Backpack to Secret Brown Trout Lake 7/18
I summited Mt. Baldy last week. I practice hike in the local mountains most of the spring then the week before my six-nigh Sierra backpack run I use the twelve hour trek up and down Los Angeles County’s highest peak as my final conditioning. My legs and lungs were sore all week yet eight days later I snuggle into my 80-pound pack at The Sierra trailhead and feel strong and steady.
This year I chose Secret Brown Trout Lake. The reasons are many. I am old and this five-mile relatively easy trail gains a mere 320 feet elevation over a ridge by half way and then downhill two-and-a-half miles into a lakes basin. Most trails in the Eastern Sierra are five-or-more miles up all the way with two- or three-thousand foot gains. Also this drainage is beautiful and the trout are big.
Tuesday July 12, after a large early morning calorie inducing feast at Breakfast Club in Mammoth, I found myself at the top of the first set of switchbacks overlooking the nearby popular drive-in lake by nine. The sun was bright, the breeze was cool; more perfect hiking condition were never had.
As you huff along, you witness an ugly sight in this area and it now predominates most of this slope of the mountains; the stands of drought and beetle ravaged dead pine trees. For now the damage is localized on the ridges where trees receive the least moisture through the seasons. Other pines near creeks and lakes are surviving normally. What brings you out of that funk is the beauty of the many blooming lupines along the whole length of the trail.
For the first time in many years on this trail I encountered a one-mule pack train. Way back in the 1990s there were many multi-mule trains bringing tourists in and out of this slice of the John Muir Wilderness but during the 2000s I never saw a one and manure was rare. Now that the economy is roaring back it seems some who have postponed such an adventure are now partaking. I could tell because of the thick horse stench most of the hike.
At the noon rest log, some other hike fishers wandered by. They asked if they are close to the first lake. I said, no, you are about half way. They saw the area on a map and thought they could waltz in, fish for a couple hours then hike out and drive back to San Diego in time to watch the All Star Game tonight. Hahahahaha! Once I lifted off the log and resumed sauntering they followed me a hundred yards to where I pointed out a peak, and guided, once you reach that zone then it is another hour to the closest lake. They said thanks and turned around back to the trailhead.
In a little over an hour I was at the snow patch below the aforementioned peak, which signifies half way downhill to my destination. Now it is only another 90 minutes to the junction with the trail leading left to the high lakes where a spring emerges dribbling the best water in all the basin. Once I had my 100-ounce Camelbak, Nalgene bottle and belly filled with the cold refresh, I parked on a comfy log to listen to ABC news from the Bishop radio station. Just then some kids show up with packs and behind them two adult leaders carrying the same. We had a nice chat then as I re-strapped into my equipment I asked the juvies, so, you guys hike train a lot to be able to do this sort of thing? They emitted a perplexed look and responded, um, no. I said dang, good to be young. I have to train hard from December until now in order to be able to pack.
As I resumed I noticed this section of trail was pretty beat up compared to all the times I have visited since 2011. The past five years you couldn’t even detect one footprint as you neared trail’s end. Today I detect much trampling has wrought the path, at least since the first of June.
Approaching five I was across the outlet creek and searching for the same hidden campsite I used last year. I had to walk across the log jam because the creek was too high, which is a positive indicator drought-wise. All the usual stepping stones are under water over my ankles and I didn’t feel like soaking my boots and socks. As I neared the site I could see hay scraps, horse dung and urine covering the whole quarter acre, rendering last year’s camp unusable.
There are plenty of other spots. As I searched I heard a horse sneeze and looked over to see two of them tied to a tree about fifty yards away. Crap, visitors. I was hoping to have the whole dump to myself all week. One of the campers approached to say hey and we chatted. Turns out not only is he at my secret brown trout lake but as we spoke he mentioned he loves the pure strain Volcano Creek golden trout. Looking west into the peaks I pointed to him which lake up in this canyon contains that specie however it isn’t reachable by horse. Then he starts yackin’ about my secret golden trout lake that he has been to several times. I didn’t even want to get into my secret rainbow trout lake. He’s probably been there too but that tarn isn’t drought resistant and is likely dry this year. But anyway, he concluded by saying both of them are leaving in the morning. I said ok, be careful on the way out, but what I was really thinking inside was, WOO HOO! They’re gone.
I dumped my crap off on a large rock I have used as shelving twice in the past then hurried and scooped pine cones and pebbles out of the dirt with a plastic trowel as I leveled the ground for the tent. It is always good to be set up for the night before dark. The next most important thing is to fill the five-gallon Reliance collapsible jug with lake water to serve as my week-long cooking and cleaning supply.
