The weather was not as predicted, it was supposed to be in the thirties over night, well it was obvious as I drove through Bishop and the rest of the high desert it was going to be colder than what was predicted. I was thinking to myself, shit! I only brought a fleece pull over and a few fishing shirts.
As I start to make my way up the 395 towards Crowley, the temps kept dropping lower and lower. At the top of Sherwin Summit 7000' the temp is 11 degrees... I'm going to freeze my ass off! I finally get to the lake and it's warmed up all the way to 15 degrees, this is at 7:30am!
I begin to look through my truck and find that I have a flannel shirt under the seat, thank god for lost clothing. I layer up with a t-shirt, fleece and flannel shirt. Not bad, I actually feel quite warm. I get out and start pumping air into my float tube. That should get me a little warmer and it does. I string up the 6wt TFO with full sinking line and tie on two streamers, a black woolly bugger and olive matuka as the trailer. Am after big fish with big appetites.
I see steam coming off the lake which looks kind of cool. There are two other guys getting ready on the opposite side of the lake. Turns out they were fishing with midges under an indicator for most of the morning for not much, not even a bite. I was stripping my streamers the entire morning with hopes of a big fish. I had about a half dozen takes and only one hookup with a small rainbow landed. Tough fishing conditions for sure with cold cold air temps.
The trout I finally hooked had tons of fight in it and I really thought it was a big guy, but it turns out that the trout was just full of fight.
My overall fly fishing experience on Crowley Lake was pretty good to say the least, no one around me was hooking fish. I had some very solid takes and only one fish to hand, I'd say the morning went great considering the cold air temps. I'll go back when the lake reopens in the spring.
After my morning on Crowley, I headed up the road a short distance to fly fish on the Upper Owens, not to many people were fly fishing this section, which by the way is perfect in my book. Now the fishing is usually easy pickings for me in this area, for whatever the reason the fish were spookier than I could remember. I caught four very tiny rainbows and that was it for an afternoon of fly fishing. I manage to see two very large trout that spooked with my shadow. I wish I could have hooked one instead of spooking them. That's what happens when you're not a sneaky fly fisher.
I stayed until the sun started to set, the wind started to pick up something nasty, with some brutal wind gust, that was about all I could take as the temps dropped as soon as the sun dipped behind the mountain peaks. With winds and cold temp and not having the proper gear, I high tailed it out.
Headed towards Bishop for the night, I had to get some much needed rest and a really hot shower to thaw out.
Cheeeerrrrzzzzz!
The SoCal Fly Fisher
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