Decided that before I went back to school I needed to get after some trout on a small Sierra fly-fishing trip. I left San Diego at 8:00 am heading to a small campground on the Owens river just outside of Bishop California. Stopped a few times on the road and ate lunch and generally took my time. I arrived to the campground at around 2:00-3:00, and picked my spot based on access to the river and the roads. I set-up camp and grabbed some food before it got dark. 

I wake up the next morning at 6:00 and get out to the river by 6:45.

The sign with regulations (not my photo, taken from the web)

Artificial barbless lures only, catch and release only, no take.

As I walk out to the river I'm amazed by the beautiful view.

The river, some of the parts I decided to fish

My first morning. I'm completely new to fresh water fly-fishing and have never even used my custom made 5wt that i had made for trout. Decided I would nymph.

The rod,

It is a custom 9ft 5wt 4 piece that I had http://www.midwestcustomflyrods.com make for me... Beautiful rod, fishes extremely well, and Steve from midwest coast custom fly-rods is a great guy and does great work for an excellent price. I recommend him.

Anyway, 30 mins in, I hook up with my first fish. I'm a little too excited and I'm worried about breaking my 6x tippet (later I moved to 5x) and I don't apply enough pressure on the fish and the fish spits my barbless fly. A few minutes later I hook up again and right before I land the fish, it spits my fly. I was a little bewildered but continued to fish. After an hour without any takes I move on to another part of the river.  

A few minutes in I hook up with anther fish. A typical wild brown, but he has a lot of fight in him and is using the high/fast water flow against me. I'm able to bring him in without too much fuss.

A quick photo opportunity

A continue to fish for another hour and lose another fish before calling it a day. The temperature was starting to rise, and I was getting hungry/thirsty.

After talking to some guys in a fly-shop, I was told I could have luck with some dry flies right before sunset as the trout would be rising. Sure enough, the trout started to rise right around 6:00 and I started throwing some dry flies at them. I fished all sizes of caddis, parachute adams, and hoppers. All of which are favorite/go to dry flies and I couldn't get a single take.

This morning I overslept and got out on the river at round 8:45. By now the temperature was rising and it was getting pretty hot. My first cast results in hook-up with a decent size brown. I fight for a while and right before I net him, he spits the hook. I'm ok with this however. The air temp was getting so hot I didn't want to take the trout out of the water any more than necessary. In the next 30 minutes I hook up with two more trout and make some quick releases without taking them out of the water. After a period of around an hour without any takes, I'm about to call it quits when I get a take. This fish is bigger than the rest and is fighting so hard I had to put it on my reel. A few moments later I see the fish up close. A 12-13 inch rainbow. I was unaware these waters had bows, but it was a welcome surprise. I decided to call it a morning.

I go to grab lunch with my +1 when we get a phone-call. We have to be back  in town by the next morning. (We planned on staying another few days) We quickly eat, then grab our gear and go fish upstream closer to the damn where the water should be cooler as it was getting close to the afternoon high. In the first 30 minutes I connect with 5 fish and 4 get to hand.

All in all, it was a great trip. Unfortunately it was cut short, but I'm sure I'll be back up there later this year or the following spring to fool some trout with my flies. (I'm actually at UCD right now, but I am without a car. If anyone wants to take a +1 to putah I'd be more than willing to pay for gas and buy you lunch.)

       Late,

              - Brendan