Overall solid day of rockfish. I started releasing starries after several in a row had so little meat but made a mess of my cutting board with the eggs. That is a really nice one though.

Thanks for the writeup, exciting day. I've noticed whitefish tend to know when you have 9 of them in the bag. Nice to get a yellow this early!

So much adversity, so many more fish tacos! Good to see the Cyclops get wet.

Quote from: Latimeria on April 02, 2026, 05:34:46 PMYou need to get some meat in the boat!  Get'em Timmy!

As for Jeremy... Get some easy limits of cod!  The OC has to produce something!

The OC has no such obligation!

I got a couple of passes for a local landing that I'm thinking about using soon. Probably should have used tomorrow to go but I left the passes on my desk at work. I really wanna go when they deep drop the 14 but the counts definitely aren't reading like they did that the last two days.

Also feel like I'm gonna habitually go back to cleaning the boat after each stop if I hop back on a cattle boat...

Good luck on the rockfish, and on your fishmas trip! That's probably good timing anyways, pre-fish before opening and maybe have less people fishing next to you, then hopefully take a few home when it does open. My freezer is empty, I gotta figure my way into a limit of rockfish somehow.

Had this up for a while and thought I should post it here as well. Also I've gotten like 5 "dislikes" on this video on youtube and I don't know why? Too much heavy breathing? Idk, it exists as a reference and some people are finding it useful.

Forgot to post this here when I originally made it a while ago, but it's become surprisingly popular on YouTube so I thought I would throw it up on the forum as well.

Alicia decided about a week ago that now is the time that she wants to try a camping trip. I ran through my options. Something local like the Angeles forest would be boring to me. Big Sur would be awesome, but $80 to sleep on the ground with the possibility of her hating it didn't sit well with me. I realized I still hadn't been to the Eastern Sierras, so I started honing in. I almost settled on Tuttle Creek Campground near the Mt. Whitney Portal, but the roads into the mountains were closed for the season which would limit our ability to do anything but check out the small creek there, and the Owens access in that area is limited.

So I decided to go a little further north of that to Goodale Creek Campground, 30 miles south of Bishop, then book it to the Upper Owens the next day in the morning.

First time driving up the 395 was great. A few slow trucks bogged us down but we made good time. I'm in an online Geology class right now which has freshened up my enthusiasm for all the geological varieties and wonders along the way.

We got to the campground at about 1400. Amazing skyline, Mt. Whitney a little south of us...









uhhhhh basalt!!!



Unfortunately, Goodale Creek which flowed just steps from the campground was completely shrouded in trees and shrubs. Basically no access to fish, and the host claimed there were definitely no fish in it. Google has much to say on the contrary, but I had absolutely nothing to work with from the campground. Here was the only fishable spot and it was barren.



Weather was supposed to be 70º/50º, but it felt a lot more like 90º at the afternoon peak and 50º in the morning. Quite a bit of warm wind came off the mountains from sunset until about 0300, which actually made me quite hot through the night until it died off, then I quickly became miserably cold. Relatively miserable sleep despite a healthy dose of ZzzQuil.

About 0700, we packed up camp and headed north. Not before being intercepted by Koga for a toll on the way out of the campground.





We got breakfast at 0800 at Jack's Restaurant, diner with trophy trout mounts and good breakfast.

Next we headed to Convict Lake for a little walk, as Jared made it clear he would not respect a decision on my part to forego visiting it. He was absolutely right to insist.



Bunch of perv trout trying to interrupt two otherwise consenting trouts.



The water was gin clear and the trout were very aware that it's still a month til Fishmas.

I spy:



On to the Owens...I didn't have a ton of time, what with these explorational activities. I put in about an hour and I did not see any fish whatsoever. Quite a few guys fishing and not catching. Beautiful country, but I didn't get sniffed on nymph nor micro spoon.



Alicia insisted we visit a hot spring nearby. It turned out to be 15 minutes down a dirt road. I was hoping it would just be right on the side of the road since we had essentially just done 2 other hikes, but it was down a little canyon and Alicia wanted the closer look.



