Go Where The Fish Are

With Winter just over the horizon, I thought I'd better add a little stock to Bob's fish stash. There are a lot of lakes up the hill, but the catching has been slim at best in most of them.

With the exception of the day during vacation where  I only caught two (I quit after only two), I've always caught at least three at Upper Blue Lake.

So I headed out at a bit after 7:00 and after a quick stop for coffee headed over Carson Pass and up Blue Lakes Road.

I've talked about the Rim Fire for a while and just to let you know, it's still burning, but is 80% contained. The reason I mention this is the picture below was taken at Upper Blue Lake on August 16th before the fire started on the 17th.

August 16th

This morning when I got to the lake, I thought I was back in Los Angeles. The air quality was terrible. It wasn't the chest hurting that smog is, but definitely eye burning.  

There is a mountain over there.

Can barely see across the lake.

I thought that if I caught a fish, maybe it would come pre-smoked.......Please no booing or hissing. 

OK, back to fishing. I set up in my usual place and put out two rods with rainbow Power Bait. Then I sat and sat and sat. An hour later I decided to walk back to the truck, get my little Okuma and throw some lures. A gold Kastmaster on the second cast brought an eleven inch Rainbow to hand. After that, nothing on that Kastmaster, but it told me something.

What it told me was that the fish were not out the 150 feet or so that I put the Power Bait, but closer to shore. With new Power Bait on the hook, I put both lines out about 50 feet and in less that 10 minutes the second Rainbow came to hand.

Then came number three, then number four, and finally number five. It only took about forty-five minutes from lure to limit. Interesting how way out produced not a bite, but in close was rock and roll time. I probably could have caught fifteen more had I stayed another hour. They were coming that fast.   

You can tell the season is coming to an end. There was a person here and there, but the place was a virtual ghost town. Campgrounds were closed although there were a couple of campers still around. Still time to hit this lake a time or two more before the snows come so maybe I'll wander up this way again in a couple weeks. 

I dropped the fish off at Bob's insuring my road will be plowed when necessary.  

Mark