It's rare that I find myself with the wife's okey dokie to have a solo weekend so I jumped at it. I had 90% of my stuff packed and ready to go as soon as I got off shift Friday Night. Well stuff happens when you are in the medical profession and my 10 hour shift turned into a 14 and I didn't get home until after 9pm. I was too beat to drive safely and old age and wisdom kicked in, grab some sleep and head out at 5am.
Jake and I headed out in the early morning light to hit the market and the highway. It only took me two blocks to figure out there was way too much pressure in the airbags as I was driving a rock. Every little bump was bone jarring so in the Safeway parking lot I dropped it down to 30psi which turned out to be perfect.
Jake made himself comfortable riding shotgun and off we went
Soon we were into the grasslands of the Sierra Foothills on hwy 4
driving straight into the morning sun
and into the mixed oak and grass lands near Arnold
above Arnold we climbed into the tall trees
I stopped in at Ebbetts Pass Sporting Goods http://www.ebbettspasssportinggoods.com/ to pick up some dry flies and local knowledge. I can't say enough good things about the fly shop. The store owner and I talked about gear locations and flies then he helped me pick out 10 for my fly box. I actually ran into him on Sunday while fly fishing Beaver creek, he was there rod in hand. Stop in if you are passing through, great folks.
Jake finally let me know that he needed to go out so we pulled over in this lack luster vista ( I kid)
Jake was anxious to get back on the highway
We reached the day use area at Lake Alpine (7000') and cooked breakfast
The lake had tons of waterfowl
We grabbed space 25 in the Pine Martin Campground on the west side of the lake ($25 gets you flush toilets, a reasonably flat site, a picnic table and a dumpster for garbage out by the main road)
Jake approved
Time to go hiking and scope out some fishing spots for the evening rise. The trails are all open to leashed dogs so Jake and I had a blast.
The forest trails were really nice
The water was so clear
Then at about 6pm the wind died down and it was fishing time. I played 3 really nice trout and was out until it was too dark to see.
had to switch to lighter tint glasses
last cast
I only fish catch and release so dinner was shrimp scampi over linguini washed down with a St Pauli NA Beer (32 years sober).
The next morning it was up early break camp and drop back down to Murphys and Calaveras Big Trees State Park ($10 day use Fee). 8 miles of steep narrow roads got me to Beaver Creek.
I took a bad slip in this pool and landed on a rock flat on my back. I would have been badly hurt except that I was wearing a camelback pack which took most of the impact.
I was pissed off, my waders had water in them, my hat got sucked into a weir and under a boulder, my Swiss army knife was sitting there in 2 feet of water and my glasses were on a rock nearby. I headed back to the truck. As luck wood have it once I got to the truck I noticed a nice riffle just down stream so I said ok one more try after losing 3 fish up stream. Oh yeah I hooked a nice one, I could see him in the lee of a boulder under some branches rising every so often to take a surface insect. It took 10 casts before I got that perfect drop and he hit it. he made 4 good runs and just when I thought he was spent he exploded cartwheeling across the water and made another run. he had one more in him then it was into the net. got him on a #16 mosquito on a 6x tippet. Photo then using my hemostats I gently removed the fly and set him free. he swam slowly for a minute then jetted back into the shadows. Made my trip
It wasn't until I got back to the TC that I noticed that I had broken part of my fly reel in the fall
Driving back out of the park you cross the Stanislaus River, I'm coming back to fish it on a later trip
heading back up to hwy 4
Dropping out of the Sierras into the San Joaquin Valley
I think the train was telling me to turn around and go back and fish some more
two days 300 miles 28 gallons of Diesel 6 trout, miles of hiking with Jake and it was all worth it. hope you enjoyed the report
Jake and I headed out in the early morning light to hit the market and the highway. It only took me two blocks to figure out there was way too much pressure in the airbags as I was driving a rock. Every little bump was bone jarring so in the Safeway parking lot I dropped it down to 30psi which turned out to be perfect.
Jake made himself comfortable riding shotgun and off we went
Soon we were into the grasslands of the Sierra Foothills on hwy 4
driving straight into the morning sun
and into the mixed oak and grass lands near Arnold
above Arnold we climbed into the tall trees
I stopped in at Ebbetts Pass Sporting Goods http://www.ebbettspasssportinggoods.com/ to pick up some dry flies and local knowledge. I can't say enough good things about the fly shop. The store owner and I talked about gear locations and flies then he helped me pick out 10 for my fly box. I actually ran into him on Sunday while fly fishing Beaver creek, he was there rod in hand. Stop in if you are passing through, great folks.
Jake finally let me know that he needed to go out so we pulled over in this lack luster vista ( I kid)
Jake was anxious to get back on the highway
We reached the day use area at Lake Alpine (7000') and cooked breakfast
The lake had tons of waterfowl
We grabbed space 25 in the Pine Martin Campground on the west side of the lake ($25 gets you flush toilets, a reasonably flat site, a picnic table and a dumpster for garbage out by the main road)
Jake approved
Time to go hiking and scope out some fishing spots for the evening rise. The trails are all open to leashed dogs so Jake and I had a blast.
The forest trails were really nice
The water was so clear
Then at about 6pm the wind died down and it was fishing time. I played 3 really nice trout and was out until it was too dark to see.
had to switch to lighter tint glasses
last cast
I only fish catch and release so dinner was shrimp scampi over linguini washed down with a St Pauli NA Beer (32 years sober).
The next morning it was up early break camp and drop back down to Murphys and Calaveras Big Trees State Park ($10 day use Fee). 8 miles of steep narrow roads got me to Beaver Creek.
I took a bad slip in this pool and landed on a rock flat on my back. I would have been badly hurt except that I was wearing a camelback pack which took most of the impact.
I was pissed off, my waders had water in them, my hat got sucked into a weir and under a boulder, my Swiss army knife was sitting there in 2 feet of water and my glasses were on a rock nearby. I headed back to the truck. As luck wood have it once I got to the truck I noticed a nice riffle just down stream so I said ok one more try after losing 3 fish up stream. Oh yeah I hooked a nice one, I could see him in the lee of a boulder under some branches rising every so often to take a surface insect. It took 10 casts before I got that perfect drop and he hit it. he made 4 good runs and just when I thought he was spent he exploded cartwheeling across the water and made another run. he had one more in him then it was into the net. got him on a #16 mosquito on a 6x tippet. Photo then using my hemostats I gently removed the fly and set him free. he swam slowly for a minute then jetted back into the shadows. Made my trip
It wasn't until I got back to the TC that I noticed that I had broken part of my fly reel in the fall
Driving back out of the park you cross the Stanislaus River, I'm coming back to fish it on a later trip
heading back up to hwy 4
Dropping out of the Sierras into the San Joaquin Valley
I think the train was telling me to turn around and go back and fish some more
two days 300 miles 28 gallons of Diesel 6 trout, miles of hiking with Jake and it was all worth it. hope you enjoyed the report
