High Sierra 7/22
My annual multi-day backpack into the John Muir Wilderness concluded today after eight nights. I did not spend the whole time at Secret Brown Trout Lake. There is another lake high up into this particular drainage I had never visited before. The California DFW Eastern Sierra Back Country Fishing Guide proclaims this tarn is managed for golden trout, which as everyone is aware, interests me greatly. After you download the guide, scroll to page two and click the zone of your interest. It will take you to another page that lists the species of trout present in each lake.
I fantasized, since the lake is so far up into the high country, right up against The Sierra Crest, not too many people go there and big goldens are aplenty. If I were to career straight to Secret Brown Trout Lake on day one, the hike up from there would take five hours. Instead, the first day after hiking six hours to the main trail junction by two o'clock, one hour earlier than last year, mind you, I turned left and headed up toward The Crest. Another hour later I set up base camp just below a steep, solid granite face where you would not want to carry all your seventy-five pounds of gear, to spend the first night.
Day two, in order to recover from the hike in, I exited the tent at around ten o’clock. After breakfast I relaxed and basically schlepped around photographing the lake just below camp and another one about a half mile farther into the mountains.
Back at camp I prepared my pack with all the usual golden trout bait, lures, poles and lunch to ready for an early start in the morning.
Day three I was out of the tent at four, fed and hiking by five. I passed four other lakes, two closely, both of which had many trout surfacing for bugs in the early morning light. After two hours of climbing, I reached my destination but I saw the water level at this lake was about seven feet low. No big deal, I thought, as I’ve fished Secret Golden Trout lake when it was thirty feet low and still caught a bunch.
As I stealthily circumnavigated the shoreline while making my way toward the deep end, I could tell conditions were not good. There was a bug hatch going on but nobody was surfacing after them. The whole lake was coated with mayflies and also you could see the emergers crawling up rocks out of the water. If the lake had fish present you would never see this. I thereby pronounced this body of water dead.
I set up a rod and cast out anyway. An eighth-ounce egg sinker hit the bottom after counting down to only seven, as opposed to Secret Brown Trout Lake where you count to thirty in the deep end. My guess is, since seven feet of water is missing and the lake is shallow, a winter kill occurred, likely in 2018 / 2019 and the Cal DFW has not aerially stocked it since.
Oh well. Nice try. The last lake in the chain I hadn’t hiked to, I never will again. Even if we receive several normally precipitous winters in a row here in The Sierra for a refill and the DFW stocks it with the usual fingerlings, by the time the fish grow to a decent size I will be 80 years old and disabled.
On the return trip to base camp the next lake down I knew has goldens because I saw them jumping on the way up. Thing is, they are small and not much fun. The next lake below has brook trout, which for me are finned vermin. I motored on to base camp.
Day four I packed up and marched downhill to spend the rest of the trip at Secret Brown Trout Lake where anyone can catch as many ten-to-fourteen-inch brook, rainbow and brown trout as they please using all popular techniques. My main plan as always is to start casting a six-inch jointed minnow in the evening just after the sun is off the water, until I pass out, from the rock which historically I hooked many five- and six-pound brown trout. This year I timed my visit so that full moon would be the last day. This way my shiny lure will sparkle brightly under the always-present moon as it waxes each night. If full moon is in the middle of the week, it won’t be overhead until much later into the morning. This year’s lure of choice was the six inch Bomber Long-A Magnum with an orange belly resembling a brook trout. The next five evenings for all the hundreds of casts in all the scores of hours I detected only one hit that splashed loudly but didn’t stick.
Day five we had rain all day with minimum thunder and lighting. To me this is opportunity. Just ask the Bringhurst brothers. They catch most of their giant brown trout during storms. I donned my rain suit and walked over to the deep end to cast a lure I never used here before.
A couple months ago I was shopping online for packages of my favorite calico bass bait, the five-inch Storm WileEye Sardine and saw they sell a brown version with black sparkles and orange belly that sort of resembles a brown / brook trout hybrid. I brought a four-pack with me and knew, at one ounce each, they will sink quickly and snag on all the rocks and sunken trees that line the lake bottom.
First cast using the twelve-pound-test outfit I let it sink to get a countdown to the bottom, which was twenty-five seconds. From then on, I knew to count to twenty to direct it away from danger. My studies tell me during the daytime the big ones are deep until the sun disappears behind the mountain. At that time they begin hunting the shallows the rest of the night where all the ten-inchers are surfacing for bugs during the evening rise.
During a pause between squalls when the surface of the water stilled for a few minutes, I actually saw a fifteen-inch brown follow up and repeatedly attack the lure but didn’t stick due to this model of WildEye only having one large dorsal hook. You really need a five-pounder to swim up and swallow the whole thing.
As predicted, in two hours I snagged and lost all four WildEyes I brought. That I saw even one target specie interested in this bait, I will carry a better supply next time and be more careful.
Day six we had not only rain all day but also continuous thunder and lightning during a three-hour hail storm. And, yes, there I was over at a breakline between the deep end and a sandy shoal casting the biggest brown trout pattern Tasmanian Devil in my arsenal. After something like twenty casts I hooked one, which turned out to be a brown trout of maybe fourteen inches and released. The rest of the day I also landed three standard size brook trout that I heaved up into the bushes for the bears, of which I saw none this trip.
Back at camp for my usual afternoon nap, my Eureka! Solitare tent kept all my bedding dry during two days of precipitation.
The three remaining days of the trip were sunny with light cloudiness in the afternoons but no rain. One day was smoky due to the nearby Dexter Fire but on Thursday the air remained cool and crystal clear, perfect for the journey back to civilization.