End of trout season in Eastern Sierra brings challenging but sometimes favorable fishing conditions

As I neared the exit for Mammoth Lakes and slowed down to the actual speed limit I executed my first of a long list of annual traditions by glancing down at Mammoth Creek as it crossed under highway 395 so I could get an idea of what kind of water levels I would be dealing with on this trip. Just like I had been reading for months in WON as well as in first-person reports on the fishing message boards we have all grown to love, I saw that the water level was extremely low and the fishing was taking a hit as a result.

This just a few years removed from a 2006 Sierra winter that saw the most snow to ever fall on the area in recent history, I am now heading up for a late season jaunt coming off one of the worst snow packs ever, and I knew I had my work cut out for me. As I sat in the condo that first night I formulated a game plan that would take me to the highest altitudes that my legs and lungs would take me in one day in hopes of finding better water levels and low-fishing pressure.

On day one I made my way up to North Lake on the middle fork of Bishop Creek where I was greeted by many more fellow trouters than I was hoping to find at the end of the windy, one-lane road so I opted to check out the creek feeding the lake rather than find a spot betwixt the lawn chairs to launch my Kastmaster. Like the other creeks in the area I had come across, the water was low, skinny, and slow enough in some areas that it didn’t even look like it was moving. I found my first spot a short bushwhack from the parking lot and switched to a small Panther Martin spinner and saw four eight to ten inch Browns dart out from below the under cut bank only to have the fastest of the fish nip my lure and retreat back to the safety and shade it came from. Subsequent casts to this spot drew no more interest, and I would soon find out that the name of the game not only on this creek but on every creek I visited during these low-water conditions was that I had one, maybe two casts per location to hook and land one of these spooky native browns because once they took a look and realized my offering wasn’t the real deal, they weren’t coming out for a while.

As I worked upstream I repeated this process three to four times before I would actually land one, but the creek was clearly full of trout, I just had to have the stealth and patience to nail them. I noticed that if I landed my lure within six inches or so of the undercut bank, overhanging bush, or anything else creating shade, that I would draw more aggressive strikes than when I clumsily dragged my spinner across a pool. I also noticed that if I found white water followed by a calm spot, I would also find more aggression from the browns due to the cooler, more oxygenated water found there (that’s what it says in all the trout books anyway!). By the time I made it from South Lake all the way up to a waterfall that told me that I had fished as much of this creek I could today, I had caught and released over 20 Browns and a fat Rainbow that torpedoed from under an overhanging bush for my sinking Rapala, and I probably missed three times that many.

Over the next week I found these conditions at every creek I visited, namely McGee, Saddlebag, Convict Creeks and I even managed the two biggest Rainbows of the trip in Mammoth Creek but it was in a spot well downstream from the heavily fished area near the museum in town. Getting dialed in on skinny water trout fishing paired with mixing in two to five mile jaunts to the backcountry lakes that seem relatively unaffected by the low-water conditions resulted in my calling it a week with a respectable fish count while many anglers I ran into around town griped about their lack of success in their favorite roadside spots because they did not adapt to the conditions.