Mono County. Day 3 - 6/14/09

Sunday morning was slow and heavy. We definitely fit too many beers into too little time. Nobody was in too big a hurry to pack up and get out on the road. Scott came in with coffees and breakfast sandwiches as I sat in the huge easy chair, staring at nothing in particular. After everyone had taken care of their "morning reading" and showered, we packed up, cleaned the condo a little and headed out to the Explorer to organize for the morning's fishing.

Sunday was a beautiful, sunny day. Scott had hung all our wet waders on a fence, and put our boots in the sun to dry. This was partially because they're more comfortable to get into when they're dry, and partially to alleviate the funk that was taking over Drew's vehicle. Duffles, packs, rods, float tubes, and other gear were removed and reorganized for the drive home.

I'm not sure what time we pulled out of the parking space at the condo, but it was around 9 a.m. when we pulled up to a flat dirt lot not far below the dam that feeds from Lake Crowley into the Lower Owens. It was substantially warmer at the Owens than anywhere else we'd been. We slid out of the truck, and looked down at the river. Drew and Scott seemed pretty optimistic about how the water looked. Personally, I was a little confused. I thought the Lower Owens was this classic trout water, but we were in a huge dirt lot, and there were any obvious trail to the water. It was not at all what I had pictured. Still, we began assembling gear, and retying with lighter leaders and flies. The technique was pretty much the same as on the East Walker, but apparently the fish were going to be spookier, because we went down a weight in leaders and tippet, to 5X.

As usual, Drew was in the water far ahead of us. I'm not sure I was too motivated Sunday. It was getting hot, I was already dehydrated, hungry, and hadn't slept well. Regardless, I climbed down the steep dirt bank, hoping to get at least within shouting distance of Drew, since he was usually the man with the plan, but I ended up far downstream. This section of the Lower Owens was odd, I thought. The banks were very steep, the dirt loose, and there were few obvious spots to squeeze through the brush near the bank to get in the water. I was a little underwhelmed, having heard a lot about the Owens. Unfortunately, I ended up in a pretty swift section of the river.

Drew moved even further upstream, and Scott got on the water not too far above me, but quickly moved upriver. I guess my low energy, and honestly, total lack of experience, kept me from making the decision to fish more appropriate water. I stubbornly worked a section that, in hindsight, was all wrong. On top of it, I must have lost two or three complete 2-fly rigs in trees and to underwater snags. Tying those rigs is a bit of a drag, but it gets easier the more you do it. The conditions made it tough to keep retying; deep, swift water, and not many places to sit. My patience was running out quickly, and on top of that, the increasing hoots from upriver was beginning to get to me. It started to seem like every time I let myself look upriver, one or both of those guys had their rod arm in the air, fighting a brown trout.
I sat down in the dirt on the bank to tie another set of flies on, and kept hearing Scott shouting, "Marc, Marc, check it out!" and was thoroughly disgusted with everything. I found myself angry, hungry, and every time I heard a "woo!" upstream I got angrier. But since the trip had been so great up to then, I thought I'd sit there, breathe, tie on new flies, have a Cliff bar I had with me, then work my way upstream and horn in on whatever honey hole Scott had been working.

The Cliff bar made me feel a lot better, and I was relieved I'd been able to turn around my mood. I waded out in to the river, and on my second attempt to flip my flies into a slow, shady spot across the river, got them snagged in an overhanging tree. All this while I could see Scott and Drew with rods bent upstream. At one point I was so frustrated I was slapping my rod on the water. This time, I reeled in my line, waded back across the river, and clumsily scrambled up the bank and to the Explorer. I was hoping there would be shade, but it was about noon now, and there was no real shadow to speak of. I crouched in what little shade I could fit into, and took some deep breaths. I could hear Scott shouting my name from the river, wanting to give up his spot so I could get in on the action.

I decided to retie my flies again, and work my back down, but by the time I'd finished replacing everything, I saw Drew, then Scott, making way up the hill towards me. They'd just killed it on the river, over twenty fish each. They were beside themselves. I felt bad they were coming back because they didn't see me on the river, so I let slip I'd just finished retying. Drew offered to "guide" me down on the river, so I could get a few fish before we left. On the river Drew checked my rig, and put a little tungsten paste on my leader to get some weight on my rig, and showed me a few casts for tight quarters. It was obvious then that I'd been fishing in the wrong water. This spot was slow and deep, and pretty shady. We were fishing not 15 feet from where Scott had been scoring fish after fish, but I still didn't get so much as a tug. We probably made 20 drifts and finally on a missed strike, I flung my flies into a tree behind me. That pretty much did it for me, and I knew Drew had a schedule to keep, so we climbed back up to the car.

As frustrating as it was, I didn't really let it ruin the trip for me. It was hard to be bummed, as pumped as Scott and Drew were. They'd "mowed the lawn", as Scott says, and finished the trip off with style. All that was left was to get out of our gear, and climb in for the long drive home. A delicious sandwich, cookies and big bottle of water from Schat's Bakkerÿ in Bishop made the trip home more comfortable. I think I was already thinking of going back up to the Eastern Sierra before we left Bishop.