A nice day for a walk (and a float!)

**SHigSpeed** · 08-07-2011, 12:29 PM

Looks like I picked a dandy of a day for a hike up into the Wilderness for some high country float fishing!

Got a jump on the drive with a way-station in South Lake on Friday, and hit the trail on a clear, crisp, but not cold morning with my Punkin' tube and gear strapped to my back. I had hoped to be able to make the maiden voyage in my UL tube but didn't quite get started early enough last week to finish it to the point that I could float. Maybe another trip later this year if all goes well with other issues.

Pretty mild hike for the most part, and thankfully so as I haven't had the time to work on my mountain conditioning this year.

Still lots of patches of snow including over the trail at many points. Had to scrabble over some and came down hard on my stripping wrist one time - could've been disastrous!

Also managed to drop (and recover) my script Maui's in a raging creek at a log crossing. Yipes!

There were:

Wildflowers! (though oddly enough it almost seems like it's EARLY season for some of these - especially above 8000'):

Breathtaking panoramas!

And finally, fish!

No big LCT this trip, with this probably being a "big fish" in this lake:

That said, these guys were acting a bit odd as some seemed to be digging redds in the mud bottom of the lake, and the one above with the distended belly (I caught two like that!) either has a thyroid problem or has a ticking biological clock!

Too bad it doesn't seem like natural reproduction isn't occurring here as there were no fry/fingerlings to be seen.

Hatches?

Yes! Of course the main hatch of the day were the Culicidae. They were out in SWARMS! Funny thing was that the fish weren't targeting them. They were targeting US! DEET and a head-net were the only things keeping me from going into anaphylactic shock! Be careful out there...

On top of the skeeters, there were dragonflies (scooped up a few shucks from the surface), damsels (they were flying and crawling), Callibaetis, flying ants (termites?), carpenter ants, and the odd beetle and spider getting slurped up.

Speaking of spider:

Sorry the photo's not that great. Hard to meter, compose, and shoot while it's skating across the surface!

The mayfly hatch was pretty cool. For a couple of hours on one side of the lake it was little grey boats floating everywhere and fish going nuts. I rarely fish dries, especially on lakes, but I had something close and managed to get one. I think with better casting, finer tippet, and the right fly it could've been epic. Need to work on my skills there...

That said, I think the major food for these guys are midges as they were everywhere and I could clearly see the fish swimming around me cruising the bottom with their mouths 'a flappin' sucking things up.. Though I did catch a few early fish stripping buggers, I only started to consistently get them when I added a zebra midge (you can see one in the preggo fish pic) or a Pyramid style snocone blood midge. I tried indicator fishing for them but it seemed like they wanted movement in order to commit (at least to the patterns I had). Perhaps if I had smaller chironomid patterns or finer tippet? The water WAS pretty flat - had there been more of a chop it may have done the trick.

Here's a pic of a particularly slow point in the day. I couldn't BUY a take for a while until I changed up my tactics...

As much as I would've loved to climb up on those rocks in the background to enjoy my lunch, I had to take it out to the middle of the lake and wait for a bit of a breeze or I'd've had to have shoved it through mesh first! <lol> The swarm would follow me out onto the water and stick with me until I either swatted them all flat (and you should see the blood and gore soaked mess my sungloves are after smooshing so many of them that had the audacity to try to feed on me through them) or shooed them away, or the breeze kicked up.

Still, even with the relentless assault, I don't have any lingering welts today so it's all good. Maybe I've built up a resistance in my old age, or perhaps an unexpected side effect of other meds!? Whichever it is, I'll take it.

Final gratuitous shot as I called it a day:

Even though the Del Canty tube is 30 years old now (I found his original patent info - interesting!: http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-P...&RS=PN/D263616) with a small tweak it's still a great craft. Definitely a collector and a workhorse soon to be set out to pasture.

All in all an a excellent day. Fish in the net by 8:00, no disfigurement, not hot, not cold, no Wahl-spec hiking, and back in Rocklin by dark.

Maybe I'll check on the residents of this lake again in a couple of years when they're all 15"-19"?

_SHig