I assembled my twelve pound test fishing outfit, tied on a Rapala J-13 brook trout pattern, grabbed my net and a hunk of Jerky and wandered down to my casting rock. The water lever was slightly elevated but enough of the casting platform remained exposed to be able to comfortably cast far into the lake.
Thing is the first night is very uncomfortable. Even with all the intense training my 59-year-old bod still feels the effects of hiking eight hours carrying the load of a modern soldier. I stuck it out through pain and fatigue for two-and-a-half hours of casting but could take no more. Back at camp I boiled water to prepare a pouch of Mountain House freeze dried stew then in the sack I went with an ambitious plan of waking up tomorrow morning at noon.
Wednesday I actually crawled out of the Eureka Solitaire before mid-day and straightened out camp a little while breakfast was rehydrating. After I ate I walked over to the outlet creek to pump drinking water for the day with my MSR ceramic filter unit. Also I brought with me the pruning shears from my new Primos Cut Back Pack. I planned on performing some trail maintenance over on the west shore of the lake where it is difficult to reach the deep productive fishing grounds through the half-mile tangle of aspen trees. After filling up with water I wanted to test the shears on the bushes near the log jam crossing where it was scratchy and snaggy trying to work my way through with short pants and the backpack on yesterday. I cut the branches with my right hand and used my left to clear them out. I got carried away and my left slipped off one branch and onto the point of the shears, poking a large hole into my wrist.
It didn’t hurt so bad but before I looked I knew it wasn’t good. It was a gusher. Not drops of blood but a large stream pouring out. I gathered my water and held my hand in the air as I walked back to camp to retrieve the Krazy Glue out of my first aid kit. I always carry some in case of this type of emergency. I can cut lengths of black nylon thread I have in my sewing kit and stick the strands across the gash as glue stitches then basically cement the wound shut from there. The other times I have done this you can’t even see a scar.
I looked through all my stuff as I bled and found no glue. The only thing I could do is wrap gauze and tape to stop the bleeding. I will have a half-inch scar for life on my left wrist as a souvenir of this trip. I contemplated going Rambo and stitching it with a needle and thread but chickened out. After I was patched up I took off my shirt and wrung out all the blood with lake water. I was so harried to stop the bleeding I forgot to snap a picture. It would have been a great one, too.
This small setback didn’t stop me from performing the necessary camp maintenance. I organized all my junk on the rock in a functional fashion and then had to hang my food bag so that the bears won’t get into it like they did last year. This time I climbed up into a tree, tied a rope around a branch and then went over and climbed another tree and tied the other end pulled tight to a branch. I wrapped a rock around the cord of the food bag and tossed it up and over the rope so that it hung ten feet high and away from other branches in what is known as the counter balance method. Last year I hung the bag over the end of a tree branch, which is exactly what the forest authorities tell you not to do. Counter balance is preferred.
After that stress on my wrist I was getting ready for lunch and straightening out some things when more blood came pouring out through the bandage all over the rock. I held my hand over my head for ten minutes and then continued my work with no more drippings. Around three after a lunch of lasagna I was back in the tent napping in order to be rested for the long night of lure flinging.
At six I was up gathering my pole and net, slipping into my jacket, and making my way through the trees to the casting platform where at this hour the sun will be off the water. From now until 11pm it is prime time for the big browns that will be hunting for smaller trout and historically this is the time span I have had all of my successes here.
It is very boring work. Cast and retrieve all night long like Linus waiting for the Great Brown Trout. To break the monotony I listen to the various AM radio stations that tune in around 19:30 as their signals bounce off the ionosphere. I really enjoy listening to night time baseball games however today is the day after the All Star Game and none will be available until Friday. Same with the big ones. None were available to strike my lure. At eleven I walked back to camp, boiled water and ate another freeze dried stew before bed time.
Thursday morning first thing pump water for the day then eat the standard backpack breakfast of scrambled eggs with ham and peppers, two Quaker Chewy Granola bars, a cup of Tang and a Centrum Energy vitamin tab. The big plan for today is to continue the trail clearing through the jungle on the west shore I began last year, while using the new Cut Back toys I bought this year.
Last time I was here I used my old Coghlan’s folding pack saw I’ve had for 25 years. As you are sawing the blade is sharp but bends easily. Also the plastic handle cracked and the whole thing was finally rendered useless. The Primos set cuts through logs a foot wide without much effort and the pruning shears are sharp, as I found out the hard way yesterday. I was cutting away aspens, dead pines and all other manner of sticks and stems lying over the legally unauthorized trailstead quickly and easily, making it so much easier to traverse that side of the lake to the deep water fishing grounds while carrying all you fishing gear.
