Upper Lake Camping

 Upper Lake is a 5 day, 4 night camping adventure. Our site comes with water and electric with a dump on the way out. 

Thursday is mostly traveling for the 4+ hours it takes us to get there and the rest of the time is setting up. Hooking up the water, getting the electric connected, getting the lawn chairs situated in the shade, etc. Then the kids show up and it's talking, some wine drinking, and early to bed. Thursday was 108 degrees. 

Friday morning is getting the kayaks down off the truck, setting up the rack that allows this old gimp to gracefully get in and out of his kayak. It's just a PVC creation, but does the job marvelously. 

Once that's done, I'm off to find fish. 

Friday was a search for fish day. I trailed a silver Kastmaster with some reflecto stuff on it. Up one side of the lake, around the end, and back toward the campground. The picture below.

Nice lake huh? Massive drought in California and this lake is full. About half way back, I finally got my first fish of the weekend. A little 11" Rainbow. A quick picture and back for another day.

As I was paddling the far part of the lake, I came across a nice young lady and her dog on a SUP. She said she saw a big fish jump further up the lake, but had no idea what it was. My guess, size was relevant to a non fisher person.   

But after releasing that little Rainbow, I had a big fish jump (more like a roll for something on the surface) right in front of the kayak. To my surprise it was a big Brown. I had no idea there were any Browns in the lake, but if that Brown was an inch, it went at least 24 inches. Big male with beautiful coloring. Kind if bronze with nice red spots on the side. To fast to get a picture, but made a note where I saw him. Wouldn't respond to any Kastmaster I threw, but I could track him for about 20 feet by the bubbles. 

Back at camp, I went to the office and found out they planted 2500 pounds of Browns and couple years ago and they have apparently flourished. 

So ends Friday with a sunset picture for your enjoyment. This lake has the best sunsets. Friday was 106 degrees. 

Saturday morning dawned bright, sunny, and nary a breath of wind. 

 

Saturday, my plan was to target the Browns. I started with a couple brown Power Eggs and a red/brown Mice Tail. I could have gotten some crawlers, but that was the plan for Sunday. Up one side and down the other..........nothing. Snapped a shot of the camp area from out a ways. 

Saturday afternoon topped out at 106 degrees. Much too hot to be out in a kayak. I parked the kayak in "our" spot right below the trailer until later when it wasn't so hot and I could put the wheels under it and bring it up by the trailer. 

Sunday morning before heading out to chase Browns, my son and I wanted to take a shot at the swim area with my magnet fishing gear. Didn't get anything there, so we went over to the dock and tried there. Then disaster hit. About the second throw of the magnet, I tripped over "something", I don't have a memory of what, only ending up laying on the dock. The interesting part was that on my left hand, my ring finger was going in a different direction that the rest of my fingers on that hand. I apparently dislocated it at the middle knuckle. It was a weird situation, all my fingers were going straight except that one and it was on a 45 degree angle. So I did the only logical thing and that was grab it and snap it back to where it should have been. Everything worked OK, but decided to call it a day. Sunday was about 106 degrees.  

Sunday also brought my granddaughter and great granddaughter up to visit for a couple hours on Father's Day. We had a nice day with the kids in the lake. In the picture below is my daughter-in-law Ranae (black hair), my granddaughter Brittany (green hair), and Mavis in the multicolor tutu.  

Miss Mavis.

Well, the hand turned out to be a little more sore than I thought. Seems I dislocated my ring finger and apparently sprained the first knuckle on my middle finger. Now I had plans to go out in the kayak and fish with my fly rod, but it's a little hard to work the line with fingers that look like the picture below and don't really work very well. 

  

Seemed to be a bit swollen too.  

So I settled for a little shore fishing down below the kids motorhome. Didn't get a bite, but I tried. 

The next three photo's are of the hills across the lake. If you'll remember from a couple years ago, they burned all the way from the left to the right.  

The hills have recovered nicely. 

So end the weekend as we have to vacate by 11:00 Monday morning, but I'll leave you with another wonderful sunset. 

Stay tuned.