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So here it goes......
I hit the road at 2:25am with my car all packed and ready to go the night before (or a few hours ago) headed to Pleasant Valley Reservoir (PVR) to slay some trout. I arrive at the Power Plant at 6:30am and unloaded all of my gear. Hit the Port-A-Pottie to take care of some bitness and hauled my gear past the gate. As I pass the gate I hear music to my ears. The sound of running water from down below. Oooooohhhh. Now the goosebumps starts forming. I look ahead for an accessible launch site but didn't see anything close to being easy but found a path down a graded decend that looked better than anyplace else so I took that route. There was a huge boulder down on the bottom that looked perfect to use as a chair as I put on my fins and prepare to kick off. Now again, I did say slight decend but that slight decend is coupled with loose gravel and rocks. So yes, I pretty much slid down that grade. I geared up and kicked off to the slow flowing waters of the Eastern Sierras with hopes of fun and sun but there are some hurdles to cross.
The slow moving flow made drifting easy as I come to a small body of water that looked fishable so I threw out my first cast and get my first bump. Ooohhh. i'm happy cause there's activity going on at this spot. After a few more casts I get my first skunk buster which is a Brown! Whoo hoo. I'm stoked. After working that area for a few more minutes I pulled 4 fish out of that spot with 2 Browns and 2 Bows. Nothing much of size but still got that itch off and that's all caught on a mini-jig on 2 lb test.
I started working my way downstream and this is where the "fun" begins. Well, the slow moving current quickly became white capped high flow rapids. Oh yeah, wasn't what I expected. I'm going to say this only once so listen up. Our float tubes are NOT made for white water rafting! I say NOT! Oh yes, I thought it was game over at one point because my FC4 was bouncing, slamming and spinning where ever the water flow wanted to take me. My Force Fins were useless other than protecting my feet from getting all cut up. At one point I nearly capsized but thank gawd my gear was strapped down. After sections and sections and sections of this I finally come to a calmer pool of water that just gave me enough time to gather my thoughts and say to myself. WTF was that!?
Now the mayhem was over and now i'm finally approaching the calmness of the reservoir. It's calm because I wasn't moving. I was literally sitting on the floor. That's how low the water level was. When people talk about the water level being low in the Eastern Sierras, they weren't kidding. The sight was quite disheartening. I had to pick up my tube and walk to areas that had at a foot of water to even float a littlte to make way to the deeper waters.
I see some action on the other side of the reservoir of what looked like trout rising on flies. I make my way towards there as it was impossible for shore anglers to reach. So I plant my tube facing the action and seeing boils happening all over the place right in front of my very eyes. Man, if I had my fly rod, i'll be in heaven right now. So I cast my mini-jig out and get short bites. I threw out a DS trout worm and get bit. Oh yeah, easy limits on this spot.......wrong. All show, no go after that. Plus the water level was so low that I kept getting strands of algae and whatever that's on the bottom floor. I felt bad in a way because while i only pulled up a few fish at that spot, the shore anglers weren't having any luck at all and I can hear them talking about "that guy in the tube" kept getting all of the fish. haha, yeah, I felt guilty but it wasn't even that much but still.
I decided enough of this, I need deeper waters. I started kicking further downwards then felt the cooler waters and behold, DEEPER WATERS! I was actually floating to my surprise. Then that's when the fun began. I was getting them on the mini-jig, mice tails and trout worms with a mixuture of rainbows and browns.
I hooked up a very nice Brown which spun me around a lil bit and after getting a picture of it, it decided to kick hard and knocked my 2lb set up up over my apron and into the water. Fak! I put the phone away and dipped my arm into the cold waters and got nothing but H2O and see my rod fall down to the abyss. Sh!t!! After making up a few more cuss words, I see the mini-jig that the 2 lb set up was attached to still tangled with my line that caught the nice Brown. Oh hell yeah. I grabbed it and gently pulled back up my rod! Yes! There IS a happy ending to this. But during that mayhem, the freaking Brown kicked out my hook remover (that I just bought) along with my rod set up. But i'll take my rod over that $5.00 hook remover any day of the week. And of course all of this was happening while the Shore Anglers were watching. I was there amusement. haha.
