A marmot at Olmstead Point, a stop on our way to Tuolumne Meadows, and a hike that would require the full use of our lungs.
Looking at our Target - Lembert Dome - from Tuolumne Meadows Campground, over the very swollen Tuolumne River. The hike is 1.5 miles with an 800-foot elevation gain.
Mark and Sean on the last stretch up the back of Lembert Dome.
The view from Lembert Dome, looking out over Tuolumne Meadows.
Mark's first experience fly fishing...obviously it went well.
Chalk it up to vanity or lack of maturity as a fly fisherman, but I felt the pressure on our second day to beat last year’s Eagle Lake record of 53 rainbows to the net.
We’d met our competition the guys in the other boat, a father who had gifted his son a guided trip for his birthday, and our guide reminded us that we’d fallen far short of our record the day before.
Things looked good. Scattered clouds, a bit of a breeze and the sun cresting the mountains.
Like nearly any water, the fishing on Eagle Lake can be changeable. That’s to be expected. Calm conditions will kill the bite. A weak breeze that morning put the burden on Don and I to make the most of every strike. We did, but it was a slow start. Atypically, the fish were smaller. It seems as if the big fish had moved off The Mesa during the night, to be replaced by youngsters. (Thankfully, the smallest fish of the day — an eight incher — was landed by Doug, our guide.)
Every time Don would hook a fish, I’d wait. I’ve learned to never recast if my partner just had a strike. More often than not, leaving flies in the water would lead to a double hook up. The proof’s in the video below, courtesy one of small cameras mounted on Don’s hat.
After noon, both guide boats were side by side. Our of the corner of our eyes, we’d all watch for the sudden jerk of a hookset and watch anxiously to see if a fish made it to the net. Don and I were one fish behind our competition.
It boiled down to making the hookset. And we did.
It wasn’t a day of huge fish. It also took some work — twitching the fly here and there, mending and casting to transitions — but the fish were passing by often enough to ensure regular hook ups. Our lead was extended, fish by fish.
In the end, we’d come within touching distance of our record, with 52 fish for the day.
By the end of that day, we were tired. Not tired of catching fish, but our hands and wrists and forearms ached. The sun had exacted its toll. I faced a long drive home. But all was good. It was a great time. It always is at Eagle.
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It’s the kind of fishing that feels illegal, immoral and just plain wrong, but so good that you hope the semi-remote location will keep all but most motivated anglers from visiting.
For a second year, fishing buddy Don and I made the trek to Eagle Lake last weekend. Last year we had done so Father’s Day weekend, just as a huge caddis hatch was coming off. Arriving a week earlier this year, we saw only the beginning of the hatch. Regardless of our timing, it was certain that fishing would be good, the catching great, and, now it seems, that I’d pull an annual bonehead move.
For me the trip’s about 270 miles, really not too far, but the last 128 miles of a narrow two-lane state highway twists and turns through canyons. Whatever mapping application or GPS you use will indicate it’ll take roughly five hours driving time, but the nature of those last hundred miles will add just under an hour. The driving is so slow it’s common for folks to get a bit lost thinking they’ve passed the turnoff for Spalding when it’s still miles up the road.
A little sample of Sierra Nevada Brewery's Ovila Dubbel and California Common. Both great.
Whether or not you’re a fan of Sierra Nevada beers, the hour-long tour’s well worth a stop. Along the tour are offers to taste the toasted malted barley and wort, which tastes of Grape Nuts with a sweetness so strong it implies instant cavities, and a chance to rub and smell whole-cone hops. The history of the brewery is a large part of the tour, and it’s eco-friendliness is dumbfounding.
Good food and beer go hand in hand with fishing, there was no slouching on my part. The Sierra Nevada Brewery Restaurant has some great grub — steaks and burgers from the brewery’s spent-grain-fed 50 head of cattle — and flights of all beers on tap, many of which can’t be found elsewhere. Driving by myself, I asked for a couple of tastes: California Common and Ovila Dubbel. Both were tasty, and the California Common, a recipe created in last year’s beer camp with yeast native to the Golden State, seemed to have a little bit of that unique sourness found in San Francisco sourdough bread. (And personal kudos to Sierra Nevada as I wasn’t charged for the two small tastes.)
