Eastern Sierras!

Managed to get a week off and snuck up to the sierras for a week.

First two nights we camped at Annett’s mono village at upper twin lake. Fishing there pretty much sucked. Fish are 40+ feet deep mainly and I wasn’t planning on keeping fish so didn’t want to soak powerbait. Still, did see a few nice fish caught each day by others. A friend I made had leadcore and would catch a few Kokanee trolling every evening but no rainbows.

Second part of the trip we loaded our packs and headed off into the back country. As expected, much better fishing! First lake was exceptional brookie fishing but never caught or saw a rainbow. Turns out I’m racist against brook trout, or troutist, or whatever, but I really wanted to get into rainbows. So the next day we moved onto the next lake.

We had to do a little bushwacking to get to the back of it but found an amazing campsite. Took a few casts until I got a bite, then I saw the line rise to the surface and the jump confirmed, this lake has bows!

Ended up with some amazing fishing at this lake. Started throwing the sierra slammer's swimbait for the first time and was not disappointed. My normal go-to strategy up there is deep water, low and slow, but found something different this trip. I'd throw it over cover like fallen trees, and start retrieving as soon as it hit like a surface iron, and had some awesome hits/blowups on it as trout rocketed out of cover to take the bait.

The last night from 7-8pm it was a bite almost every cast. Barbless single hook so missed a lot, but truly world class trout fishing.

I believe I caught some golden/rainbow hybrids, can anyone confirm? They didn't have the parr marks but some don't look like normal rainbows. Only snapped pics of a few since I try to barely handle and release asap.

 

Queue you know about golden/rainbow hybrids or is that out of your area of expertise?

 

Thanks everyone.

Duck lake for the brookies then purple lake for the rainbows!

I've checked that out before. For this lake all it says is fish are present however!

 

https://www.sierraslammers.com/product-page/mini-swims-natural

I believe I was using the sexy shad color. I think lures like kastmasters/thomas bouyants/whatever you prefer are probably more efficient overall, as you can cast them farther and the trebles will get better hook ups, but the swimbait does have the option of slowrolling through the shallows in the evening when the trout were hunting up there.