Mammoth Lakes report, July 2011

Okay from July 17th to the 24th I camped at Coldwater campground above Lake Mary outside of Mammoth Lakes CA.
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It was windy and cool for the first couple of days so besides playing around on the local creeks and catching a few Bows and Brooks I basically kicked it at camp and relaxed.

Still lots of snow on the ground up there...
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Coldwater creek...
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On our way into town for dinner on Sunday night we saw this guy patrolling the shore of Lake Mary looking for his dinner.
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Monday we went exploring as I wanted to find Deadman creek and Glass creek, found Deadman creek but on the way out I got a flat on the dirt road.
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Filled it with Fix-a Flat and returned to town for repair so never got to find Glass creek.

Tuesday was a complete loss as my buddy Dave and I drank an entire bottle of Kroll Vodka on Monday night so we spent the day sitting in our lounge chairs in the shade and recovering. Though I did get in a couple of hours from shore on Lake Mary for a couple more Bows and Brooks.
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First float tube was on Wednesday, we went down to hit upper Twin and while we were setting up the DFG came and dumped in a few net fulls of stockers. Fished the shallow end of the lake near the launch ramp for somewhere close to 50 fish from around 10:30AM to 3:00PM.
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crazy amounts of bugs on the water...
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the falls above Twin...
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Did not bother with any pics of the stockers and they were pretty common for DFG fish.

Thursday the wind picked up a little again so we decided to head down into the Devil's Postpile area and fish since its on the west side.

While we were setting up our tubes for Starkweather lake the DFG from Kern River hatchery showed up and stocked. (good timing two days in a row!)
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I tried to get some pics of the stockers hanging around in the shallows...
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Some pics of Starkweather...
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It was another good day but not as wide open as Twin was, got maybe 25 trout before calling it quits.

After Starkweather we went and checked out the San Juaquin river and found it still flowing quite high.
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Lots of damage in the campgrounds so at some point it was even higher!
Anyway managed to get a couple more stockers and some Browns and even had a nice fight with a mistery fish that took me into the rapids and broke me off after several minutes of tug-o-war.
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Went down to the Red's Medow pack station and ate lunch/dinner and saw this lady feeding just off the road.
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We also saw this near the top of the pass...
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Heck of a slide went on up there...

Friday I hit Lake Mary for a little while but it was S-L-O-W...

Saturday I hit Mamie and did okay on stockers...
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After Mamie I hit Twin again but it was a mess for some reason, lots of snotty moss floating everywhere so I bailed.
Saw these guys when heading back to camp...
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Sunday morning after breaking camp we hit Convict and rented a boat, took it to the inlet on the back siide and scored a few Browns and stockers.
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Returned the boat at around 4:30PM and hit the creek for a few more stockers...
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Including my best fish of the trip...
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All in all it was a great vacation and it sucks being back at work. I now have a tire to replace, a front bumper that needs to be re-attached and a cracked wiindshield but it was worth it overall.

Oh the price we will pay just to save our sanity and relax a little!! Dam nice trip! I need to go camping!!

Shoot that was like taking a camping trip from my easy chair!! Great posting, appreciate all of the pictures.

Great pictures buddy, I will place a few of those as desk top pictures on my work computer. They will make great relaxation moments during the day, thanks for sharing.

Nice! What A Beautiful Vacation Glad You Enjoy That Wonderful Trip

Great stories of your trip ! I just posted about looking for someone that might have some experience north of there at Twin Lakes in Mono... Do you have some recommendations to share, as I am headed there in mid September with 2 other float tube dudes... backpacking and float tubing at Twin Lakes or other lakes if local knowledge or good contact to call.

It was good times for sure...

Nice job Rus, we always talk about hitting the Convict inlet but weather screws us everytime. Looking foreward to heading up there Labor Day weekend.

awesome trip.