California Fly Fishing - Western Sierra - September 2008

I fished for a few days last week with my friend Alex, and we had a Great trip. Most of the large brown trout were caught at night, and silly me, I left my reading glasses next to the shower, resulting in very few fish photos that night.

We did a lot of hiking, exploring and fishing and overall it was an enjoyable trip, and I can't wait to do it again.

On the drive up the mountains we stopped to check out a few streams, and there was no shortage of fish.

Alex cast a few flies to the school of fish above, browns and kokanee salmon, but they had lock-jaw, and we still had a lot more driving to do to reach the lodge, so we moved on

 

Alex fly fishing

 

We hiked the length of the lake, a trail and fewer boulders would have made it easier

 

We fished our way to the back of the lake, saw some large browns follow our streamers, but no takes

 

Animals could be heard back in the trees, we noticed mountain lion and bear tracks, and a bear growled at Alex later that night

 

We made it to the back of the lake, spotted brownies in the stream, but the water was low and the fish skittish

 

I fished some of the back bays with pike flies, gifts from a friend in Sweden, and twice almost had the fly rod yanked out of my grasp, but the fish escaped.

 

The owner of the lodge picked us up, sparing a long hike back

 

We didn't stop for dinner, instead fished the evening bite, and the weather was perfect

 

From past experience, we knew the big fish bite at night

 

Brownie release

We both caught and released many fish that night, unfortunately I left my reading glasses at the lodge, and struggled to get a single shot because I couldn't read the display on my Nikon SU-800 flash controller as well as both wireless SB800 flash units. that won't happen again!

 

A huge dry fly that proved effective, fished at night along the rocky shoreline

 

We spent most of the second day float tubing the lake, fishing flies deep along submerged structure

 

What an enjoyable day, fishing was slow, but the scenery is awesome

 

Sunsets were beautiful

 

We also fished a few smaller lakes, spotted lots of fish, but they weren't hungry

 

Sure is pretty up there

 

We took a few casts here and there as we started driving back down the mountain

 

It was a great trip, I'll be back

 

Fly Fishing Photography

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