Eastman Lake 5/18/08

I joined some buddies for a fly fishing trip to Eastman Lake today (over by Chowchilla/Madera).  We didn't know the lake was only about 1/4 full until we got there...too late to turn back, fished anyway.
 
The weather was roasting hot.  High 90's at 5:00pm so mid-afternoon was probably over a hundred.
 
It got pretty windy about mid-day and that's when I finally got into fish.  Nothing major but it beat smelling like a skunk on the long ride home.
 
I got a half dozen fish.  Four bass and two bluegill.  The other folks that went brought float tubes and I almost brought mine but it's a big lake so I brought the kayak.  I ended up being the one that found where the fishing were hitting top-water and landed all of them on a little popper (I love fishing poppers!)
 
Best bass was only thirteen inches...lame for a lake known for trophy bass.  A Ranger there said there was a tournament going on and the ones catching fish were mostly getting 11 inchers.  The folks I saw soaking bait from shore were only landing small ones and that was pretty rare too.
 
One of the bluegills was tiny (maybe 5 or 6 inches) but the other was dinner sized (nine inches)...it hit my popper the instant it landed on the water. Here's that fish relaxing in my net after losing the fight:

 
 
Here's one of the little cookie cutter bass that thought dropped by to chase the skunk smell away:


 
On the way home, there was a fire along the other side of Hwy 152.  We had front row seats for the helicopter's water drop on the fire (and on us).