Upper Twin Lake Skunkfest
These kinds of things happen, even in the best of families.
Got the itch to fish for trout, so I jammed outta Ridgecrest about 11 P.M. Monday evening for Bridgeport/Twin Lakes. Copped a short snooze at the rest area near Deadman's Pass, then on the road again to Upper Twin as the boathouse opened. Paid to launch and slip the thing, and got afloat without issue.
The water temp showed 51*, and the meter showed fish in all The Usual Places--along the shelf at the boat-landing end of the lake, and A LOT of fish where the runoff flowed into the lake along the far shoreline about 1/3 the way to the far end. I concentrated on these two areas for the bulk of the morning, without so much as a bump. Thomas Bouyants (3 patterns), Needlefish (2 patterns), and the old mini-Dave Davis and crawler. The fish pitched a no-hitter all morning.
As it turned out, this would be my last and only spate of fair conditions for the rest of the trip. I came ashore at noon for chow and a nap, and went back out to fish at 3:30 P.M. The wind has really freshened, blowing UP the canyon (a little unusual, that....) about 12-20 MPH as per the flags' actions. Trolling was a little tough to manage, so I used the wind to set drifts over the spots where I metered fish, running nightcrawlers and Wooly Buggers on a sub-surface rig resembling a scaled-down halibut set-up. This rig I adjusted to the depths where fish were showing. Nada. Zip. Nothing. I called it at dark.
One saving grace......the lounge at Mono Village has Sierra Nevada Pale Ale on draft, so I drowned my sorrows in the company of a few other anglers whose stories paralleled my own. No one had seen a fish caught, or even heard about fish being caught. I fell asleep to the sounds of thunder rumbling and raindrops falling on my camper top, snug and warm.
Up at gray light, I was back at it before the sun hit the water. The wind was already on duty, down-canyon this time and running 15-25 MPH by the flags. I ran out to the shelf, and tried dragging the flasher/crawler thing flat-lined for zero love, then moved deeper--added a small planer--and paralleled the shelf for a while. No-hitter, and the wind didn't quit either. After a few drifts over the far-shore stream area--flinging Bouyants, Kastmasters, and Panther Martins--I moved to the near shore (where the roadway runs) and tried some more trolling. Zilch City.
I broke for lunch about 11 A.M., and napped until 2 P.M. The wind was still going, and I switched to trolling Rapala CDs and a small minnow swimbait on planers just for grins for the rest of the afternoon and into the evening. I meant to stay for a third day, but couldn't see the point of that--winds were supposed to continue and strengthen, and the fishing sucked for one and all. All the way home southward on U.S. 395, the winds kept at it--so I headed to the barn. Dunno what the deal was--maybe the fish were gorged from goodies coming in with the snow runoff. Water temps didn't get past 53*, thermocline stayed at about 12'-20'. No lack of fish in the lake, for sure.
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Originally Posted by simijab
