BY MIKE STEVENS
I’m going to go ahead and assume the statute of shame limitations has passed and I can go ahead and write about this most embarrassing moment.
I’ve been heading up Highway 395 to fish the Eastern Sierra for over three decades. They were almost all summer trips other than a few outliers, and in all that time I’d never fished an Opener. My first opener experience was on official business for Western Outdoor News nearly 10 years ago, and I’ve been to every one since in the same capacity. For the first couple, I didn’t even bring a rod because I didn’t want to run the risk of coming up short in the coverage department so early in my WON tenure. Eventually, I felt like I had it dialed and I started bringing gear, but even then and to this day, my Opener fishing is very casual, and 90 percent of it is done on the Thursday and Friday prior.
On this particular opener, my brother and a buddy and I were methodically working our way north out of Lone Pine. We were hitting the standard creeks but also doing a western version of what they call “blue lining” back east which is, exploring any blue line on the map looking for trout, even in the nameless creeks.
