Secret Brown Trout Lake 8/7
In our High Sierra report last month, I mentioned when you pack to a back country lake for the first time, you start out using tackle and bait that works at other lakes. If you don’t catch anything you come up with a new plan for that particular body of water for the next time you visit.
That is exactly what happened when I hiked to Secret Brown Trout Lake the first time in 1991. I knew the lake is 100 acres at 9800 feet and has brook, rainbow and brown trout, meaning this puddle could produce large browns. While using the usual Power Bait setup I hooked a 12-inch rainbow, which was followed up by a 15-lb monster that took two swipes at my catch. All I had was 4-pound test setups and small Rapalas.
I came up with a new plan involving a 12-pound outfit and 7-inch Bomber Long-A in rainbow trout pattern. I caught a 2lb and a 3lb brown trout the next summer. The year after that I caught a 6 ½lb brown. Another year later I caught two six-pounders.
Thing is, I hadn’t hooked a big one at Secret Brown Trout Lake since 2011 when I lost what looked to be a 4 ½ pound specimen. The last 10 visits I only landed ‘little guys’ of 1 to 3 pounds. I needed another new plan.
Monday August 1, I hiked into the John Muir Wilderness with ten days of provisions in a pack that weighed around 75 pounds. I used to eat at Breakfast Club in Mammoth before such a hike but they don’t open until 07:30 these days. That is too late for me. Down the street on Old Mammoth Road is a Carl’s Jr. which opens at 06:30. I ordered 3 steak and egg burritos, 2 French toast fingers and a medium coffee. As I began the hike at 09:20, all this food stuck with me for the first 5 ½ hours of trudging through the monsoonal rain the whole time. No big deal. I was protected by my Columbia Omni-Tech rainsuit. Also, the cool air was beneficial to the stressful hike. By the time I arrived at my campsite at 16:45, the rain had stopped. Once camp was set up, I tied on the Long-A and cast from the killer rock for a hitless few hours until I could no longer stay awake.
Tuesday morning while sunshine was prevalent, I continued to set up camp by stringing my food bag between trees and made some other adjustments. Clear skies only lasted an hour and then by eleven the monsoon moved back in with medium rain. Problem was you could hear the big boomers heading this way. No issues fishing in the rain however you don’t want to be out there when the cloud-to-ground lightning is close by. I crawled back into my Eureka Solitaire tent where I stayed warm and dry the whole trip. I could see the flashes through the tent fabric but the sound didn’t register until five to fifteen seconds later, meaning the strikes were miles away. Then at 13:00 there was a bright flash with the deafening boom at the same time. WOW! That one was close!! By 17:00 the rain was over and I was able to fish during the prime time of 18:00 until 22:00. Those are the hours when I caught most of the big ones historically. The thought is, big browns come up from the depths to hunt near the surface after the sun is off the water. Just keep casting all night where you see the evening rise, which is always top-notch here. I detected no hits in the four hours I gave it.
Wednesday again the rain started around 11:00 only this time there were very few lightning strikes many miles away. I had the whole lake to myself until now, when a pack train brought in a group consisting of dad and four boys. I tidied camp a bit by cleaning accumulated lodgepole pine needles from my main hangout rock until the rain got heavy. I waited it out in the tent for a while listening to the radio and dozing in and out.
By five the rain stopped and I was back at one of the good casting boulders flinging the Long-A by six. My camp is not that obvious from the lake shore and the new visitors had no idea I was here. At seven I heard a big splash over to my left. At first I thought it was a big fish leaping but when I glanced over I saw rock II mid-air to another big splash. It was the dad throwing rocks into the lake! I yelled over, “Yo we’re fishing over here” in my best Brooklyn accent. First time I have seen anyone throw rocks into any Sierra fishing lake, let alone a 50-something male. He gave me that surprised stankeye but immediately backed off. Many hours later I had to hits until 22:00.
Thursday while the rain was light I attempted my new plan. Like I said, I had not caught any big ones in quite a while using the Bombers in the evening. What if I try something new in the deep part of the lake during the daytime? The Storm five-inch WileEye Sardine swimbaits in green I use for saltwater bass are not manufactured any more. When I looked online to find off-the-wall sellers of this rare commodity, I saw Storm used to make a brown version with an orange belly. I thought, I bet those will work at my lake! I brought a few packages with me and was on the water at the deep section at 11. I cast as far as I could with the one-ounce lure and counted down to 32 before it hit bottom. Once the countdown is determined, you reel in really fast so you don’t snag rocks or sunken trees on the bottom. Subsequent casts you count down to 20 or 25 then reel in medium speed in a jerky fashion. I fan cast at different depths, counting down to 5, 15, 25.
