Hot Creek

This weekend Kirk and I headed up to Hot Creek with our friends Jason and Katie Scott. Jason is a first year dental student and they are in our ward. As soon as Jason told us that he liked to fly fish, I knew that we would be doing a trip like this sooner or later.

Most people aren't crazy enough to go on a trip like this with us. We left after Kirk got home from school about 6:30 on Friday evening. We braved some Los Angeles traffic and made it to our campsite, just outside of Bishop, about 11:00 p.m. We got our tents set up quickly thanks to car headlights. Just as we were getting in to go to sleep, we heard some strange noises. We are pretty sure that it was just some racoons fighting, but it startled us pretty well.

We got up the next morning and had a hearty meal of instant oatmeal then drove another half hour to Hot Creek. It is just south of the ski resort Mammoth and is about 7000 feet. We dressed really warm, and the temperature was probably in the 30s. Finally we made it to the creek and started fishing. It was Katie's first time out and she was determined to get a picture of herself holding a fish. She almost caught 3 before landing this little beauty:
We all ended up with fish for the day. Kirk caught more than the rest of us combined, but it was really fun. Here are some pictures from yesterday.
This is Jason with the first fish he ever caught on a dry fly (one that floats). I took it from across the river. He was really excited.
This is our campsite with my handsome husband by our tent.

Here's me! I got to test out my new wader I got for Christmas and stayed dry all day.

Just before we were ready to go it started snowing really hard. The wind was also blowing and the snow was "falling" horizontally! It only lasted about 20 minutes and then the sun was back.

Kirk and I caught these fish at the same time! What a team!

We had fun with Jason and Katie and are glad they are crazy enough to do a trip like this with us.

And finally, something I thought I would never see, Kirk and I in a picture together with a river and no fish. This may be worth money someday.

We had a fun trip and made it home safely about 11:00 Saturday night. When we lived in Utah we never would have done a trip like this--driving 4.5 hours each way for a short day of fishing. But here in LA we miss the mountains and there really aren't any good places to fish nearby. So we just have to get out and go. The mountains around Hot Creek were really pretty and reminded me of Utah. I wish we would have taken greater advantage of all the great things to do there and how much more time we had off together. Sometimes you don't know what you've got until its gone. So for now we are planning an enjoying California as much as possible whenever we can find time--even if its just 24 hours--to do it.