A relatively recent bear scat lied in the middle of the trail, meaning momma and/or cub from last year are still around. Over on this side you have to be vigilant and keep looking right and left for bruins and straight across the lake for rangers. The latter most likely will not appreciate your cutting live aspens out of your way. The former you only have 2 ways out of trouble. It is impractical to escape into the lake because it is cold and fully clothed you will drown. It would be impossible to run a thousand feet up the scree jungle. Too many steep boulders and aspens. If the bear comes from the left you flee right and vice versa. The good news is if you see a bear coming along the trail just hold your ground and make a bunch of noise and it will scare away. This only works for black bears. Don’t attempt this technique around grizzlies.
Around two thirty I cut half way through the jungle, spotting many good sized brown and rainbow trout mulling all about the shoreline. Time to head back to camp for lunch ‘n’ nap. Yes I sleep a lot when I backpack. I am on vacation, after all.
Six sharp my brain was coming to after a two-hour sleep and its super sharp olfactory connection was able to detect the distinct smell of forest fire in the cool air. With all the dead trees around I am always worrying one spark from a careless camper could set off a major conflagration on the within-sight dry ridges in minutes. Campfires are illegal in The Wilderness these days and you can tell the flavor of the smoke is different if the waft you smelled would have been only burning pine logs. With the forest fire you nose out burned needles, leaves, grass and everything else in the sensation. As I sat myself down on the casting platform I descried the smelly haze from a distant fire on the west slope blowing in over The Sierra Crest into my basin..
Before flinging the big Rapala like a wild man, this evening I cut off the brook trout pattern and went with the rainbow trout. I did have some success, sort of, catching a brown trout but it was barely bigger than the lure. That was the most excitement on this third night of casting and by eleven I was done and back in the sack.
Friday after the usual water run and breakfast I was hiking my way over through the now easily navigable aspen scree trail to where I left off clearing chores yesterday. After two hours of pruning or sawing branches out of the path I just about reached the junction with the other trail leading to the falls when I encountered one last sizable dead log leaning across at eye level. There was no need to cut through, I figured, as you could easily duck to pass under. I chopped away various pine and aspen branches to finish this section then turned around to walk to the falls and BAM! Bad karma accumulated from cutting live branches for two days slapped me right on the forehead. It was that same log, obscured by the bill of my cap, now re-evaluated to lay brain-level across the trail. Ouch! Now I have another scar for the trip in the form of a strawberry between the eyes. I sawed for four minutes and out it came, never again to jump out and bite another hapless fisherman passing through.
At the end of the aspen scree you enter back into the typical Inyo lodgepole and limber pine forest, where the trail maintains itself with no need to cut away foliage. Up and over the sand bar I relaxed atop a large boulder to let my mind reflect off the sound of the falls. All humanly audible frequencies from high to low emanate into your ears and with eyes closed they give you fantasia daydreams if you can tune into them, man.
Just below the falls in the narrow extremely clear
creek I saw a sizable brook trout feeding. I dunked my GoPro on a
stick to video its habits. I was able to
drop
the camera right in its face and it seemed not to care much.
The typical photo around these parts is pointing west to include the high peaks of The Sierra Crest as a backdrop but on this side of the lake looking east gives one a whole other perspective on the unsurpassed beauty of this slope of the range. Across the inlet and back on the main trail I returned to camp for lunch and nap by three.
Again at six I awoke to the faint aroma of forest fire. While casting all night I tuned in to Bishop, San Francisco, Sacramento and Los Angeles news radio stations but none had any information concerning a fire in The Sierra, like there are so many burns these days some are newsworthy no longer.
Cast and cast and cast it was around nine when I had my first hit, a small brown trout that took the tail hook of the brown trout pattern Rapala I was tossing. The fish was the size that I would keep if it were tomorrow afternoon but now it is too early to store cleaned fish. By the time I hike out Monday it will be rotten. Even though the poor little guy was bleeding, I released it and it swam off. If it goes belly-up the California gulls that patrol the lake in the afternoons will swoop down on it later.
Approaching eleven I had no other hits outside of the bats that zeroed in on my fishing line. They are curious what is this long thin thing displaying on their sonar graphs. The only concern is if they gather it up and bite into it, which has not ever been an issue in the past.
Saturday is the first keep-your-fish day. I can store them dunked into a shady section of the creek inside bags so they will be kept cool and relatively fresh once I ice them down Monday after the hike out. Around ten I ate breakfast, gathered my gear and easily navigated the newly cleared trail through the aspens to a deep spot. I cast a wad of Gulp Chunky Cheese on a treble hook as far as I could with a half-ounce egg sinker on four pound test, then with the six-pound outfit I wiggled in a rainbow trout pattern eighth-ounce Kastmaster at various depths, which is what I used at this lake four years ago to catch over 20 trout of all three available species in one day.
