Eat Beef - The West wasn't won on salad - the TR

[Transylwader]

The Rock has come back to...no wait, shit, wrong forum :gun

I had planned this trip several years ago. Time went by and back in March I said, fuck it, Im doing it.
So plan I did with beer, delhorme, garmin and more beer...



Made a pit stop in John Denver. It really layed it down amongst the weirdos


And poof, like magic, we were teleported to the filthiest shitty of them all

At $11 a day, I ain't complaining, drove this car into the ground. Literally.

Watched the sun rise

Say your goodbye's off you go...




If I could really piss that clear, that far and that straight, I'd be the greatest muppet alive. Instead a couple unimpressed tourons yapped shit under their breath and gawked.

Couldn't find his road runner or acme safes.

Practical marketing


Got water?

The carps aren't happy

But I was after drinking a case of Tecate and eating this awesome as fuck bread, covered in BBQ sauce, bacon and melted cheese  :smile

We headed for the CA border, Hayley documented this journey like none other.

Meet your lowest point (not in your life)in North America


Head up em giant mountains and find glacier fed bluelines off the beaten track so the girl can get her first Cali trout.





Dinkfest without your overpriced beer.

Just had to do the touron thang...

Off to visit Unskunkable

Rancheros

Paging Mitch, you can now send your fukkin koalas you dingo loving bastage!



So the girls elected to ride...


The blokes did some urban fishing for strippers. He caught a dink, I took the SKUNK.
Must be that orange shit ass streamer express running line.

Next up Unskunky and I met up with another sound Drakian, Spicy Tuna. He and his bru own a badass bass boat, so we hit the Delta outside of STOCKERtown

Rod one - dead (car door and impatient fuckstick behind Spicy's trailer)


Dodgy Drakians sniffin out the marina's bumping into expensive botes and getting cussed out by the locals

Unskunky on the board

Got my first delta green fish

Then got snagged in a fukkin berry bush


This is made by

The prop of Hayseus Hernandez Christo

My favorite rock in the world.

Not my favorite beer in the world




Fished a little on the east side before heading to Mammoth Lakes to stay with another Drakian, Carpe Tructa, ceptin the bastard would bail on us for the entire trip :wink
Had to scramble to get two walk in permits for the back country. After a cordial convo with the young ranger who enjoyed my accent and charm, she issued me both and we were on our way.



Found a rather quaint drinking establishment. The Double L Bar in Lone Pine. No A/C but ice cold beer. Nothing quite like it.

Headed on up the "Z" to the campsite to get acclimated at 10000ft.

Lone Pine from upstairs

There's a creek on the flipside of that thang that has Paiute cutts. Alas, they are federally protected and I would be deported for layeth of the fly line in their lounge.

Like 11 dudes from the local Sierra Forum are already there.

Bad moon on the rise

Goeie nag, naaiers

East Coasters brought rain with them...a shit ton.
Southern Cali is supposed to be in a major drought. Hey, fukk it, I'll help any way I can. It rained. Non-stop the whole way up.

Kinda like that gate you see when you die and know you're going where you never thought you'd get to go.

Birdie kept up a good pace

Starting to gain distance, something about lugging a bear cannister, a 14 lbs down sleeping bag and an assortment of other shit. Her pack? Hmmm...

Crossing through grassy meadows

Then through terrain likened to the surface of hell

Made it up a near vert 600ft gain stringer. Fuck it hurt and we were both looking like drowned rats. Nothing like warming the human spirit with some rank as fukk backpacker pantry insta puke

This stuff gave me the runs for 48 hours. It was epic.

So epic mummy marmot relocated her dinks to an area where she was out of sight and sound of my thundering anus.

As the day proceeded, the bloated gray clouds gave way to a majestic blue sky.


Hayley and I rigged up the 2wts and blazed off to find our own slice of the pie in the sky



She did a number on me. Electing to go with a soft hackle slowly retrieved alongside the edge of a grass flat.
It didn't help that she kept calling me over every minute to take pics of her golden trout. Oh heck, who am I kidding, I was tickled to death that all my cussing and ordering her around on the creek and in the yard, practising casting, tying knots, flies and unhooking punes had come full circle.

Clouds gathered and I really needed to pull my finger out my arse and catch a few. Decided to decrease the size of the fly. And just like that...

1st golden troot

Followed by what must be the most unusually colored golden I have seen. That pink stripe was like cotton candy, pretty lil fukker.

