I went, I saw, I fished. My three buddies and I pulled out Friday morning to make the 4 hour trek to our Mecca. It was windy but not cold when we pulled into Bishop, CA at noon.
We stopped at our motel and got checked in, unloaded our luggage and left for the river for a couple of hours.
We went to Jacks for dinner then the motel for a good night's sleep.
It was overcast and a brisk 17 degrees farenheit when we arrived on the mountain Saturday morning. We started fishing on South fork Bishop Creek just below the Willows campground. A few snow flurries came along about 9 AM but it wasn't too bad. There was a rollover and another traffic incident on the road to Sabrina causing the CHP to close both roads until they could be plowed.
We had a late breakfast at Cardinal Village, warmed up with their good coffee, then went up to Bishop creek at the North Lake cutoff. Lots of stockers there as you can see in a few of the photos.
At about noon we headed North to Benton Crossing and the fishing monument on the upper Owens. It wasn't elbo to elbo, but it was crowded with one or two people about every 25 to 50 feet from the monument to where the river flows into Lake Crowley.
We finished the day's fishing at the power plant above Pleasant Valley res.
After cleaning ourselves and some fish at the motel we headed for Las Palmas for Mexican food and then back for a good night's sleep.
Sunday morning we packed up, checked out and after breakfast at Denny's and a stop at Eric Schat's Bakkery for bread, headed south to Big Pine Creek in the Glacier Lodge area.
There it seemed the stockers were bigger than Bishop Creek. Fewer People and better fishing for a couple of us. We stayed in that area for several hours and had a pretty nice time. It was pretty brushy and I resorted to my 7' WW Griggs 3 weight and #22 parachute adams to catch a few feisty native browns.
The ride home was full of conversation, rehash and should'ves about the weekend.
All in all it was a pleasant weekend. Fish were caught by all.
BTW. My wife and I had fresh trout for supper last night.
I'm either going to, coming from or thinking about fishing. Jim