BY MIKE STEVENS
BIG PINE – Long story short, an annual October trip to Crowley Lake was cut short by Mother Nature who decided to unleash winter on the only two days Taylor Miller and I could take a boat out, so we salvaged the trip with a one-day assault on the lower Owens River. The behind-the-scenes play-by-play on exactly what path led to such a dumb-on-the-surface idea can be read in my column on page 10. In fact, go read it now, it sets the stage for what happens next.
Now that you got that out of the way, fast forward to a stretch of the lower Owens River just south of Big Pine where my brother and his merry band of Trader Joe’s managers were already catching fish. Having crushed it here in the past on largemouth, and more to the point, smallmouth bass, Miller and I decided to target bass almost exclusively with trout possibly playing a supporting role at some point if we rolled up on some creek and found biters. We brought an ultralight outfit each and a single box of trout lures as an afterthought.
I got the dust off pretty quick with a scrappy largemouth and a same-sized smallmouth that pulled twice as hard, then Miller got a smallie of his own. Both were caught on Hookup Baits, mine almost dead-sticked directly below the rock I was standing on. The four guys in the group downstream of me were hooking up here and there. On HUBs of their own, and one of them connected to a few trout on his bass crankbait. In the lower river, you can catch brown and rainbow trout, smallmouth and largemouth bass, panfish and even catfish. For this reason, I always have bigger 1/8-ounce Hookup Baits on hand, since everything eats them, and I also fish hard baits that a bass or big trout would munch.
My brother had been there for a bit by the time we showed up, and he made a move about 150 yards upstream. When I got my phone out to take a picture, I noticed he texted me.
“Caught three on my first three casts.”
“What flavor?”
No response.
I made a couple more casts and headed up to where he was. As I walked up, he showed me a picture of a 3-pound-class brown trout he caught and released on a Thomas Bouyant, and he said “they’re stacked up in here, I’m getting bit on every cast.”
I brought my trout gear, but Miller’s was in my truck and I had the keys. My brother offered to run my keys over to him, and ended up meeting him halfway. I started casting, and sure enough, getting bit on every cast but only connecting on one. When Miller showed up, I tossed him the lone tackle tray we had with trout lures, and he went to work.
Eventually, all six of us were targeting the same general area from both sides of the Owens. I had the slowest start of everybody, with most guys closing in on if not exceeding 10 before I got my second one.
The familiar sounds of 12-inch trout being caught was interrupted by the drag on my brother’s reel. He gave me the “another big one” nod and I made my way over in time to get pics of a brown that appeared a little bigger than the first one. The Trader Joe’s group eventually took off to start their week-long adventure in Mammoth, but Miller and I had only that day to work with and weren’t about to leave fish to find fish.
Miller moved down to the lower end of the run, and I hit the upper. I could tell the trout finally wised up after being hammered with Buoyants and jigs, so I put on a Roostertail and got the party started again. I eventually got hot and caught-and-released maybe 15 of them, while Miller landed a pair of 20 inchers at the other end.
The 24-hour trip-salvaging mission was a success to say the least, and it will not be the last.