Thankfully, my whole day, and maybe trip, was made by seeing that the Owens community has rigorous safety standards in their vault toilets, see on the lid:



It turns out that the hot spring is part of broader volcanic activity. This area is known as the Long Valley Caldera, a massive 8x15 mile volcano that is still active and monitored. Further evidence of recent volcanic activity can be seen upon the walls of the vault toilet.

Traffic on the way down was fantastic, took the 14 to the 5 instead of the 15 and only got the backside of 7pm LA traffic. Plus, got gas in Bishop at 5.09, which felt like an absolute steal in this particular moment, and got excellent fuel economy rolling downhill back to SoCal.

Alicia seems to like camping. I'm reminded that it leaves me with much less than 100% in my battery for the day, between the miserable sleep and extra physicality. Gotta love BLM campground pricing though, along with the views. Next time I will probably stay somewhere between the Upper Owens and Bishop and focus all my efforts there, although there are some golden trout opportunities in that Whitney Portal area that I would like to try eventually. Overall beautiful part of the state that I regret not visiting sooner. Maybe one day my salmonid curse will lift and I will have some great fishing days up there as well.

Quote from: sasquatch on March 25, 2026, 02:30:54 PMUsed to drift a single salmon egg on a hook with a little split shot and get bit in creeks. Wonder if a bead pegged near the hook or slipped over it would work. I know they use beads in the north west.

I was thinking about trying beads. I've got a few people with strong convictions insisting that I fly fish, so I might commit to that. But I would be pretty comfortable with beads and spoons.

I can't help but think SD people are still coming up for the OC show knowing it's the bigger show, along with LA folks and beyond. Haven't been to the Del Mar show, but looks like you at least scored some deals.

Quote from: Tim524 on March 24, 2026, 08:08:31 PMThe weather is nice up there right now, I'm going in a couple weeks but keep in mind most areas are closed for fishing until last weekend of April (Fishmas) Lower Owens is open but most Lakes are still closed. Enjoy, it is beautiful with all the snow capped mountains The Regulations are posted near the water as far as barbless hooks and take limits, they do check

The weather window was perfect for this, doesn't even look to be any wind on Friday in the valley.

I'm going to fish Goodale Creek and the Upper Owens, probably just south of Benton Crossing. It looks like both are CnR, scentless, barbless artificials only. I will also do a hike to Convict Lake which it appears is no-touchy right now.

My original plan of staying in Lone Pine was getting ruined by the mountain portals being seasonally closed, otherwise I might have sprung for golden trout down there.

Hoping my barb mashing is sufficient, I didn't do the q-tip test on the flies I just mashed on today.

Spur of the moment trip! Alicia wants to camp for the first time, one night excursion. I settled on the eastern Sierras as I have never been. Gonna do Thursday into Friday. Was gonna do Lone Pine area but seems like it might be a bit boring with the mountain roads closed. Gotta keep the lady entertained too, not just a fishing trip. But, you know...

Might stay a little further north at a BLM campground then push north the next day to the Upper Owens.

Bringing 4wt fly rod and UL gear. Gotta start crimping my barbs.

I've heard the same about Seal Beach but haven't spent much time at all there. I normally leap frog it between Sunset and Belmont. Surprised I haven't seen more round rays these past few years, though. Not that I'm disappointed.

This topic has been moved to Freshwater Shore Fishing Reports.

https://www.prehistoricsoulforum.com/index.php?topic=5842.0

Finally fished a tiny pond down the street that gets state trout stocking. I saw it got stocked last week so I went for it. Water was less than 6" visibility but I did get a few bumps on a 2g spoon as I did a lap around the pond. Saw a couple dried up trout carcasses on the shoreline, so it's true it gets stocked at least. Not sure if it was fishermen or birds that left the carcasses there, though. Beautiful day!

It was such a beautiful day, in fact, that the vitamin D went straight to my head, and I said f@ck it! I'm not going into work on Monday. So I called out, slept in, and went to the pond again and soaked Powerbait eggs for a bit. Didn't get nudged, so did a lap around with a 1/8oz silver KM without a bump and dipped. Another nice day though.

Can't help but think that the trout in this pond couldn't last more than a couple days with how scummy the water is, even with all the aerators.