Kastmaster, painted stripe hot orange.

    Saturday morning at four I woke up to my new Radio Shack portable clock radio playing CBS news on KNX.  Up here you only get distant AM stations between sunset and sunrise.  I crawled out of my 2.2 oz tent, tied on my Irish Setters and with the traffic report telling me someone died on the 5, I donned my pack, grabbed my rods and started the march across the inlet, where you really have to watch where you place your foot nowadays.  Due to our heavier-than-normal snow pack, all of the usual stepping stones are now under rapid water.

    Once past that minor danger zone, I was over the hump, through the bog and climbing the alluvia.  I put my pack down, plugged my rod holder into the mud, and rocketed my PB rig as far out into the deepest spot as I could.  With that rod soaking, bell attached, I fired up the stove to boil lake water to be used to re-hy breakfast and instant coffee.  While that cooked I fan cast the Kastmaster, counting down 38 seconds to the bottom of the abyss.

    Well I’ll be go to hell, I cranked and cranked my lure in when I heard my bait bell sound.  I ran over, plucked the rod out of the holder and reeled in until the line’s tautness was overruled by the reel’s drag buzz.  It didn’t fight all that much but I could tell by the general resistance I was on to a nice one.  I dipped my net and out came a 13-inch male golden trout bedecked in full glory spring spawn colors.

    That was one expensive fish and I’ll bet you it was the last PB lover in the whole 10-acre compound because about fifteen minutes later I caught my second golden of the trip – a female – using, you figured, the small one-third end of a baby nightcrawler sinking slowly via the neutrally buoyant clear bubble trick.

    Here’s where having to report my first day back to work every Sunday morning is a problem.  I have to disembark this side of the lake at 8am, pack up camp and be out by 10am, back to the truck and driving by 11am.  That way I can get home by 17:30, unpack, organize and otherwise stress until 22:00, my absolute bedtime deadline.

    On the way out, heading into the Saturday start of the holiday weekend, I knew I would run into quite a few characters heading up.  First was a pickup with mom and dad holding a baby wondering if the really rough road leading down to lower Biker Creek was open.  I said I’m too scared to even look down there.  Off they went.  Next was an SUV, 4 motorcycles with backpacks, 3 rhinos, 5 more motorcycles, another 2 SUVs, and the most dreaded on this narrow path, an H2.  After all these years this is my first Hummer up here.  I had to back quite a ways uphill to find a spot to pull over wide enough to allow the behemoth to get the hell away from me.

    So what do ya know.  It only depends on when they want to bite; the day I have to leave.  Just in time for the yahoos to take over.

Crummy pic of the two goldens i caught this trip.

*****

From Breakwall Robert 5/11/2006:

Fished Lake Hemet and Lake Cuyamaca....It was beautiful out there and the trout fishing was great!!! Gave all the fish away and just fished for FUN!!!

I didn't fish Bishop this Opener but I was still able to catch some nice trout closer to home....see ya

*****

From Jim L. 5/2006

Lake Sabrina Closed, Virginia Lakes Closed, Rock Creek Lake very slushy no open water, Intake Two below Lake Sabrina fishing poor, Lower Twin Lake by Bridgeport fishing very good, Robinson Creek fishing poor, Gorge power plant excellent.

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