Straight out after a count of 15, halfway in HOOKUP!! And it felt big! At first I was in denial thinking it was snagged but I was only at 15 in 32 depth. After a short six-minute tussle I netted a five-pound hook-jaw male brown trout on a Thursday at noon. Impossible!
Once I lifted the fish out of the net, I noticed a flaw in using the swimbait. When using stick baits like the Long-A and Rapalas, you generally lip-hook the fish and they can stay alive on a rope for a few days. That way you kill them just before hike-out so they are fresh on the way out. Using the swimbait, the fish sucked the whole five-inch plastic all the way in its mouth and the hook went right through the cranium between the eyes, skewering its brain. Oops. Once I tied my trophy to the end of the rope and tossed it out, it was a bloody mess and it immediately went belly up. No keeping this one alive for the next six days before hike-out. Within 20 minutes it was dead.
I fished for another hour or so and then gathered up all my stuff and the fish and headed back to camp. To keep the catch relatively cool I tossed it back into the lake and tied the rope to a tree branch. Even though we are almost 10,000 feet up into the mountains, the lake water isn’t too cold. After lunch and nap I wanted to walk to the back of the lake where the super cold water flows into the lake under the falls. But first I waltzed over to the camp of Rocky Koufax and the kids to show off. As I lifted the behemoth by the rope I didn’t mention this is why you don’t chuck rocks into the lake but I think he got the message. They too only brought 2-pound outfits on their first venture here and had no idea there were big ones like this available. They’ll likely have a new plan for their next time. After my gloat session I wrapped the fish in a trash bag and stored it in the freezing cold water at the back of the lake held steady by a couple of rocks.
I was back at another boulder from six to ten casting the Long-A but again had no takers. Earlier while listening to the Howard Schecter weather report on KIBS and also the report on the weather alert channel, I heard there will be heavy monsoon precipitation from Thursday night until Friday night. This is unusual. The norm is rain in the afternoon during the daily convection then it stops by five or six in the evenings. As I retired into my tent at 22:30, the rain started.
And just like the radio said, it rained all night into the morning. The drops hitting my tent were so loud I was forced to install ear plugs in order to sleep.
Friday morning while the rain was a mere sprinkle, I got up fully dressed with rainsuit, ate breakfast and then proceeded to walk over to the deep end with all my swimbait gear for a multi-hour casting session. Yesterday I caught that big one within one hour. Does that mean I will catch four more today If I put in that many hours? Or was yesterday a fluke?
I spent from 10:00 until 14:30 waking in the rain, casting around the whole deep zone at all depths, but had not one hit.
That evening I tossed the Long-A over and over again during prime time but had no takers using that either.
Saturday alas was bright and sunny. The radio said we will have a two-day break from the monsoon, which will return Monday. Even though I was provisioned until Wednesday, I decided I should hike out tomorrow. After all I already had my big fish for the week and I will have been here seven days by then. Monday through Wednesday there could be lightning strikes on the 10,360-foot ridge between drainages where the main trail passes over to the parking lot. Always a good idea to avoid that.
After laying all my wet gear on rocks to dry out in the bright sunshine, I was back on the water for another four-and-a-half hours again casting all around the deep zone and various depths but in four hours only had one follow-up by a 14-inch brown.
That evening I walked to the cold creek to pick up the fish. I stuck it in a wet creel wrapped by a wet white T-shirt. The night air was chilly, which kept the whole package refrigerated properly. I only fished prime time until 21:00 due to I wanted to awake early to hike out in the morning. No hits were detected.
Sunday I was up at 06:00 rolling up all my stuff. I rehydrated two Mountain House breakfast skillet packages. I ate one before the hike out and placed the other meal in my bear keg for later. I started walking at 08:30, ate that breakfast II at 13:00 and was back at the parking lot at 17:00.
Back at the house I filleted the fish and smoked it with mountain mahogany. Turned out pretty good and will not to be shared. Catch your own big one.