Fished the eastern sierra for the first time last weekend, and absolutely loved it.
Started out on Hot creek on Saturday morning with a guide, which was very useful since that stream is technical as hell, especially this time of year (Weeds start growing in the water in the late summer). There are an insane amount of fish in that stream though, 8000/mile. Hooked into a couple of HOGS, talkign 20", and freaked out both times and lost them. Eventually I calmed down, and pulled out a couple of nice ones in the morning, but it started slowing down at about 11am, so we headed down to the owens, a couple of miles above Lake Crowley.
Owens was completely different from hot creek. Water was a lot slower, no riffles really, and all the productive fishing was in the bends. This river has even more fish than Hot Creek, estimated at 10k/mile. The first hole we hit was on a nice backeddy of a bend and had more hogs than I've ever seen. A veritable trout aquarium, where a 12 incher seemed like a dinker. My buddy fished this hole, and hooked into a nice 16". While he was bringing that fish in, a 13" hit his dropper! He was fighting two fish at once for a while, until the 13" fell off!
Lots of fish, but lots of pressure too, and they're smart as hell. Once you'd figure out what they were hitting (micro mays and red san juan worms were most productive) you could pull one nice fish out of each hole, but as soon as you'd get one, the whole hole would spook and shutdown. I wasted a lot of time fishing holes that I'd already pulled a fish out of, to no avail.
The last 30 minutes of the day they fish started rising like crazy, pulled out 4 nice rainbows in about 20 minutes.
On Sunday we headed back out to the owens. It was windier than all hell. 30-40mph gusts were the norm. This had the advantage of keeping a lot of people off the water though, so we had tons of greating water to ourselves. Hiked a ton up and down the river that day, had to hop some fences to avoid some honery bulls and mother cows, but well worth it. I got 6 nice fish, mostly rainbows, and I think one brown.
Headed back out to Hot Creek at about 5pm. Took me a while to figure out what they were hitting. Super small stuff was key. They were loving the micro mays, a #20 i think, and weren't really going for anything else. I pulled out one 10" brown, and then a beautiful 17" bow before dusk. I thought hot creek was really cool, really technical, but there are some huge rewards to be reaped. Definitely want to hit it up again earlier in the summer, when the weeds haven't grown up yet.
Beautiful area all in all. Fishing in high desert with the sierras in the backgrounds. Surrounded by national forest, so (free) camping abounds.
Hit the West Walker on monday morning. I pulled out one nice and fat 13" bow, but that was it. We were all pretty exhausted from 3 days of waking up at 5:30 or 6am, so didn't fish it for too long.
All photos on flickr: http://flickr.com/photos/spencermiles/sets/72157607067888137/
I said it before and I'll say it again, the upper owens river is OFF THE HOOK ! Those trout have it so freakin good, perfect water temps, massive amount of insect life, If I was a trout i'd wanna live in the upper owens river. Its really a great success story, that river suffered severly from water diversion but has been managed and is now an amazing place. Wind is normal there, its almost always windy in the afternoon, something about the cooler sierra air coming over the mountains and meeting the warm air of the owens valley, I think its called anabatic winds. You said the bends were good, thats the ticket, undecut banks at the bends. I really didn't care for hot creek, I'd say that is one hell of a technical river. Spencer, you think you were tired after 3 days, I fished the area for 10 days straight 8 to 12 hours a day and tent camped the whole time. As you said there are some nice FREE campgrounds over there, were did you stay, i stayed at big springs right were the upper owens comes out of the ground, I thought the fishing was maybe even better up were the river actually begins then down in the meadow section, but both areas are just amazing. If you have never been I'd put it at the top of my to do list !
We camped about 15 minutes from the river, off of Mammoth Scenic Drive, couple miles from town. If you're driving that road from town, I think it's the first left, Inyo Canyon Road or something like that. A dirt road, head down that for about 200yards and take a left. Drops you at a culdesac next to Dry Creek (heavy emphasis on the Dry). It's pretty sweet, nice and forested, so when the 50mph winds pick up at 2am, you've got shelter, so long as a tree doesn't fall on you.
Gotta love national forest land. No idea why anyone pays $20/night to camp next to a bunch of screaming kids and douchebags blasting 2pac when you can do it for free!
Nice fishes there! I wish i was there again. Both Hot creek and Upper Owens looks very nice with all that green grassy that hangs over the both waters. This is a must pilgramage that I have to make every year. I will being going there in OCTOBER for my b-day. Like Shon42073 said " ITS OFF THE HOOK"
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THE RIVER IS IN MY BLOOD, THE RIVER IS CALLING, I FEAR NO FISH THAT COMES MY WAY..........
The Eastern Sierra in my mind is the overall best trout fishing in the state if you consider the entire mix - beauty of surroundings, number of fish, mix of trout, and variety of types of fishing. And this comes from someone who grew up fishing the Sac.
A less known fact is that sections of the Owens are open year round. And the winter fishing is not bad at all. While the river does not get that much traffic from us Nor Cal'ers, it can get pretty hammered from the So Cal crowd during prime time. Going off season is a very enjoyable experience in its own...