If you've ever been to PVR then you know that every thing echos. The voice and sounds bounces off the walls like a racket ball court so every whisper and fart can be heard by everyone even to a tuber that's way across the other side. So I can hear these two dudes counting my catch as I pull them in. At one point he said, ok that's his limits... but little did he know, I was releasing most of them. I only kept 5 to bring to the folks here at work. Total catch was 25 but could've been more had I not have to deal with the Rapid Shenanigan earlier in the morning.
Now time to head back. Going back upstream was out of the question so I kicked towards the boat launch ramp which is now way low because of the low water level and everybody that was there in the morning are now all gone except this couple that showed up for a late afternoon fishing session. Now here's my dilema. I'm at the boat launch ramp and if you've been to PVR, you know what i'm about to get at. It's about 2 miles away from the Power Plant! Here's my predicament. Do I try to haul ALL of my gear for the full 2 miles or make it two trips. So I decided to not kill myself all at once and make it a two trip process but that means I have to leave something behind. I chose to leave the tube and stringer as that's easier to see somebody walking out with a tube instead of fishing gear. After making it to the car I see a few DWP workers and asked for the time. "oh, it's about 4:00pm". What?!! 4:00pm! already? WTH? I headed back for my tube and yes, it's still there =)
I wanted to give my fish away because it's a long walk back to the car especially with the sun still blazing down but there weren't anybody else there other than that couple but they're a ways down and I didn't want to shout so screw it, I took it with me. Damn that extra weight. Let me just say this. This will probably... no wait. this will be the ONLY time i'm EVER going to carry my float tube for 2 miles EVER EVER again. Ever! I made it, but I saw death a few times but I told him not yet. Seeing the gate was a sight for sore eyes. Now my body aches, my neck is sore and more than anything, it's late. I have to work tomorrow and by the time i'm going to make it home it'll be 10:00pm. So much for making it home and doing my Me-do list (opposed to Honey-do list).
Pictures will come later.
Well, that's my freshwater fishing report. Hope you enjoyed it.
I hit the road at 2:25am with my car all packed and ready to go the night before (or a few hours ago) headed to Pleasant Valley Reservoir (PVR) to slay some trout. I arrive at the Power Plant at 6:30am and unloaded all of my gear. Hit the Port-A-Pottie to take care of some bitness and hauled my gear past the gate. As I pass the gate I hear music to my ears. The sound of running water from down below. Oooooohhhh. Now the goosebumps starts forming. I look ahead for an accessible launch site but didn't see anything close to being easy but found a path down a graded decend that looked better than anyplace else so I took that route. There was a huge boulder down on the bottom that looked perfect to use as a chair as I put on my fins and prepare to kick off. Now again, I did say slight decend but that slight decend is coupled with loose gravel and rocks. So yes, I pretty much slid down that grade. I geared up and kicked off to the slow flowing waters of the Eastern Sierras with hopes of fun and sun but there are some hurdles to cross.
The slow moving flow made drifting easy as I come to a small body of water that looked fishable so I threw out my first cast and get my first bump. Ooohhh. i'm happy cause there's activity going on at this spot. After a few more casts I get my first skunk buster which is a Brown! Whoo hoo. I'm stoked. After working that area for a few more minutes I pulled 4 fish out of that spot with 2 Browns and 2 Bows. Nothing much of size but still got that itch off and that's all caught on a mini-jig on 2 lb test.
I started working my way downstream and this is where the "fun" begins. Well, the slow moving current quickly became white capped high flow rapids. Oh yeah, wasn't what I expected. I'm going to say this only once so listen up. Our float tubes are NOT made for white water rafting! I say NOT! Oh yes, I thought it was game over at one point because my FC4 was bouncing, slamming and spinning where ever the water flow wanted to take me. My Force Fins were useless other than protecting my feet from getting all cut up. At one point I nearly capsized but thank gawd my gear was strapped down. After sections and sections and sections of this I finally come to a calmer pool of water that just gave me enough time to gather my thoughts and say to myself. WTF was that!?
