Between Two Wildernesses 7/2-7/3

[giantbrookie]

Thursday and Friday in advance of the 4th of July crowds, we (Judy, Dawn, me) did an overnighter to an area along the Sierran crest between two northern Sierra Wildernesses. The region was quite crowded, especially for a within-week trip, and the crowds included a large number of backpackers as well as dayhikers. The high backpacking population is probably because this is not a Wilderness area and not subject to wilderness permit quotas. In spite of the crowds it was fairly easy to secure a nice campsite on high ground, a longtime habit of mine in order to get a breezier site with fewer mosquitoes.

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The weather report going suggested we might have some serious mosquito problems with highs predicted in the high 70s for the altitude we'd be at, but the forecast of a good breeze offered hope. As it turned out it was consistently windy, day and night, to almost totally negate mosquito harassment, and it seemed to us that temps topped out in the 60s; exceedingly nice. This was the first backpacking trip my wife Judy had been on since 2015. It was nice to have my all-time best backpacking/fishing buddy back along with the new ace Dawn. Unfortunately, both were suffering from foot problems during the short hike in to our camp spot and it took 2 hours to get in, nearly double our expected hiking time. As a result, I quickly pitched the "family" backpacking tent (ginormous 4-person, 2-pole dome) and they took shelter inside to rest while I went out to try some fishing, getting my first cast off at about 130 pm. I had last visited this area in July of 1984 and I recall skunking at this lake while snagging and losing several lures. For a lure fisher, this is an intimidating lake to fish, because it is murky and one can't see the bottom. With the chop on the lake from the wind, obscuring obvious rises, and the murky lake, there was initially no visible sign of fish life, but I soon saw lots of fingerling sized fish along the shore. My first casts were demoralizing, as I lost two lures to snags among my first four casts. One followed a shoreline parallel cast after seeing a near shore rise from what appeared to be a fairly large fish. It seemed to me, however, that all of the snag hazards were near the shore because I was able to freely sink and bounce off the bottom, so I figured on doing super deep retrieves but speeding up a bit toward the end to avoid the unseen hazards near shore. On cast no.6 I sat down to let the lure (3/8 oz silver scaleite-taped Kastmaster) sink and reeled while in comfortably sitting on a slab. It is nice to be able retrieve sitting down to rest the legs a bit. At the very end of the retrieve I thought I had gotten careless and run into a rock again, but this time the head shaking showed it wasn't a snag. I stood up and soon brought in a 13" cutthroat. Then came 8 or 9 blank casts. With the long sink time and slow retrieve, each one takes awhile, so this was a fairly long dry spell, during which another fisherman walked by and asked me how I was doing. I said "slow" and he said that this was representative of the two days he had been there. He mentioned getting no action on lures at all, but that his sole success had come with bait. In both observing and talking to other fishing folks at the lake this seemed representative. Folks seemed to either have relative rare success, or they skunked. A boy and his dad were fishing further along the shore and the kid caught one. His dad exclaimed repeatedly that it was a big one, but I was too far away to see how large it was. I switched lures to a honey-colored Kastmaster and on the first cast caught a 9" cuttie, which seemed to small to keep so I let it go. Two casts later, I caught a 10-incher which I kept to provide a decent main course for the family. After about four blank casts I figured I should go rouse Judy and Dawn so they could get in some fishing time, so I did the usual "one more cast". Whereas the first three fish had hit near the end of the retrieves, this time I ran into resistance lifting off the bottom early in the retrieve (on the 2nd or 3rd "resink"). I figured I had hit a sunken weedpatch I had not crossed yet, but on pulling back noted the shaking, as well as the weight. It was fairly heavy, unless it was a small fish partly entangled in weeds. When it came into view, it appeared big enough that netting it would be wise and a closer look revealed it was barely hooked. With a bit of delicate steering I got it into the net. It was a 16.5" cuttie, on the slim side, but not stunted. I headed back to camp, pausing once to rejuvenate the three fish on the stringer. I took two casts and caught two more 10" cutties and released them figuring that we had enough for dinner. I anchored the stringer in a wave-swept spot below our camp, took a token cast and had another strike; it was about 330 pm. The action seemed pretty good, so all the more reason to get Judy and Dawn out to enjoy it. They emerged from their snacking and resting session and we set off to fish at about 430 pm. We fished for a couple hours during which time the evening shadows spread onto the lake and we saw a lot of rises, primarily from smaller fish. Judy and Dawn had several hook ups but the fish were hitting a bit short and they all came off. I caught and released 5 more cutts in the 9-11" range and led us back to cook dinner, which consisted of a ready-to-warm vegetarian Tikka Marsala (TJs), rehydrated corn, two of the fish (with Lee's superb teriyaki sauce he made from scratch evening before we left--yummy), and the traditional Mint Milanos for dessert. We figured we'd save the largest one, still very frisky on the stringer to bring home to my son Lee the next day.

