High Sierra 8/28
I picked this week for my High Sierra run for a couple reasons. I didn't want to miss parking my butt on the couch the past two weeks to view all the exciting Olympic coverage from Beijing and once all that was over, I could hit up my secret golden trout retreat and get out on Thursday before all of the Labor Day yahoos show up. The basic logistics are to drive to Bishop, take a 22-mile four wheel drive trail for three hours, park at 10,200 feet then backpack 1 ½ miles up another 500 feet to the 10,700-foot lake. This is the only place I know of where there are goldens so close to where you can park. All other lakes and streams containing this species are at least a five mile trek at similar elevations.
I spent weeks at a time at this spot years ago and now have the trip synthesized to a four-day whirlwind. Sunday do yard work, clean the house, install the shell onto the truck, fill it with camping and fishing gear, get cube ice and Cokes, put some groceries from the fridge onto block ice in the food cooler.
Monday morning I departed the abode at 4:30, arriving in Lone Pine right at the eight o’clock opening of the Eastern Sierra Interagency Visitor Center for a wilderness permit. The lake I go to lies about 100 yards past the John Muir Wilderness boundary.
I was somewhat dismayed as I passed through town at the lack of snowpack on the highest peaks near Mt. Whitney. Even though it’s August, there should be noticeable white patches up in there.
On to Bishop for the usual remaining errands. Culver’s didn’t have the golden’s favorite bait – Brown’s garden worms – again for the third year. The man said he won’t buy them because they are of terrible quality. Brock’s gave me the same story, nobody in town has small worms, only baby night crawlers, a can of which I bought in Elsinore before I left.
Over at the butcher shop I picked a super fresh $15 porterhouse for dinner. While bro wrapped it up, I overheard another dude tell his buds about how he saw several trucks towing trailers yesterday up my road. I imagined monster Fords dragging house-sized units, clogging the narrow, twisty, bumpy trail. The man said archery deer season opened recently and a bunch of hunters are up there. I recon I would have to beware of arrows.
Next stop was Mahogany Farms Country Smokehouse for cowboy jerky and some pre-hike breakfast bacon. Amazingly the prices haven’t changed for 20 years.
Lastly was a stop at Schat’s Bakery for a loaf of sliced Sheepherder bread for French toast and sandwiches.
Once I hit dirt five miles out of town, I saw four trucks with trailers parked near the power substation, all of which had been towing quads. I lowered the tire pressure to 32 psi to start the crawl up the switchbacks, where at the top were two other similar rigs. Into the pinion pine zone, out they came, all six Polaris riders concluding their trip. Their guide stopped for a chat, I asked how they did. He said they hit up Upsidedowncone Lake and Pebblyfloor Lake for some good rainbow action. I mentioned that in 2005 – the really wet year – Upsidedowncone was empty and dead, I wouldn’t think that after the past three relatively dry winters the lake would be back in action. He said the DFG planted it this year and that Pebblyfloor has been in good shape for years.
I changed both lake’s names here so only those who know me and my spot will be familiar.
Up into the high flats it was good to see Middle Palisades Glacier looking fat and happy. I’ve seen it smaller than this back in the mid-nineties.
As I turned right into the lakes basin the good news was we had a cloudless sky, no need to worry about thunderstorms like what are happening over the Mojave Desert this week. The bad news is all of the snow has melted, meaning there wasn’t much of a winter up here this year.
Finally I arrived at the end of the road to find I had the whole place for myself. I set up camp and filled jugs with water at the spring. Man did that taste sweet! I walked over to the unmaintained outhouse that looked old 22 years ago when I first visited to find it is filled to the seat and basically falling down. As long as you have a shovel and nobody is around it doesn’t matter. Just do it away from any water.
I readied my backpack then grilled the steak and a potato before hitting the sack.
Tuesday morning I fired up the stove for the pre-hike big breakfast. The menu was double smoked bacon, Sheepherder French toast and fresh perked 5 Continents coffee.
All carbed up, I spent digestion hour folding camp and loading the truck so that when I come down on Thursday all I have to do is put the fish on ice, throw the pack in the back and drive.
