I spent last Thursday to Sunday in Bridgeport with 3 other guys for a Fall fishout. We fished the East Walker on Thursday and Friday. We caught a good number of fish but nothing of much size as compared to past Fall trips up there. That report seemed consistent with other fishermen we talked to on the water, small fish. The flows are still high for this time of year but are coming down. They lowered the flow to about 230 cfs last tuesday so that may have played into the reports. Fish were caught on fox poopahs, birds nests, PT's, copper johns, micro mays, nothing very specific. Also got some on top with stimulators and a mayfly spinner I tie. Biggest fish from the East Walker was a 16-17" brown caught by yours truly.
Saturday we skipped the crowds on the EW and headed South to Rush Creek. Started down on the lower section about a mile upstream from 395. It was some serious bushwhacking getting in there but the fish were numerous and bigger than expected for such a small stream. Average fish was about 10" with a few up to 12". We spooked out some fish that were surprisingly large for that water, I'm talking 16-18"! That would have been sweet to hook a fish like that on small water but no dice. A shadow from 10 feet down stream from the fish sent them scattering. At mid-day we went and fished the creek between Grant Lake and Silver Lake, what an awesome piece of small water! We caught a ton of fish all on top. The hot fly was a PMD cripple and the mayfly spinner I tied up. Very technical fishing. We came upon a very old cabin in the middle of nowhere that was really cool. Had a carving inside the wall that said 1954 but we think it was much older than that.
Sunday on the way out we went up towards Twin Lakes and fish Robinson Creek, another great piece of small water. Again, all fish caught on top with the same average size of about 10" with some smaller than that. Very opportunistic feeders. We again saw a few large fish mostly tucked under a pile of dead-fall trees. My buddy hooked one after being very persistent but it immediately broke off his 6X tippet. You pretty much had 2-3 casts in each spot and if you missed the take move on because there was no getting them to come up again.
We had our typical dinners of wings and pizza or burgers at the Rhino with several pitchers of Alaskan Amber. Saturday night we discovered a place called Casa Michaela's just south of Bridgeport on 395. Small family run place with amazing food and Negra Modela on tap. I highly recommend this place!
The "Miracle Mile" was pretty heavily fished as usual. We fished the lower end of it them drove down stream and actually had better fishing there. Pics and video editing in the works!
Packrat, we are neighbors. I'm down the road in PH....you be sure to let me know the next time you're going on a trip like that! (if you know a good divorce attorney that'd help too)
