Ryan's Adventures

Everyone left, so i went to Crowley north end by myself with the float tube. Kicked out to some other boats to midge, they were getting a fish maybe every 15 min, I finally got 1 bump after about 30 min. Some strippers came through and got 3 or 4 hits right next to me near the shore on Green Banks, so I decdided to start stripping. I had a black wooly bugger with green punk perch trailer. I finally got hit hard right off the little point, Gary's point, pretty close to the shore. It was a feisty 18" rainbow, pullin hard, and I pulled a little too hard back, and he came unbuttoned. I put it back down, and caught another little 12 rainbow 20 minutes later. As I was leaving around 12, some guy said he just caught a 24" rainbow in front of the trucks on a Loeberg. I think that's the spot! I drove home, pretty uneventful, I think 4:34 moving time, and 17 min stopped time. Sad to leave!

Woke up, was on Crowley by 930am. Got a few take downs midging in the middle of the north end in around 7 ft of water, small dinks. Overall, fishing was pretty slow all day, I think I got 2 fish, Dad got maybe 4? All small rainbows. Tim and Robbie got 32 trout on the boat trolling, some on an Arctic Fox Trolling Fly Black with Red Tinsel and a Tasmanian Devil with like Yellow wings and some red/black spots in the middle. Robbie maybe got 3 fish, Tom maybe got 3-4. Left lake at about 645pm. Came home and had steaks for dinner. Last full day here.

Woke up, got ready, headed down to Crowley. Tim and Robbie were in the boat, and Tom Gary Dad and I drove in my truck to the north end of the lake via dirt road. We were in the water by about 930am. We got a few fish midging, then did some trolling and got a few more, then a few more midging towards the end of the day. Tim and Robbie maybe caught about 12 fish, Dad and I caught about 12, and Tom and Gary got about 6. Good day. We stopped by the troutfitter on the way home, then had a good spaghetti dinner. Another beautiful day!

Woke up, decided to head down to crowley. Got out on the water, started out in the north end. Wind came up, left that spot after about 45 minutes. We headed up to the crooked creek area on the boat and trolled around for ZERO bites!! We got off the lake, and then drove up to the Hot Creek Trout Hatchery. It was crazy to see all these huge trout up close. We took some underwater video seen here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yHOjr7SU6kc We continued down and checked out the rest of Hot Creek, which was pretty interesting to see the hot springs. We came home and put the porta boat together in preparation of the next day. Gary and Robbie arrived and we had sausage and sour kraut (sp?) for dinner.

Took our time, got on the road about 1030. Stopped for some supplies at Rite Aid. Stopped at Mammoth Visitors Center and got some maps. Lots of good books/maps in there, would be fun to go back and read some stuff. Got on the road and decided to head down to Bishop. We took Lower Rock Creek road down which was fun to see again. Came out onto 395 above bishop, then got gas. Drove over to the Owens River off of 5 bridges road, then up to Chalk Bluffs. The water was moving so fast, 507CFS so we decided not to fish it. We continued on and hopped on Fish Slough Rd. This just parallels hwy 6. We cruised down the dirt road, checkin things out. We stopped at a few places to see some petroglyphs on some rocks on the side of the road. Amazing to see these drawings from people 1000 years ago. Just amazing! Continued up and turned onto Chidago Canyon rd. We headed up and went through a super tight Red Rock canyon. Pretty fun to see though! Came out of the canyon, and passed some good lo...

Woke up, another lazy start. Couldn't figure out what to do, weather was pretty bad, too bad to be out on Crowley. Decided we would go driving around, etc. Tom finally said lets just go to Sagehen, at 11am. Little late. We decided we would go. We took the back road out of Tom's Place, across Crowley Dam, and eventually made it to Benton Crossing Rd. We turned again on Hwy 120 out to Benton. Saw the little town of Benton, pretty ran down. We continued on, driving right at the base of the White Mountains, pretty cool. Saw an old burned Casino and abandoned hotel at the top of Montgomery Grade. We turned left on Hwy 360 and drove about 5 miles before turning left onto a dirt road. We saw some horses within 10 min, 4 of them, 1 of them being a baby. I didn't have my zoom camera, bummed! We continued on with Tom telling us that is 'just over the next hill' many times, etc etc. The weather was consistently cloudy with minor rain, and a dark storm right behind...

We woke and got a pretty late start. Drove to Gabes, got the boat. Got on the water, started trolling around McGee Bay and near Sandy Point. There were quite a few tubers at Sandy Point. We hooked up one brown near the restroom in McGee in about 12 ft of water. We were trolling Tazmanian Devils and Needlefish. We decided to round the corner and look up the north arm, to find a TON of boats up there. Whoops, this is where we should have started! We pulled into the 'floatilla' and started midging. Tim was getting bites pretty quick on a broken back blood midge with copper head. We talked to a guy that said the fishing was better a little earlier. We didn't get there till about 12pm. Tim missed a few fish, and FINALLY my indicator goes down, and I hook up. Nice fish, a really nice brown actually. We were in about 8.7ft of water, and fishing 6-12" above the bottom. I caught mine on a size 18 zebra midge with a black head. We got several more take downs, and lan...

Drove from Danville to Mammoth. Stopped at Olmstead point in Yosemite to check out the view. Dark clouds were in the east, but the west was more clear. Stopped quickly at Tenaya Lake to check it out, and moved onwards. Took a detour up the road to Saddlebag lake. There is a nice creek along the road up to the lake, several people were fishing. Looks like it could be pretty fun. Further up the road it opens up a bit to some nice views of some mountains. Finally came up to the lake, it had an interesting wooden dam. The shore surrounding the lake was a bit barren, not too many trees. I heard they offer a shuttle across the lake. I stayed for about 5 min, then took off back down the hill while it started to rain. Came down Tioga Pass and decided to drive the June Lake Loop. Fall colors were starting to show around Parker Lake. Grant lake was pretty dreary, a few boats trolling. My wiper blade on my truck busted in front of Silver Lake Resort so I had to zip tie it back on. I c...