North America's finest treasure

Photo by J. Goettig

Brush Creek, North America's Finest

Don't worry. We don't raft this  :o)

One of them fishing Tales!

It was Sunday morning of 10/20/02 and the temperature is in the early 40s. I got up and set out for a day of fishing on the Owens River in my self bailing AIRE kayak. I found a fine place to launch from and to get my gear all ready.  I got everything together and the I drove my truck down the road about a mile, and then rode my bike back to the put-in. One mile of road equals about 4 miles of river, and this particular day it took me about 6 hours to fish this section. The day started when I got to the bank I was to launch from with some fly fisherman watching me intently. They came over and asked me what I was doing? I told them I was going to fish some areas that can only be fished from a boat. The Owens is very choked and snakes back on itself and makes some areas VERY inaccessible. I asked them how they were doing and they told me that they got skunked that morning and were going back home. They told me good luck as I was pushing off and I replied back that it wasn't going to be luck, but HOW MANY I would catch. I got on the river about 10:30 am ready to fish an area that I rushed though by just paddling, and not fishing the week before. The fishing was spectacular! I was 15 minutes into my float and caught a 13 inch Brownie that hit my Panther Martine (1/8 ounce Gold spinner and yellow body) as soon as it touched the water. I was really happy! I can go into how great it all was, but hey, I can make this a 5 page story, but then who would read it? Ok...The goal here is to catch two nice fish to eat for dinner that night and I wanted a couple nice ones. The fishing was great and I caught and release about 5 fish before I came to the fishing Mecca capital of the Owens River for Brownies! Well in my own mind.

This area is top secret and I will fish it with my bros, but I will not tell where this area is here! Anywho. I come up on this section of river that Ts left and right, with the water buffering off the reeds. I went down the right route before, and it was a swift log jammer ride that is hard to fish, so I went to the left this time. The entrance was choked with reeds and dead trees, with mossy grass all but covering the entrance. The place reeked of trout. My first cast was a hit and (1/16 ounce Gold spinner and black body Panther Martin) I caught another 13 inch Brown! By this time I had two fish and was going to replace one of the fish with this bigger one, but I wound up loosing that 13 inch brownie from earlier, plus I lost a 12 inch rainbow I just caught 10 minutes earlier! But hey, I had another 13 incher to replace them with. I was getting a bit cocky about my luck and figured that I could catch a fish by simply dropping my Panther Martin like power bait right by my boat. I dropped it down and started to reel in and thought I got hung up on the grass. But when I pulled, it pulled back. Oh!  I caught another fish.  As I got it to the surface I realized that I just caught a 14-15 inch Rainbow that weighted over a couple of pounds at least. I was using 4 pound test and new that if I pulled him out of the water and he twitched once that he would break my line. So as he mellowed out for a couple of seconds I lifted him into the air and over my boat where he twitched and broke my line! He fell in my boat and gave me a run for my money. He was flipping and flopping all over and then flipped out of the boat and into the grass on the surface. He flopped around a couple of times and stopped. I leaned out and grabbed him by my hands and flipped him back in my boat! It was a wrestling match that I thought I was going to loose, but I got him in my krill finally! I was so pumped up and thought it was impossible to get that wound up catching a fish.

My heart was racing and I had a shot of adrenaline running though me like I just ran a class V rapid in my kayak! It was fantastic! So there I had them, 2 huge fish for dinner after just loosing a couple big fish a minute earlier. What a day! All this was at the opening of the left route, I caught 4 fish right there!   So on I went.  It was amazing... There were fish everywhere hitting and the growth was heavy on the sides with reeds an large trees. There was no way a fisherman could get there without getting killed by stinging needles and scaring the fish away.   I came up on a dead end with the growth of trees choking the waterway with the water flowing under the trees.  I thought I would have to turn around and paddle out.  But I looked one more time and noticed that the river opened up on the other side of the blocked waterway.  I had to hack at the branches for about 15 feet to get though, and when I did I came into a huge pond with lots of hiding places for the fish.  Around the corner as I paddle though, the pond had a beaver dam that dropped away about 8 feet into a lower pond ! Wow!!!!! I was in the middle of nowhere, but in the middle of everything, as far as trout goes.  I went off the beaver dam into the lower pond where more fishing was to be had.  I caught a few there and everywhere.  After chopping though a few other choked areas I finally made it out of that left route all fished out and satisfied.  I must have been the only person though that area ever, or at least of the last decade.  It was getting late so I decided to paddle though and I got off around 5 o'clock in the evening.  In reflection it was a fantastic adventure that I can't wait to show to my friends, but there are many more miles to be had on the Owens River and I'm sure there are more areas filled with Browns waiting to hit a lure.  Until next time...Joe

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