Eagle Lake is in the far northeastern corner of California, about 40 miles from the Nevada border and 90 miles from the Oregon border. The nearest town, Susanville, has been called “Prison Town, USA,” as about 40% of its 18,000 residents are housed at the High Desert State Prison and the California Correctional Facility, were actor Danny Trejo served time.
There’s not much cell phone coverage after leaving Chico, so it wasn’t until I pulled into Chester that a text message from Don popped up, letting me know he was in Susanville. I acknowledged his message with my location, to get a reply that he had just talked with our guide, Doug, who said the bite had been excellent. I trust Doug well enough that the thought didn’t even cross my mind that he might be setting us up for the big “you should’ve been here yesterday.”
Lunch was big, so dinner that night was a single grilled cheese sandwich and a beer, enjoyed in view of the lake, its water slowly darkening as the embers of a setting sun touched the tips of the surrounding mountains.
Never a Dull Moment
To be clear, I’m usually adequately prepared when it comes to fishing. But there’s something about the prospect of big Eagle Lake rainbows that seems to scramble my brain. Last year I lost track of my fishing license, something guides tend to require clients have in their possession.
Don on the chilly morning ride to "The Mesa."
Anglers have been taking fish from the lake since Memorial Day, but as is the case with Eagle Lake, the trout population can make for stupid, silly catching much of the time. It’s a simple matter of being there on the bite with the right flies at the right depths in the right location. Doug has his favorite spots and our first stop was cryptically referred to as “The Mesa.” After positioning and anchoring the boat based on the wind, currents and structure, casts were made and indicators watched.
No matter one’s thoughts on stillwater nymphing, it demands decent casting as well as the mental stamina to discern the exact moment at which to set the hook. Casting two nymphs, split shot and an indicator isn’t elegant, but requires a certain skill to prevent incidental ear piercing.
Those who decry indicators often imply they make fly fishing too easy. But throw out 40 feet of fly line and put 10 feet of leader below an indicator, and it’s not that easy. One has to maintain constant vigilance, watching for the subtle difference between a “drive by” and an actual strike. A strike doesn’t always bury the indicator under water and often isn’t convenient. One learns to pause and pay close attention in those short moments after a twitch or line mends. It can be tough. I’ve heard of one experience fly fisher who went oh-for-eleven on solid strikes during the early morning bite.
Don and his first-day big Eagle Lake Rainbow.
As I’ve implied, great fishing can be anticipated on Eagle Lake. One guide is fond of saying that double hookups can be expected and triples are common. Even new fly fishers can often look back upon a day of 20-plus fish to the net. Many are in the 14- to 18-inch range; some edge above 18 inches. Given enough good hooksets, a few closer to 20 inches will make it to the boat. The larger fish will bulldog towards the bottom, while smaller fish will fool you with vicious head shakes and long runs, sometimes into the backing. If you’re lucky enough, as Don and I were, you’ll land a few native fish that are beautiful enough to compare favorably with Alaska’s famed leopard-spotted rainbows.
My biggest Eagle Lake Rainbow – over 22 inches.
The fishing started off strong that first morning with the kind of rapid-fire hookups that give rise to concerns that the bite will taper into nothingness by noon. But this was Eagle Lake, and with some patience and dialing in the aforementioned flies, depth and location, one can expect steady action. Sometimes slower, sometimes not.
Forty-two fish made it to the boat that day. Eleven short of our record last year; but things looked promising for day two. Little did I know how tough it might be.
See the photo gallery here.
A few years ago it was with a smirk and wink that the guide would tell you, knowing that you certainly weren’t there yesterday. In silent acknowledgement, you’d smirk back.
Impossibly white wisps of clouds break up that bluebird sky. The lake’s in great shape, the temperature just right and the surface rippling ever so slightly.
You’ve been fishing in this particular spot for just short of an hour, with only a few “drive bys” rewarding your efforts. This is the third spot this morning. Fishing’s been tough. And now it takes an honest effort to not set the hook with every dip of the indicator. A fear has set in that the moment you look away the next dip will end up being a missed fish.
A sly glance is the only indication that you’re ignoring a growling stomach, trying to outwait your companion, hoping that the moment he bites into his sandwich indicators will go down. You also overlook other bodily needs. You gather strength with the self admonition that a line not in the water isn’t fishing.
Then the guide says it. “You should have been here yesterday.”
This time you know he means it, and you curse the intertubes.
…in the coming days I’ll be on Eagle Lake — shown in the above only days-old video — hoping that those words are never even considered being spoken.
