May Lake: High Country Backpacking Trip

Brook trout at the small creek

It has been nearly a year of waiting, but summer has finally returned. This means that I am able to journey to the granite cliffs of Yosemite high country with my dad. We decided to fish at May Lake, a small placid piece of water located just a mile-and-a-half walk from the road. Despite being inside Yosemite where thousands of tourists enter every day, surprisingly few people fish May Lake. However my father is unusually susceptible to altitude sickness, making May Lake the perfect place for us to camp and fish.

As many fisherman have come to learn the worst thing about going fishing is the drive. My dad woke me up at an early 4 A.M. and pushed me into his Subaru 4WD station wagon. I then spent the next five hours trying not to throw up over the interior of his car. W

Instead of going directly to May Lake, we took a detour to rest and fish at a secret spot.  We went down a dirt road,  ascended winding paths, took stomach wrenching turns, and hurtled down steep hills. When the dusty Subaru finally stopped several miles from any major trailhead I quickly opened the door and burst into a thick cloud of mosquitos. For some reason high-country mosquitos love my blood and within seconds the bloodsucking insects were on my face, hands , and neck. Swatting them away, I tore through my pack looking for my mosquito netting and shirt. Groaning, I realized I had left the gear at home. The trip was not getting off to a very good start. 

My dad with a brook trout from the creek

To make matters worse my dad was getting comfortable eating his lunch inside the car. It would be a while until we moved to another location to begin our hike up to May Lake. I decided to make the best of the situation and go fishing at a tiny creek I spotted near our car. Donning a raincoat and stealing my fathers fly rod I strode into the trees. When I arrived I found that the creek was barely three feet wide, hardly the place you would expect to find trout. Sighing I cast a #16 olive wooly bugger into the lazy current of a shallow pool. Suddenly trout rocketed out from under the banks to attack my fly. Smiling I landed the first brook trout of the day. 

Over the course of an hour I caught twelve brook trout ranging from six to twelve inches. Eventually my dad came down to check the action and caught three himself. The highlight of the hour was when I spotted an unusually large pool. To approach the trout I needed to crawl on my stomach, inching forward until I could cast into the pool. When my fly hit the water a twelve-inch brook trout devoured my fly and disappeared back under the bank. Setting the hook, an epic battle commenced. I held the rod and tried to avoid letting the brook trout get under the numerous trees, undercut banks, or stumps. Eventually I maneuvered the trout to a sloping bank and landed it. The fishing at this creek was excellent, with fifteen trout landed in under an hour. But my father and I still hadn't started our trip to the fabled May Lake.

Nightime fishing at May Lake

We moved to the trailhead to access May Lake and began our hike.  It was late afternoon when we finally reached the top of the mountain. The hike up to May Lake requires an elevation gain of nearly a thousand feet in a mile. This made my dad weak, and I struggled up the mountain carrying nearly all of our gear. I set up the tent near the lake grabbed my spinning rod and declared I was going fishing. I had four rods set up. They were all fitted with ultralight spinning reels spooled with four pound maxima green. One was rigged as a bait fishing pole with a sliding egg sinker rig, a #10 hook, and white power eggs. The second pole was also a bait pole, but was armed with orange power eggs. My third pole was outfitted with a silver Kastmaster. And the last pole was the fly rod complete with floating line, a ten foot leader, and a #16 mosquito. As soon as the bait poles touched the water the line shot out and the rods bent with the promise of trout. I landed fish after fish, keeping three for dinner and releasing the rest. My dad and I enjoyed a hearty dinner of fried brook trout and beef stew that night. I fished again after dinner and caught seven wild trout ranging from ten to twelve inches, all on the Kastmaster. Then the mosquitos came out and I was driven into the tent, pursued by their insistent buzzing. We landed twenty-eight trout that day.

Mosquito protection

The following day passed much like the first. I continued to land trout after trout, each one averaging about twelve inches. I was enjoying some of the most consistent trout fishing of my life. As evening approached I was hovering on the cusp of catching fifty trout in one trip. There were fourty-seven trout that had already been released, I only needed to catch three to reach my goal. But to catch the last three I knew I was going to need to fish in the heart of the mosquito swarm. To prepare against the bloodsuckers I put on a thick fleece jacket. My dad then helped tie a T-shirt around my head and wrapped my hands with wool socks. Mosquito repellent was applied thickly on patches of skin beneath my cloth armor.

Brook trout caught on fly rod + 50th fish

By eight P.M. the mosquitos were out, but so were the brook trout. I had to use my fly rod to catch the trout that were feeding on the mosquitos that buzzed above the water. By 8:30 P.M. I had already landed two trout. I just needed one more brook trout to fulfill my goal. My eyes struggled to locate my tiny dry fly among the cloud of real insects that bit the skin around my forehead. Then a brook trout breached the surface of the water, engulfing my fly. I set the hook and battled the trout to the log I was standing on. As I unhooked the brook trout by the fading light and released it back into the lake, I realized that I could recall each and every fish and battle. Riddled by mosquito bites that had somehow found their way through my shirt, I turned my back on the lake and returned to camp.

Sunset at May Lake

Score:
18 fish on flies
10 fish on lures
23 fish on bait