Only the Intrepid

After a long night driving from LAX to Mammoth Lakes and getting only a few hours of sleep, Eric Laun and I were confronted on Wednesday morning by the scene above outside Eric's condo.  Undeterred, we readied our gear, made a quick stop at the Troutfitter fly shop for a fishing license, and steered for the Lower Owens River above Bishop, where the climate was decidedly better.  Within a matter of minutes of our arrival, both Eric and I  hooked a couple of brown trout.  As the day progressed our cumulative catch-and-release total moved well into the double digits, with our catch rate peaking during a hatch of blue-winged olives that stretched well into the afternoon.  The trout were feisty and the scenery was spectacular.  Here's a sample:

We were exhausted that evening, but after a good night's sleep we decided to tackle the Owens Gorge on Thursday.  Between the two of us we've fished the Gorge dozens of times and caught numerous trout on every occasion.  A robust trout population is the incentive for making a difficult descent into, and an even more difficult hike up and out of, the Gorge.  As you'll see in the video at the YouTube link below, our expectations were very high by the time we slid, stumbled and bushwhacked our way to the part of the river where we started casting.  But as you'll see in the second segment of the video, our expectations were dashed.  To our utter amazement, we saw ZERO trout in that part of the Gorge, and ultimately had to salvage the day by returning to the Lower Owens late in the afternoon.  Our probable mistake is that we elected to fish on the lower part of the Gorge.  We theorize that the fish in that stretch must have retreated to the Pleasant Valley Reservoir for the winter.  We're confident our luck would have been much improved if we had chosen to visit the upstream portions of the Gorge.  But we weren't about to make two hikes of such magnitude back-to-back.  Still, it was a pleasant day.  Our wives know we needed the exercise.  Here's the video link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAHxtnlaPbA

A blizzard moved into Mammoth Lakes Friday morning.  I felt almost certain we wouldn't be able to fish that day, but Eric recollected better than I did that the weather can be entirely different in Bishop than it is in Mammoth.  Sure enough, by the time Eric's SUV crawled down the slope past Crowley Lake deep into the Long Valley Caldera (the Owens River valley was once the scene of a massive volcano), the clouds were well above us and the temperature was in the upper 40s.  The thick snow and fierce winds at the higher elevations thwarted our original plan to visit Hot Creek or the Upper Owens River, so we navigated for the third time to the Lower Owens.  As soon as we donned our gear and walked to the river we discovered that the trout were thoroughly enjoying the deteriorating weather.  They were rising in every run and riffle.  We spent the next four hours hooking browns and rainbows on tiny mayfly patterns - both dries and nymphs.  Eric even caught one on a little rubber-legged Stimulator I tied last week, which was a surprise.   I was too busy fishing to take many pictures, but here's one of Eric with a firm grip on a rainbow trout that took off like a torpedo when Eric released it after I snapped this shot:

By late afternoon, rain and falling temperatures took their toll on us and we embarked for Los Angeles, bucking wind and rain the entire way.  Despite the seasonal challenges we faced, we had three great days of fly fishing in gorgeous country, and no regrets.  Only the most intrepid (or monumentally stupid) people do much fly fishing for trout during February in the United States, but you can count Eric and I among those people.