Eastern Sierras August 5-8, 2005 By Dennis Larson
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Ron Calvert and I spend Friday thru Monday, August 5-8 fishing the Eastern Sierras. We fished Crowley, indicator fishing with midges, on Saturday, in McGee Bay. Taking my Fisher Bass boat made the long kick in the float tube unnecessary. The morning started out with great prospects as I picked up three trout, 2 Browns and 1 Rainbow in the first hour, between 8 and 9 a.m. After nine I lost another hook up as the fish went under the boat and self released. My fourth and last fish of the day was caught at 10:30 a.m. Meanwhile, Ron didn't fair as well. Only a couple of hookups and one 20 inch Rainbow for a mornings effort. By 11:30 a.m. the SE wind had kicked up and send most of the boats back to the docks at Fish Camp. Ron and I took the boat over to Alligator Point, which was sheltered from the wind. I took Ron to shore where he tried stripping out of his U-boat and I tried both stripping from the deck of my boat and using the Jay Fair system of trolling with lead core. Both had the same results. Nada! On the way in we tried fishing Hilton Bay out of our float tubes but with the same results. Nada! Some consolation, all of our fish were 19-20 inches.
The next morning we agreed to fish McGee Bay for the morning only and if and when we wind came up, we would head out for Bridgeport Reservoir. Fishing was even spottier on Sunday as I picked up one cutthroat. Actually I was retrieving my line as I was indicator fishing when I hooked the 17 in fish. Ron had a couple of hits but otherwise we were pretty confused as to why the fishing was so spotty. We agreed to stop in at The Trout Fly in Mammoth Lakes to see if we were doing something wrong!
Talking to one of the guides in the shop, he made 2 observations. First, we may have been fishing our midges too high off the bottom of the lake. We were in 13 feet of water on Saturday and 9-10 of water on Sunday and had our bottom midge about 12" off the bottom. He suggested right on the bottom. Hey, what a few inches? And, he said that its important in McGee Bay, at this time, to be right in the stream bed. Can be found with a fish finder but guides, once finding the stream bed, mark their spot on the lake with a GPS. The Fly Shop actually is now also using Fish Viewers in their guide boats to locate schooling fish.
That said, we headed out for Bridgeport where we stopped in at Ken's Sporting Goods to check out the outside glass locker and viewed all the BIG fish that had been taken from Bridgeport Reservoir, Upper and Lower Twin Lakes and the East Walker River over the summer. Got a fishing report that said the fish were congregated up in Buckeye Bay where that creek and Robinson Creek enter the lake. A boat is a necessity as the kick from a float tube is impossible. We spend the afternoon waiting out the second thunder storm in two days and did some scouting before sundown. We spend the night at the Bridgport marina which is under new management. Launch fee is only $5 and a skiff for your boat is only $6 a night. Dry camp is $16 a night and that includes shower facilities. Owner is a former fly fishing guide from Mammoth Lakes.
Thanks to running into a guide from The Fly Shop in Mammoth Lakes, named Scott, we were aware how to get to the mouth of the before mentioned creeks and given good info on how and what to use.
Early Monday morning Ron and I set out for the west end of the lake and the mouth. Working our way thru water grass and weeds we worked ourselves to where we could see the mouth of the creeks as they entered the lake. Anchoring the boat in only 3 food of water we launch our float tubes and started casting and stripping with olive leeches (size 12) and medium to dark olive damsel fly nymphs. Rod was using his slime line and I used my floating line. I heard Ron yell to me that we were in the right place as he had both a hookup and long release from a strong Bridgeport Rainbow. No sooner had he yelled "damn" at the long release, I too hook up and experienced a short release (not to the net). In the next 3 hours we both had numerous short grabs, long releases and a couple of fish that broke us off and took our flies. In fact, I ended up giving Ron a couple of my damsel flies that I had tied some years back. They too seemed to work. Ron actually got 3 Rainbow hogs to the net and I was fortunate to get 6 such fish to the net: five Rainbows and one georgeouly fat German Brown that measured only 18" but a mouth large enought to put my fist into and too large to get both hands around. When we pull up the anchor and decided to head home we felt much better about our weekend and had discovered a new fishery!