Back over at the lake we camped on, there was a serious evening hatch coming off. The trouts however were eating like slap dab in the middle. Was too deep to wade and Greg hadn't set up his float tube yet, so I bust out the 9' 3wt and started firing long casts. I had a few eats and kept missing, must be dinks, bastards, I muttered. Then as I am pulling the fly off the water getting ready to hurl the whole fukkin line, the eat of Hayseus Hemant Patel. Biggest trout set ever. The dudes at camp (peanut gallery on the rock hill) were pissing themselves.

This guy is the biggest native golden I have ever seen from this area. I got a cold tingling up my spine. Dunno man, this was special, like an omen that this trip was meant to be different.

He sat there in my hand for the brief few seconds I took to snap these pics, lower him and swim off, slowly back into the crystal clear watery abyss whence he came from. It felt like hours, I was mesmerized.

Sat down for a bit, glanced up at the sky and saw a bright purple/lilac layer above a gray one, it was surreal. Glancing off to the right and the lower lake, Mt Langley was all lit up like I have seen no other, the sun dancing off those stormy looking clouds.
I felt real phylosophical, but I will save you my verbal diarrhea

Could hardly get any shut eye that night, excited and eager to do it all over again in the morning, but like clockwork, at 10PM, the rumblings around the high peaks started, followed by bright flashes. It was not a night to be outdoors, it snowed a bit, then hailed, then rained, for 12 hours straight and the temps? Ahhh, a balmy 44F. Tent? excellence. I sure am glad I hucked Steelrain's down army issue dual sleepies up or we'd have been sick as gods.

Finally got a break from the rain at noon.
Breakfast was another puke fest. Colorado Omlette.

Hayley and I decided to head up to 4 & 5 with Flyaddict911. Dude is insane.

Yes, he hucked that float tube 5 miles into base camp and then an additional 2 to get to lakes 4 & 5. I shall fish with this crazy fucker soon.

Old Army pass is up in there somewhere. Been a lot of rock slides and I am not sure you can even make it up that dingy lose gravelly cliff.

Hayley posing at 5. She caught a few that day and would remind me the entire trip that she outfished me. :cheer

Some kind soul snapped this pic of my conceited ass.

The reason my pack weighed 55lbs, brown bastards.

A selfie at 12K ft

Taking cover during a lightning strike

These outlet streams were teeming with goldens.

Rod number two-dead (Line jammed in reel spool, duh.

Prepping for the walk out

My bucket list item crossed off

Grabbing a beer at Mt Whitney Restaurant

Checking out one of TM's haunt's: Alabama Hills

Paying homage to the highest in the lower 48

Getting ready to leave the Golden State and saying goodbyes in the waterfall that leads to the magical trouty underworld of the eastern Sierras

to Nevada salt lakes

Don't be a trout bro.

To sampling straight aways up to 8 miles long and flat like a cricket bat

And see if the governors on rentals actually work.

To seeing a bucket list destination fabled to have extra terrestrial inhabitants and loaded with secrets and lies from the US Govt

To finding out that the extra terrestrial highway sports fuck houses.

Thank you to the kind people along the way who made this trip one of my all time faves.
Of all the paths you take in life, make sure a few are dirt.
Peace

[themidge]

  bd;0 bd;0 bd;0 y; y; y; bd;0 bd;0 -0- -0- -0- -0-

[driver]

Epic!!!
Hope to make an adventure to Cal next year myself.

Again epic. Been waiting all week for this post.

[tomato can]

damn them goldens are purdy, damn

[Onslow]

Speechless.  You've got grit and determination, dude.  I could never pull something like this off.

Thanks for posting the documentation.  Also great to have ya back.  This place was really starting to suck during the course of your absence.

[Dougfish]

That was a serious badass combo of planning, execution and camaraderie. Hot damn. 

[NCsporksman]

The "Thundering Anus" really brought it all together for me  bd;0 bd;0

[Michael Toris]

Fuck yes!!!!!!! That Shit Was Dank man

[T5Video]

Wow, impressive

[Aka]

Right on, Mike good shit. I remember you talking about wanting to do that back when I was in shitty CA a few years back. Its cool you made it happen.

[Dee-Vo]

I mean, motherfuck. I have no words. Over the fucking top bro. The thing of dreams.

[Al]

Hats off to ya Trany  bd;0 bd;0 bd;0   Great photos and very descriptive reporting.

[AL trout bum]

That's definitely something I want to do someday. Thanks for planting the seed in my head!

[benben reincarnated]

Fly in, kick ass, take some names, then GTFO.  Nice job all around Mike.

[JD]

I mean... it doesn't get better. Hats off to ya.  -0- -0- -0- -0- -0- -0- -0- -0-