got out of town

[jimsnarocks]

My (almost) teenage grandson and I spent two days in the Sierra Nevada's chasing trouts, hiking and sightseeing. His 13th birthday is 09-09-09 and that happens to be the first day back to school here.
We loaded up and headed out Wednesday morning. About 30 minutes out of town I realized I left my camera on the counter so no photos.
We fished our way up from Lone Pine Creek to Bishop, I brought 3 to hand in Big Pine Creek on a nymph I had tyed for the "Goto and Fav" swap. They were stocked rainbows, fat and fiesty. Buddy caught and long distant released one.
After an early supper we headed up to the lower Owens on 5 bridges road. Man, they are releasing a lot of water from Pleasant Valley Res. They river is running high and fast. No wading anywhere we went.
In Pleasant Valley we found a hole that had fishies jumping around. Buddy hooked and lost one. I tyed on an FEB hopper and missed about 8 strikes. Couldn't hook up! I remembered what REE said about tying them on larger hooks.
Thursday we went up Line St. to Intake II. Skunked. Bishop creek was a waste of time as was South fork Bishop Creek. We mostly hiked and looked. Very few fish and no takers.
We headed to the upper Owens at Benton Crossing. In the wild trout area I was treated to some very small browns and spent some time instructing Buddy on roll casting, nymphing with an indicator and how to lose flies in weeds on the other side of the river.
Next stop was on the South side of the bridge, down a ways from Brown's campground. Buddy gave up on flyfishing and got out his spinning rig. He landed a nice fish on power bait. Meanwhile I had on a EHC with a copper john dropper. Took several small trout on the dropper and landed one 12 incher on the caddis.
We then took a sight seeing tour through Chidago Canyon and the Fish Slough to see the unusual rock formations and Indian Pictographs.
All in all it was a good trip. It was the first time Buddy and I got to go to the mountains by ourselves and it was a great bonding experience.

[crook33]

Glad to hear you made it up, with the kid especially. Ought to make back to school a little easier. To0 bad the catching wasn't a bit better but i think you probably weren't to concerned with that anyway. I wish we had pictures to along with the story but i have been guilty of leaving my camera behind also.

Rich

[JohnScott]

Jim -

Considering some of the things that have been going on lately, it must have been particularly good timing to get away, and with your grandson, yet.

Some pretty neat country and water you got to see. Better luck catching next time. I still think Ron just gets excited when he sees a fishy around a fly and pulls the fly away. Not saying you did that, just that I think Ron does.

John

[jburge]

jimsnarocks,

Awesome that you can get out to do trips like that. There's no replacement for people spending time with people Gotta love the eastern Sierra's.

I'm heading down to the golden trout wilderness again next week to hopefully hook up with a Little Kern golden AND a Kern rainbow. We'll see. I'll definitely post a report.

Thanks for sharing!

John