So as the morning rose on Sunday, one I was cold and two I was a little frozen with the 13 degree temps. But that is life in the mountains and I pressed with breaking camp so we could have breakfast on the river. My cohort in crime Boone-i-fied decided it was an opportune time to just do his business and hop back inside the bed of the truck to sleep. I didn't blame him, wanted to do the same for sure.After we headed down to the river we found a little spot were we could eat our grub, drink tea and do a little fishing for the morning. It was not a bad little spot to say the least for the morning. Boone spent the morning running around and rolling in the dirt like any good puppy should and I tried my hand at pulling some of the Browns that were in the spring feed creek we were next to. I didn't have a meeting till the afternoon so I had time to do what I wanted for the next 6 or so hours. So what is a man to day with a day to himself and a river surrounded by public land to explore? Of course, I went hunting and fishing. We took the road less traveled and spent the day driving the dirt roads and exploring parts of the Owens river I have personally never seen. Deer, Elk, Ducks, Quail were everywhere and we shot a few of the latter for dinner and headed to a few more spots to fish.
I won't say the fishing was great, really it wan't good at all, but you can't really expect to much when you are just exploring dirt roads that finger towards the river. We did though have a great day of just sitting in the warm sun and at 2pm we headed up to The Sierra Trout Magnet fly shop to talk with the owner, David. David is a young guy that decided the Owen River is the place in which he wants to set up his life and fish. As he said while I was interviewing him, "Where else can you fish year around for trophy trout? High lakes in the summer and the valley floor all winter, its perfect here." We talked for another hour or so and he gave me the skinny of the Valley from a guides perspective and also gave me the low down on some great fishing on the Upper Owens and the Hike lakes.
Okay the High lakes of the Eastern Sierras, Rainbows, Goldens, Golden-Rainbow Hybrids, Brookies, Browns, oh ya that that one lake where a 15 lb Golden was caught on a 2wt and yes I saw pictures. The beast was caught on a pack trip were they used pack horses to haul a boat in. The guy that caught it had no idea that there were fish that big in there, that must have been the shock of his life. But, I digress, because the Mountain are closed to fishing till April and I went up the Upper Owens.
So I left the shop and headed up to my campsite on BLM land up in Hot Creek, which is a phenomenal place to fish on its own. We set up camp, fire and started on grub for the both of us. By now Boone had become accustom to me adding a little hot water to his dry food so that it slid down a little easier in the freezing temps, which they got there that night. So Boone with his dog soup and me with my shrimp and veggie curry we hunkered down to what would be a good, but really cold night and even colder morning.
Until next time,
The Bearded Boar