Not this year. Notably slower today. Not only did I have no bites using the Gulp rig stuck in a Handi-holder with bell attached, I only caught one pan size rainbow with the lure. I tried some other tricks like the slowly sinking bobber with an inflated baby nightcrawler but the wind rendered this technique useless. Instead I tied a combination rig with a worm hook onto the four foot, two pound leader about five inches below a #14 treble hook. Also I swapped out the half-ounce weight for a quarter-ounce egg sinker and didn’t cast out so far so that the bait will be stationed shallower, all the while blasting off and retrieving the Kastmaster at various depths.
Kind of boring it was, as I only caught three keeper rainbows of eleven inches each and several brook trout in the next three hours. Reeling in one of the smaller brooks I saw a big brown follow it in and try to bite the catch in the tail. I let the brook soak for a few moments and the brown, which looked to be slightly less than three pounds, eyed it and took two more swipes but by the time I reached for and clicked on my GoPro, it was gone.
After all those small brook trout attacking the worm portion of the combo rig, I retied using an eighth ounce egg sinker, four feet of two pound leader and only a #14 treble hidden inside a wad of Gulp. While that rod soaked with bell clipped to tip, I used the Kastmaster for two small trout, one brown and one rainbow.
Then I heard a ding. I cranked in the lure more quickly than usual in order to have spare time to tend to the now-active bait rod. I picked it out of the holder and waited to see if anything were to pull the slack line tight. I stalled for a minute with no indication of a fish on, before reeling in for a bait check, when out of the water jumped a big one! It pulled drag straight out and jumped again. I had to be careful and let it do what it wants while I attempt to tire it out with the light line. Like lightning it turned right peeling out more drag and jumped again. I took it easy because more than likely it swallowed the hook and the two pound line is nestled between its sharp teeth. Then it ripped more drag left and jumped again! This is the moment I trained hard for all year; when I hook a big brown on small line and bring it to color after such a dramatic fight. After seven minutes of battle I netted it out of the water, and success! It looked to be the one I saw an hour earlier chase in the hooked brook and it weighed in at two pounds eight ounces, a rare catch on floating bait indeed. I slipped it into the creel along with the other three eleven-inch browns and rainbow and marched back to camp. After all, it was already lunch and nap time.
I hurried up and cleaned the fish and packed them in zip bags inside a 33-gallon trash bag before stashing them in the outlet creek under a shady tree to keep them cool. Problem was the water wasn’t very cold. When I put my chilly wet hands in the water it felt warm, I am guessing maybe 60 degrees instead of the usual 53 you would normally find around here. Too bad that’s all I got for a fridge.
At six I awoke to the distinct smell of fresh air and pine trees, as there was no smoke pouring over the crest this evening. Instead of the Rapala J-13, I tied on an old favorite, the Bomber Long-A in rainbow trout pattern. It’s similar to the Rapala in that it is a jointed minnow but at seven inches it is two longer and has a rattle. I caught many five and six pound browns out of this lake with this lure back in the 90s. I use the Rapala now because they look better and come in more patterns, not necessarily because they catch more or bigger. Very boring tonight. By eleven I didn’t feel any bites on the line except for bats.
Sunday morning at ten I was back over to the fishing hole to try to fill my daily limit of five so I would have nine to take home tomorrow. I tried something a little different. Onto the six-pound outfit I tied on a Thomas Buoyant quarter ounce with brown trout pattern instead of the Kastmaster. That was the ticket. I caught rainbow after fair sized rainbow all day long . I used the bait setup too but only caught little guys. The Buoyant was nailing them like crazy. I started fantasizing why all these rainbows would be attacking this lure. Could it be they are trying to kill small brown trout before they grow up and kill them? Sounded plausible at the time. After much fun and a full chain I was fat and happy at lunch and nap time.
At six I was back on the platform casting and casting for four hours using a Rapala in rainbow trout pattern under a full moon for no hits. No big ones this week, except for the 2-8 yesterday, which you can’t really call big. More like medium. I cut tonight’s attempt short by an hour so I can get up early in the morning to pack up for the hike out. That way I can make it to Pine Cliff at June Lake at a descent hour in the afternoon to hang with the cousins.
Monday morning I crawled out of the tent by six to roll up the gear and bungee all to the pack, a two hour process including breakfast. By eight I was hiking out of this drainage, up and over the ridge and with one more refuel snack break I was at the trailhead parking lot five miles away by three.
People always ask, do you eat the fish you catch every day while camping?
No. I tried that one time. Too much of a hassle for what it’s worth. I like to take them home, filet them, salt them a little then hot smoke them using my Weber kettle grill with charcoal and mountain mahogany wood. They taste so much better that way rather than all scrambled in a backpack mess kit pan. The key word there is: mess.