Now the mayhem was over and now i'm finally approaching the calmness of the reservoir. It's calm because I wasn't moving. I was literally sitting on the floor. That's how low the water level was. When people talk about the water level being low in the Eastern Sierras, they weren't kidding. The sight was quite disheartening. I had to pick up my tube and walk to areas that had at a foot of water to even float a littlte to make way to the deeper waters.
I see some action on the other side of the reservoir of what looked like trout rising on flies. I make my way towards there as it was impossible for shore anglers to reach. So I plant my tube facing the action and seeing boils happening all over the place right in front of my very eyes. Man, if I had my fly rod, i'll be in heaven right now. So I cast my mini-jig out and get short bites. I threw out a DS trout worm and get bit. Oh yeah, easy limits on this spot.......wrong. All show, no go after that. Plus the water level was so low that I kept getting strands of algae and whatever that's on the bottom floor. I felt bad in a way because while i only pulled up a few fish at that spot, the shore anglers weren't having any luck at all and I can hear them talking about "that guy in the tube" kept getting all of the fish. haha, yeah, I felt guilty but it wasn't even that much but still.
I decided enough of this, I need deeper waters. I started kicking further downwards then felt the cooler waters and behold, DEEPER WATERS! I was actually floating to my surprise. Then that's when the fun began. I was getting them on the mini-jig, mice tails and trout worms with a mixuture of rainbows and browns.
I hooked up a very nice Brown which spun me around a lil bit and after getting a picture of it, it decided to kick hard and knocked my 2lb set up up over my apron and into the water. Fak! I put the phone away and dipped my arm into the cold waters and got nothing but H2O and see my rod fall down to the abyss. Sh!t!! After making up a few more cuss words, I see the mini-jig that the 2 lb set up was attached to still tangled with my line that caught the nice Brown. Oh hell yeah. I grabbed it and gently pulled back up my rod! Yes! There IS a happy ending to this. But during that mayhem, the freaking Brown kicked out my hook remover (that I just bought) along with my rod set up. But i'll take my rod over that $5.00 hook remover any day of the week. And of course all of this was happening while the Shore Anglers were watching. I was there amusement. haha.
If you've ever been to PVR then you know that every thing echos. The voice and sounds bounces off the walls like a racket ball court so every whisper and fart can be heard by everyone even to a tuber that's way across the other side. So I can hear these two dudes counting my catch as I pull them in. At one point he said, ok that's his limits... but little did he know, I was releasing most of them. I only kept 5 to bring to the folks here at work. Total catch was 25 but could've been more had I not have to deal with the Rapid Shenanigan earlier in the morning.
Now time to head back. Going back upstream was out of the question so I kicked towards the boat launch ramp which is now way low because of the low water level and everybody that was there in the morning are now all gone except this couple that showed up for a late afternoon fishing session. Now here's my dilema. I'm at the boat launch ramp and if you've been to PVR, you know what i'm about to get at. It's about 2 miles away from the Power Plant! Here's my predicament. Do I try to haul ALL of my gear for the full 2 miles or make it two trips. So I decided to not kill myself all at once and make it a two trip process but that means I have to leave something behind. I chose to leave the tube and stringer as that's easier to see somebody walking out with a tube instead of fishing gear. After making it to the car I see a few DWP workers and asked for the time. "oh, it's about 4:00pm". What?!! 4:00pm! already? WTH? I headed back for my tube and yes, it's still there =)
I wanted to give my fish away because it's a long walk back to the car especially with the sun still blazing down but there weren't anybody else there other than that couple but they're a ways down and I didn't want to shout so screw it, I took it with me. Damn that extra weight. Let me just say this. This will probably... no wait. this will be the ONLY time i'm EVER going to carry my float tube for 2 miles EVER EVER again. Ever! I made it, but I saw death a few times but I told him not yet. Seeing the gate was a sight for sore eyes. Now my body aches, my neck is sore and more than anything, it's late. I have to work tomorrow and by the time i'm going to make it home it'll be 10:00pm. So much for making it home and doing my Me-do list (opposed to Honey-do list).
Pictures will come later.
Well, that's my freshwater fishing report. Hope you enjoyed it.
What an adventure for sure and doing it solo is even more hardcore! Can't wait to check out your pics. Thanks for sharing and glad you made it out ok.
great report again! cant wait for the pics! 