There is no trail to the lake. You have to know where to go between the lodgepole and limber pines. I have never been up or down exactly the same way twice; the goal is to show up at the lake’s outlet, which meant you took the most efficient route. An hour and five minutes later I was there, however as you can see there is no outlet this year as the lake appears to be at least fifteen feet low. That’s okay, I have seen the tarn this empty before. It only helps to concentrate the fish so you don��t have to cast very far.
One always wonders if a lake in the high country will freeze solid and cause winterkill. One hint was right when the lake came into focus an osprey took off from a tall tamarack. He wouldn’t be hanging out if there were no fish.
I was amazed how much flora has grown along the empty lake bed, as it was full just two years ago. That means during the extremely dry year of 2007 the lake dropped 16 feet and all these grasses and other plants sprouted and are now thriving after only one year. 2008 had slightly better results precipitation-wise and you can see due to a flowing inlet creek the lake has risen a foot this year as evidenced by terrestrial plants now under water. If we ever get another wet year, filling the lake once again, having a lot of submerged rotting plant life will cause the scuds, plankton and aquatic insects to bloom, all of which in turn will fatten the fish.
Anyway, the low water levels made it really easy to walk to the back of the lake to where I always pitch camp. When the lake is full you have to tromp through trail-less scrub oak and laurel thickets to get back in there. I like the inlet because it is close to potable flowing water and easy access to the other side of the lake where it is deepest.
After I set up camp I rigged yellow Power Bait on my 4-lb 6 ½-foot rod and on my 7-foot 6-pound outfit a 1/12 oz gold and hot pink Kastmaster. I walked down a short distance from camp to a likely deep spot and tossed out the bait. I placed the rod in a spike holder and attached a bell, then flung out the small lure. Ten minutes later I see a light colored wad of something drifting by about fifty feet out there. I put down the lure pole to reel in the bait rig and find a fish has just sucked the bait off the hook, a good sign. I resupply the hook with stink dough and cast again.
A few minutes later I glanced over at the bait rod to see I had nibbles that weren’t dinging the alarm. I removed the bell and reeled in a little guy of six inches, not a good sign. Years past nothing in this lake was less than twelve inches in length. The problem with the alarm was I was using a ¼ oz egg sinker and the golden was too small to move it along the bottom.
Since trout will always swallow the #18 treble hook covered with Power Bait, I cut the line in order to release it. The hook will rust out soon and all will be fine. I retied, re-baited and cast once more. I only had time for five casts with the lure before the bait pole again wiggled with no bell sounding. Another seven-inch specimen was released.
At this point I realized small would be the size of fish I'd be landing this trip. I dropped the sinker weight to 1/8 oz., which helped the alarm factor, as the next little guy actually could pull the line and sinker powerfully enough to now cause the bell to ring. This time the fish was a whole eight inches, I stashed that one in the creel.
Finally after over 30 casts with the lure and going through three small bites, I had a solid hook-up. I could tell it was of normal size by the way it was fighting. By the way, everywhere I have caught the wild goldens, ounce for ounce they fight harder than any other trout, even browns. Finally I had a twelve-inch specimen to insert into the bag.
The thing with lures is you don’t get that many hits but when you do manage to hook up, they normally will be larger than what you catch with bait. In fact back in ’97 I landed my personal best golden of 1 ½ pounds out of here using the same 1/12 oz. Kastmaster
After a while I put down the lure rod for a nice baloney Sheepherder sandwich while the bait soaked, but not for long after each cast. A few instances right when the sinker hit bottom I had nibbles from more little guys.
Back at the camp cleaning station the eight-incher was spewing eggs. I found this unusual in that goldens are spring spawners, not sure why one would be doing it now. Otherwise all had empty stomachs, which would explain why they are so ravenous this year. Two years ago when the lake was full and likely loaded with trout chow, I caught nothing the first day and landed only two the second day.
