My friend Mike and I went on a 12 hour turnaround trip to Cottonwood, Lone Pine, George's and Independence Creeks yesterday. The weather was outstanding and the fishing was slow but fun.
Talked to a few locals who told us the DFG refused to stock in a lot of places because the water was so low and slow the raccoons and birds would have all the fish before the people could get to them. They did stock a few of the sand traps and I suppose Diaz Lake was crammed full of fishies for the tournament 2 weeks ago.
The sand trap at George's creek has no water running into or out of it. We caught 3 fish there that were holdovers from last year.
Independence creek at the lower campground was not stocked at all. We went on up to the confluence of Pinion creek and Indy creek at the sand trap and there was about a hundred stockers there. We caught 3 or 4 fish there. After a late lunch we went to Cottonwood creek at the trailhead to the Golden Trout Wilderness. It's a lovely area in the canyon. Kind of hard to fish because of all the oaks and willows that canopy the creek. There we had no takers at all.
I guess with the days warming up to the 70's and 80's the runoff should be in full blast shortly. There's not much snow to melt though so I'm not expecting a great fishing season there.
