In an attempt to avoid the warm weather and water temps in the lower elevations, the latter of which can be fatal for our trout friends, I decided to head to the Sierra high country and fish some lakes. Little did I know that there would be some monsoonal moisture coming up from the south, which would lead to cooler weather and water aplenty. The sudden change in the weather didn’t help the fishing much, often it was a challenge to get anything to strike at all, but I did manage to get into fish, just nothing huge or memorable. In spite of the almost constant rain and cold, I still had a good time and will certainly head back to these places in the future. Following my usual modus operandi, names or specifics will not be provided. Sorry.
Here is my humble camp on the first night. I spent far too many hours in my tent avoiding the rain and reading a book. That’s OK, but I would’ve rather been out wetting a line.
The next morning it wasn’t raining, but COLD, foggy and misty. Pretty cool, but not your typical weather in August in the high Sierra.
It took a while, but I did manage to catch a few brook trout. I like the dark coloration on the top these fish. A pretty cool looking adaptation to their environment.
I sampled several of the lakes in the vicinity and appreciated the beauty. This pic is the only one that might give away where I was, if you’ve ever been there. Very distinctive.
I did catch this rainbow/golden trout hybrid that also seemed to have some large mouth bass in its background. I’ve never seen such a huge maw on such a small fish.
I fished until the rain started up again in earnest. I wasn’t up for another session of long hours in my tent reading, so I packed up and headed back to the trailhead. I headed further north and to another trailhead, where I spent the night. The next day I packed into another lake and caught…guess what? …more small brook trout!
Still, the hike wasn’t bad, the scenery was excellent
And I saw the potential of the place when I saw these wild onions growing all over the edge of the water. Beautiful lake, nice camping spots, tons of stunted brook trout, wild onions along the shoreline…I’ll head back in the future with some aluminum foil, a bit of olive oil and have me a brookie feast!
Even though this trip wasn’t exactly what I was hoping for, I still had a good time poking around the Range of Light, having some new experiences and seeing so much potential for future explorations.
Enjoy!
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