After nap I boiled some water for dehy dinner then checked on the evening rise. By 6:30 the whole lake surface looked like it was raining there were so many fish. I set up my bait pole with the bubble/fly rig, picking a light colored parachute Adams for enticement. It was every other cast you had a hook-up until dark. I went through more than10 fish, keeping the two largest between eight and ten inches. I had one hit right when the fly came to ashore. It actually pulled line off the drag, snapping the two pound leader before I could loosen the knob. The whole time I was thinking dang me, I should have brought my fly rod for practice as due to the low water there aren’t any trees behind me to foul the back cast.
Wednesday morning before light I strapped on a pack prepared the night before with stove, breakfast and fishing gear, then ambled the short distance across the lake to set up at the deep hole. To make it seem like I was glamping, the first thing I did was heat some lake water so I could have coffee and scrambled eggs and ham with green peppers. Once the pot was on the stove I tossed out the Power Bait and cast the lure until boiling.
While sipping steamy Folgers crystals hot java, I was thinking per schedule I should have had a bite on the bait by now. I ended up reeling in a little guy but never saw the nibble because the sinker was covered by algae. Apparently on this side of the lake the bottom is carpeted by thick, foot-long strands of the green goo. In that case I retied the bait rig by removing the sinker and using a small bubble float filled with just enough water to make it sink slowly. Once it hit the top of the algae it would sort of just kind of sit atop the mat without sinking too deep. That trick worked, only problem was the fish were the same size, nothing over eight inches.
I switched over to ½ of an inflated baby night crawler but that too didn’t attract anything sizeable, just more punies.
As sunlight crept upon the water, between breeze blows you could see many fish surfacing. The bubble/fly trick might have worked but I save that until the evening rise.
I caught three on the lure but they too were small and I lost interest. Around nine I headed back to camp for lunch and a nap.
At one o’clock I came out of my slumber to the sounds of voices. Two dudes walked by carrying only nets. I know what they’re up to, as I read the story in the Inyo Register a couple weeks ago. They walked into the laurels that surround the creek. I heard one say, hey Jim, I got one! I walked over and inquired, you guys looking for frogs? Yeah, were volunteering with the DFG to take samples from the area for study. I said I read the story, you should have been here 22 years ago. Back in 1986 the lake was full and the large shallow cove on the north shore contained thousands of tadpoles. Many a yellow-legged frog lined the banks. Not anymore, I haven’t seen much of that specie up here since the mid nineties. Now all you encounter are a few tree frogs if you’re lucky.
Several years ago one study blamed trout for the decline, saying the fish eat tadpoles and baby frogs and that golden trout should be removed with rotenone from some frog lakes as a test. You see, High Sierra lakes historically never had fish – only frogs – until the finned ones were planted in the early to mid 20th century. I say it ain’t the fish eating the frogs. My lake right here was planted only once with fingerling golden trout in 1968. They successfully spawn every year thanks to the well-aerated water coming in from the inlet creek. If I saw billions of tadpoles and frogs 20 years later co-existing with thousands of 12 to 15-inch golden trout, something else bad is happening. My two buddies are helping to find out what. BTW, so far this trip I have seen two tree frogs and one tadpole in the lake and two tree frogs near the truck camp. The scientific community proclaims frogs are the proverbial canary in a coal mine, a sensitive indicator species that as they disappear, portend a dreary environmental future.
Back to business, it was now only myself and the nutcrackers at my hideaway. At 4:30 I boiled water for dinner, ate some nice freeze dry lasagna and beef, potatoes and onions then headed down to watch the rise. At 6:15 over the whole lake there looked to be one fish jumping per square foot at all times, totally incredible. I took some pics but the camera didn’t do the action justice. I used the bubble/fly to catch scores more fish, safely releasing over 20 six-inchers to keep five more eight-inchers to fulfill my limit of 10.
Thursday morning I was up at seven, rolled up camp and was back at the truck by nine after a 45-minute leisurely stroll down the mountainside. Three more trucks showed up at the lot, all hunters with their dog cages in the back. On the drive out there were only two other trucks coming in but there were several ATV hunters buzzing around with their bows and binoculars scouting for deer. For the last two hours of the drive back down to the valley my plan of exiting the day before Labor Day Friday worked out well, as I had to pull over for no one.
*****
From Mustang Steve: