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.
Good to see you are getting out Jim. How do the sandtraps work, are they man made?
The weather down here has been the same every day since early January, no rain, very little cloud and lots of sunshine, most of the North Island is now in Drought mode, we are however supposed to get a little rain this sunday, so hopefully it will give the rivers a bit of a freshen up.
I am planing a trip down to the Waiomu next weekend, time and work permiting.
All the best.
Mike
Hi Mike, The sandtraps are on the creeks running into the LA aquaduct. Los Angeles gets most of it’s water from the Owens Valley in Eastern California. The LADWP dredge the creeks, making ponds with a small dam and gate to adjust the outflow. The sand and debris is trapped in the pond allowing “clean” water to drain into the aquaduct. Some of these traps are up to 200 to 400 feet long, 20 t0 40 feet wide and maybe 10 to 20 feet deep. The DFG usually stocks these ponds regularly during the open season. I like them if I have grandkids or newbies with me because they usually don’t have much vegetation and are easy to fly fish for kids. They are also good tourist traps, keeping them off the creeks farther up where we like to go. Jim
Sounds kind of dire, Jim. Any real prospect for some late winter / spring weather to turn it around ??
John
John. It seems we have a snowpack at Mammoth Mountain of 196 inches on the upper slopes and 90 inches on the lower slopes with no real snow in sight. They only got about 1 1/2 inches in the last storm. Of course we could have some good spring storms blow through between now and June but it’s still looking bleak.
We only went as far as the Fort Independence Reservation so didn’t get a gander at the mountains around Bishop.
The LA Aquaduct is only running about 1/3 full at the Cottonwood Power Plant but thats because they’re not watering a lot of golf courses and lawns right now in Los Angeles. We can only hope for a wet spring. Jim
This is the Lone Pine Creek sand trap, taken last Fall, at twilight. I taught my kids how to use a fly and bubble in here when they were really small. I am going up there tomorrow to do some arrowhead hunting with my daughter Ally…
PT/TB 
Those are some nice points, obsidian I assume.
Yup, obsidian. Sometimes we will come across jasper but nothing like the big chert ones I used to find around Carrollton, when I lived down there…
PT/TB
I am headed to the western side of the Sierras this June with the plan of going over the Sonora Pass for a day maybe two of fishing around Bishop. It sounds like I may have to scrap those plans and focus on fishing the lakes. I hope we get some good rains this spring. Thanks for the report Jim.
Tyrone, I believe the fishing around Bridgeport, Twin lakes, The Walker River and the East Walker should be good then. Bishop might be ok then too. It’s just the Southern part of Inyo County is poor right now. We will be in Lee Vining from June 19-21 and I’ll probably be fishing Lundy and the Virginia lakes then. Jim
I know a couple of guys to do flint knapping, they go down to middle Georgia and take rocks out of one of the rivers in the area. Was your Mom and stepdad in the cattle business? I seem to remember her making the local news attending a cattle auction at the Circle M Ranch in north Mississippi back in the '60’s.
Yup on the cattle biz too…my twin brother and I did some hay bailing, at our farm, in Carrollton…inspired him to go to Auburn and become a vet…
PT/TB
The fishing on the EWR and areas affected by what they let out of Crowley and PVR remain to be seen…they have not had a good winter and Crowley is really low because the DWP has been blowing water out of it…
PT/TB
Planettrout, Those are nice points. We used to pick them up around Kennedy Meadows area and on the West side of the tracks (now gone) near Olancha.
There were several cars and trucks parked at the LP crk sandtrap so I didn’t bother stopping there. Maybe I’ll see you up there later on. Jim