Spent the weekend in Markleeville with a good friend and a friend of his who was newer to fly fishing. We fished a pay for play Saturday and did well on hoppers and yellow jacket patterns. For the most part we caught fish on dries. Several really nice fish too! Brian's friend had an epic evening fishing egg patterns drifted into undercut banks. He was on a real high after several career best fish. The highlight and brief pucker, we had a mama bear and two cubs wander down to the river about 50 yards from where we were fishing. My friend Brian looked up to see the bear about the time she saw him. The bear bolted up river towards me, and he hollered on the walkie talkie "bear heading your way"! She was across the river from me and I saw her stand on her hind legs, look my way and then bark at her cubs, and they scurried off at a high rate of speed! My heart skipped a beat or two as I carefully headed back down to where Brian was, thinking safety in numbers.
Sunday we fished the Carson below Hangman's Bridge. We hiked quite a ways down trying to avoid the crowds, only to go too far and bump into folks coming in from the airport. Fishing was tough until mid-afternoon when the sun warmed up things and the fish started looking up. Caught a bunch of small fish on Humpies and Adams to about 11"'s. Nothing big, but fun! I was sure dragging when we finally got back to the truck at a late enough time so as to impact cocktail hour.
Monday we stopped at Woods Lake right below the summit of Carson Pass and went for a nice walk around the lake with a camera and a fly rod. We found a couple of willing fish, and took a few pictures. Pretty little lake.
Finally made it home late yesterday evening, after running the gauntlet of smokies enforcing the traffic laws across the valley. I did not secure an invite to traffic school.
Nice Labor Day weekend!
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