An Attempt At Fishing

Headed out of the house at 7:20 with Cat Creek on the radar. General Trout Season opened last Saturday and the creeks are open. Half hour later I arrived at Cooks Station for coffee. Used to take me 5 minutes. The price you pay for living in town.

Coffee in hand, headed to the El Dorado National Forest. Cat Creek Road is just inside the forest boundary. Make a sharp left and it's 8 miles to the creek.

At 4 miles in I hit a little snow left over from the last storm.

A little on the side, no problem.

At 5 miles I hit noting but snow. Since the fairly new truck has crapo tires and even though it is 4 wheel drive, I won't chance something like this even if I had good tires because I was the only one that has been up there in a while. Note no tire tracks in the snow. Can't afford to get stuck.

Snow as far as the eye can see.

So I made a u-turn and headed back to the highway. Cat Creek will have to wait a while. I would try it next week, but I'll tell you about next week a little further down.

Yesterday Yuki and his Brother took a drive to South Lake Tahoe up Highway 88 and reported that Silver and Caples Lakes were both iced over. He did mention that the West Fork of the Carson was open, but I didn't want to go that far and will explain that below also.

The only open water left was Bear River Reservoir. Hasn't been stellar as of late, in fact it hasn't been anything as of late, but it was open water and the gate was open so one wouldn't have to walk very far to fish. 

Bear River, the dam

Across the lake

Down the side from where I was.

Since Bear River Reservoir sits at just about 6000 ft, I estimate these peaks below at about 7000 ft.

Snow high up

When I left home, my intention was to fish Cat Creek and my focus was with my 3wt, wader bag, vest, and half dozen fly boxes. Just in case CC didn't pan out I took the bare minimum lake gear with me which consisted of two PB rods, tackle box, and pad to sit my bony butt on.
  

The first dam at BR

I set up two rods with rainbow PB and firmly planted my rear on a nice flat rock with pad. As I basked in the BR atmosphere the clouds started accumulating. There were notations by the local weather guessers that there might be thunder storms this afternoon.

As the day wore on, more clouds came.  

More clouds

It doesn't look like it, but they started to get a lot darker.

Still more clouds.

Then the wind picked up and the temperature dropped, a sure sign of an impending storm. Right at the last I started to hear thunder in the distance so I decided to get out while the gettin' was good. I had heard that some were catching fish at BR and maybe I would have got something, but fried by lightning was not something I wanted.

I did try PB with Sweet Corn and PB with Garlic along with silver, gold, and pink Kastmasters, but I was somewhat hurried when the thunder started. Maybe next time.

OK, why not fish next week? Friday the 13th (Yes we are brave) we are heading for Yosemite National Park for three nights. I will spend most of next week getting the Clipper ready for the trip. We haven't been out since the trip to Hope Valley last August. We don't have reservations in the park, but at an RV resort just outside the gate. The  Clipper will have water and electricity and I have the Geezer Pass that let's us into the park for free. I plan on trying my luck on the Merced River (artificial & barbless).

Oh yeah, the West Fork of the Carson. Did I mention that the "Fish to extinction" crowd got skunked on opening day on the West Fork? Made my day. 

Stay tuned.