Just last week we posted that nearly all of California’s hatchery-raised rainbow trout will be triploids within two to three years.
Now we can’t help but wonder what it really means.
According to U.K. Salmon and Freshwater Fisheries Consultant David J. Solomon:
Apart from having three sets of chromosomes, as opposed to the usual two in trout, there are a number of other relevant differences [between diploid and triploid trout].
Many organs and tissues have larger but fewer cells in triploids, including the brain, muscle, retina, liver and kidney (Benfey, 1999). This appears to arise because the extra set of chromosomes dictates an increase in cell nucleus dimensions which in turn affects overall cell size.
Fewer brain cells doesn’t mean will mean you’ll hook a triploid trout on every cast, particularly if diploid trout (with the normal chromosomal configuration) are present in the same water. Solomon goes on…
However, this rather fundamental difference appears to have remarkably little knock-on effect upon physiology, behaviour and general performance. Development rates appear very similar, until the onset of sexual maturity in diploids. Diet utilisation and energetics appear unaffected. Triploids are generally less aggressive than diploids, which leads to poorer performance when the two are reared together in intensive culture – but these differences disappear when the two are reared separately.
It’ll be interesting…
Chances are that in the sordid noble history of nearly all fly fishermen, trout were caught, cleaned and eaten. It’s just as likely that these fish were born in a hatchery, raised in concrete runways and trucked to that river, stream, or lake from which they were plucked.
Writing without the encumbrances of real journalism, I can can step out on a limb and offer definitive word that nearly all of the stocked rainbow trout in California soon could be triploids. Yup, them fish that should be asterisk’d in any claim of a record.
Hatchery Upwelling Jars
While the resulting hatchery environmental impact reports called for the protection of steelhead in anadromous waters below rim dams, CA DFG will expand rainbow triploid production to approximately 90% of the state’s stocking program. The few exceptions will include Eagle Lake, an understandably unnamed southern Sierra source of Kamloops Junction Rainbow broodstock, and hatchery broodstock that will be placed in certain waters when three to four years old.
Triploids aren’t new to California. They were first brought in from out-of-state suppliers, such as Sumner, Wash.-based Troutlodge, then reared in CA DFG hatcheries. The department later developed its own program, with a single apparatus and borrowing methodology from other states that have had success with trout triploidy. This single apparatus was trucked up and down the state, following the spawning of the different rainbow strains.
That will change near the end of this month when additional triploidy pressure shocking machines should arrive from Europe, allowing for the placement of two machines at the Mt. Shasta Hatchery and single machines at the San Joaquin Hatchery and Hot Creek Hatchery. (You can get a good, easy-to-understand outline of triploids and their production at Get Hooked.)
There Be No Monsters Here (and Good News for Natives?)
It seems you can set aside concerns that genetically engineered monster rainbows will be dumped into California waters. These triploid trout will be still be stocked when ½ to ¾ of a pound. (Trivia: The size of trout stocked by CA DFG rose to a target of ½ pound when the general daily limit on trout was reduced to five, from 10 fish. Before that, stocked trout often were smaller.)
Although mandated by 2005’s Assembly Bill 7 — now California Fish and Game Code §13007 — and not directly related to the PRC/CBD lawsuit, Dr. Cox expressed hope that up to 25% of CA DFG’s stocked fish will be heritage species (in terms of numbers) by 2012-13. State hatcheries currently raise Eagle Lake Rainbow (Oncorhynchus mykiss aquilarum), Lahonton Cutthroat (Oncorhynchus clarki henshawi), California (or Volcano Creek) Golden Trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss aguabonita) and Steelhead (Oncorhynchus mykiss).
A fifth heritage trout species should be in production by January 2012. Spelled out in the California Fish & Game Commission’s Current Issues Fall 2010 document are plans to upgrade the infrastructure at the Kern River Hatchery for the production of the native Kern River Rainbow Trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss gilberti). Dr. Cox said that Kern River rainbow broodstock should be collected this fall. Long-term plans include the possibility of rearing Lahontan cutthroat trout for the Lake Tahoe basin restoration.
Regardless of one’s opinion of stocked trout, it’s fair to say that those with boots on the ground in California’s hatcheries honestly aim to better the angling experience. Here’s to hoping.
* Yes, he’s a fisherman who spent much of last month fly fishing in Wyoming and Montana.
fishing for words 