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Lee was especially hoping we'd bring some cutties home, since they're his favorite fish to cook and eat. After a good night sleep (well at least for me) Judy and Dawn were feeling better but we figured the best strategy would be for them to stay back and fish the lake we're at while I took a little dayhike to check on a neighboring lake that I had heard rumors of really big cutts. If done entirely on trail, this was a fairly long dayhike but cutting the corner off trail looked like a good idea. It was, except I crossed over the target trail and somehow didn't clue in (too overconfident and didn't check map) that it was in fact the trail I was targeting. I ended up 600' too high and somewhat south of the target, but figured the extra workout was good conditioning.

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I jogged most of the way to the small lake. Quite a few folks were camped at this lake and unlike the place where we were camped this small place offered little room to get space. I was glad we hadn't chosen this as our camping spot. The lake also seemed rather shallow and showed no sign of fish activity. Multiple deep lure retrieves returned no results except for some bottom salad, so I left after a bit less than an hour of fishing.

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I undid the route errors of the hike there and was back at our camp lake in less than an hour. It was a bit past 1 pm, not too different from the afternoon before when I enjoyed so much success. It was breezy just as it had been the day before. However, as these things usually work, the fish activity was totally different. Zero strikes in about 15 casts. Ah this is how fishing goes. In the meantime I saw this big bald eagle very near where I had the large cuttie on the stringer. While I enjoyed seeing the magnificent bird (had seen it the evening before, too) I was concerned that the eagle would get a freebie from my stringer so I hustled back, to find my stringer untouched (and the fish still very vigorous--perhaps protected from the eagle's eyes by a rock overhang).
Sadly Judy and Dawn's morning and early afternoon had been similar. Still, it was great to be up there and it was nice to do an overnighter with a relaxed, unhurried schedule. Although we encountered many people, all were pleasant and courteous, so they enhanced rather than detracted from the experience. Joy is contagious, and we're tired of hearing of bad contagious things nowadays. Our efficient hikeout took only an hour and we reached the Bay Area at about 830 pm. Lee cooked chickpea curry and the large cuttie (filleted, breaded, and oven fried) for dinner and the two adults celebrated with a bottle of my 2019 West Coast Belgian Imperial IPA while daydreaming about the next one (planned in two weeks).

[kpeter]

Always fabulous to be on the trail with your family! Not so fabulous to be on the trail with everyone else's families :P But a real pleasure to see you out and about with your star companion hiker!

[Ikan Mas]

A favorite lake of mine for both the scenery and the fishing. I'm not surprised it was busy, given the current situation.

[balzaccom]

Nice! I think we've been hiking "round" those lakes over the years. There was talk of making that its own wilderness...but so far, nothing set.

[Harlen]

so I did the usual "one more cast"....

Congratulations on another nice family trip John. Thanks for the great fishing accounts.

[windknot]

Thanks for the report! On your choice of dinner entree, we've started taking a Tasty Bites Vegetable Tikka Masala packet with us as dinner for night 1 or 2 (from Costco, not TJ's, but I imagine the constitution is similar). It's heavy (each packet is 10 oz) but combined with either instant rice or tortillas it makes for a filling and savory meal with little fuel needed to heat.

[fishwrong]

Special days with the family. Great report as always. I appreciate the details and itinerary including the wife and daughter. There are times I wish I could set my own agenda for fishing on those types of trips, but looking back, making little sacrifices and adjustments to make the trip more enjoyable to the family is well worth it.

I also appreciate the positive outlook on sharing the outdoors. In days when there are crowds (relatively speaking) it helps my sense of enjoyment to realize I'm sharing special places with folks who enjoy the same things I do. These are my kind of people attitude. It doesn't always work, but sure seems to help.

Thanks for the trip report. They're appreciated.

[TahoeJeff]

Those lakes can get very crowded and can be tough to catch fish from.
So good job on finding a nice campsite and catching some good Cutts!
(I usually only go to the first lake to ice fish or use the float tube.)