Lake Mary Hail Mary

On vacation in the Golden State, and getting around... Although I am writing from Trinidad, we spent several days up at Mammoth Lakes, in a cabin on Lake Mary at 9,000 ft. I did four outings on the yak, two in the morning and two in the evening, and only scored two little trout, trying flies (1), bait (1) and trolled lures (0). It was pretty windy in the afternoons, making trolling tough.

I got a few more on flies while hiking to some of the backcountry lakes, up in Little Lakes Valley, Gaylor Lakes (Tioga), and at Convict Lake. All non-yak.

Finally on Tuesday night I convinced my wife to take a sunset paddle after supper, since the wind had died down. Of course I wasn't going to paddle around the lake without some lures in the water... You guessed it, my Kastmaster finally hooked a nice 19" rainbow on the far side of the lake. I thought I had snagged the bottom at first, but then it kept fighting back! Didn't have a net along, but got it into the boat anyway, and dumped it into the rod pod since I had nothing to hold it with either. A nice 2 lb, 3oz. fish, probably an Alpers plant (one of their smaller ones). Beautiful orange flesh. Yum.

Pics: 1-AM fishing beneath Mammoth Mtn. 2-Shore-caught brown, with grasshopper fly at Convict Lake inlet. 3-Sunset paddling under the rising moon. 4-19" rainbow in the rod pod! 5-Victory pose.

Nice Fish!!!! 

Nice fishing and catching. Nice picks of the lakes and kayaking them. Good idea getting WAF point by finding a good scenic lake she can kayak while you fish. that's a page right out of the NCKA OG Handbook!

Man I love that part of the Sierra from Bridgeport down by Tioga Pass on down Mammoth and June Lakes & Rock Creek through Crowley and Convict. I wish there were some big lakes around there that only allowed non-powered boats but were undeveloped enough to have only boat-in or hike-in camping--that would be cool. I guess I need to move to Canada or Alaska or the Boundary waters for that in these modern times though.

Convict has some huge fish that cruise in a foot or two of water along the edges at dawn and dusk--I've been wading out (no need for a boat at that time of day) and spotted them cruising behind me almost on shore. Sneaky, sneaky Salmonids 

Thank you for the report and pictures.  Love the "bloody" shot 

WTG on the 19" trout Andy. Sounds like you had great time up there. Thanks for
the report and sharing some cool pictures.

Jedmo

Trout with Tails gotta love it nice job.

Very nice report and pics.  Good luck on the salmon charter too.   

Now that sounds like a Great Vacation! jim

Hell Yes! On your  Hail Mary!!! WTG nice pics and post...been yrs since I've been that way!!! thanks again for your post...