Fishing the San Jaoquin

Fishing the San Jaoquin
Originally uploaded by jono1515.

Days Off

I got another 2 days off while they ran more casing in the well at work. The first day I spent fishing down on the Owens River, and the second day we went up to Devils Postpile National Monument. Devils Postpile was pretty nice, you have to take a shuttle to the trailhead and then it's an easy half mile hike. We went on the interpretive walk with a forest ranger to the Postpile. I probably wouldn't have gone on the interpretive walk, but Dick came along with me and wanted to so I figured whatever, I have all day and I'm getting paid for this. I am glad we did the interpretive walk though, it was nice. After the Postpile, we hiked another mile to Rainbow Falls which is on the San Jaoquin River. It's pretty nice there too. After getting some pictures there we went back to Devils Postpile where I did some fly fishing on the San Jaoquin. I was really off that day, I missed about 8 strikes. I ended up not catching a single fish. I'd go back again, but you have to pay $7 just to get in the park and I'd rather fish for free somewhere else. The San Jaoquin is classified as a wild trout stream and hasn't been stocked in like 20 years. It has a rather healthy population of trout from 4 different species - rainbow, brown, brook and golden. I think golden are the only native species though.
Yesterday I lost about $16 worth of flies while I tried to fish a narrow rather overgrown gorge like section of the Owens River, I didn't catch anything and I've decided to take a day or two off from fishing, all the flies I've been losing are starting to add up.
We're back to work tonight and I'm really tired, on those days off I sort of switched back to being up during the day. It's going really slow though and I was lucky enough to be able to get a little nap in from about 2am-4am before anything really started to happen. We should be here for another 10 to 14 days, and that's just fine with me. People pay good money to come here and go fly fishing and hiking and what not, and I'm getting paid for it.
There's a new guy here being trained with our company which means one thing for me - I'm not the new guy anymore. It also means that we have someone to take the garbage out for us and do other stuff like that, it's not a bad deal.
I'll be putting some pictures up from the Devils Postpile and maybe some other random pictures soon. That's all for now though!

Looking towards Mammoth from the Owens River

Looking towards Mammoth from the Owens River
Originally uploaded by jono1515.

August 14

Last night at work was very slow, they put steel casing in the well and cemented it in place. So basically all last night we sat around waiting for the cement to set. Around 8 this morning the well site geologist told me that I really didn't need to be there and that I could leave as long as they could get a hold of me if they needed to, so I got a few extra hours off this morning and we don't actually have to be back until tomorrow at noon, which is when I'd be finishing my shift tomorrow. So I get tomorrow off too, but I still get paid for it. They are essentially paying me to go fly fishing is the way I see it!
Today's fishing was alright, not bad for my first time fly fishing this year. I caught a few rainbow trout, none very big (and the only one I got a picture of is down-right tiny) but I had a good time. The river is pretty open, no trees or anything. It just snakes across a high desert plateau. I wasted a bunch of time on a couple of fish that I could see, they were feeding but didn't want anything I threw at them. They were feeding on the surface and on the bottom but nothing worked! I tried terrestrials and dries and nymphs, the only things I didn't try were my wet flies and bass flies.
I got  a little sunburned because I completely forgot to put my sunscreen. As I was pulling up to park I saw a mountain lion. Not a very big one, but a wild cat none-the-less. My mind must've been focused on where the cat might have gone after it saw my car because I didn't think of my sunscreen again until I was heading back to the car. I'm glad to say that where-ever that mountain lion went, I didn't see it again. I enjoy seeing wildlife from my car, but have little interest is seeing it while I'm on foot. I tried to get a picture of it, but it was kind of far away for my camera.
Tomorrow I'll be back out on the river. I like working here at Mammoth.

Small Rainbow Trout

Small Rainbow Trout
Originally uploaded by jono1515.

Mammoth Lakes

I've been in Mammoth Lakes since Tuesday night. It's pretty nice here. The drive here was also pretty nice. Once you're in Nevada and heading South on I-395 it's really scenic. The highway goes along the Eastern Sierra Nevadas and has some really spectacular views. Mammoth Lakes is up pretty high, about 8000'. I'm still not quite adjusted to the elevation, so I get out of breath running up the stairs still... or maybe I'm just out of shape!
We got here about 3 days earlier than we needed to, but had no way of knowing that when we got here. The job has been slow to get going. So we've had 3 days to get all set up instead of 1 which is really nice. Our boss took us out to lunch and dinner the first night, that's a big deal for him because he's usually pretty cheap. It was probably the best dinner I've had since I was home in July! Any, it looks like they'll be drilling tonight so I came home early to try and get some sleep before my shift that starts at midnight. I'm going to be tired tonight though because I could only sleep for about 3 hours. I'll sleep good tomorrow for sure!
The drill site here is right near town in the Inyo National Forest. It's like a 5 minute drive from the condo we're staying at. The town is pretty nice too, lots of restaurants and some outlet shops. Tons of people around here too, apparantly this is a pretty popular place to visit. I plan on doing some fishing here as I've heard there's some pretty good fly fishing around here, there's a couple of cool looking fly shops around town too that I'll need to check out.
That's all for now, I should try to get some more sleep!!