Winter in the Sierra

 December 19, 2021

Snow season is upon us and it was time to use our fishing license before the year ends.  In between storms we decided to check out.  First day I woke up early so I'd be on the road before 6am.  Drove up to meet Chul in Bishop.  The plan was to met up at Mahogany Meats for breakfast burritos.  I got there before Chul and ordered two while I waited for him.  They then told me that they quit serving breakfast at 10:30am.  Not knowing what time it was I checked my watch only to see it was 10:35.  Oh brother.  

 

I walked out to call Chul to see what he wanted instead but once I got into the parking lot he arrived.  Disappointed we decided to make our own sandwiches.  After eating we left for the Lower and fished the Wild Trout Section.

The night prior I set my rigs up knowing I did not want to deal with knots and tiny flies in the cold.  I knew I'd have compromised dexterity in such an environment so I wanted to do it the night before.  While I had everything for my nymph set up, for my dry fly set up all I had was a 20 year old 7x leader I bought in Japan.  That night I would test the strength of the line and it seemed okay.  I'd tug on it and it held so I figured to try it.  I'd buy some  6x leaders at Regan's before stopping at Mahogany's.  Too lazy to re-rig I kept the old leader on with the hope it would hold.  I was wrong and after losing two fish I put on the new leader.  The new leader held up and we manged several fish to hand on dries before making camp.  When planning this trip I wanted to camp in the snow at elevation just to test my equipment.  Chul talked me out of it and we camped down in the valley.