R04 TRs: Tune(Not)Chuck(Yes) 8/12-15/24, Day hike Mokelumne W 8/7,

[giantbrookie]

Kinda spoiler alert: These are not very ambitious or exotic trips. These reports illustrate how midsummer doesn't necessarily result in slumping of fishing success as well as provided yet more examples of execution of Plan B, C, D, etc. I was supposed to do a long (9-day) trip with Dawn 8/12-20, but both of us got put off of our training, Dawn moreso than me. The great hiking form I had as of the end of June (Thousand Island Lake) evaporated in the month plus that followed without another backpacking trip. Although I hit my sea level training hard in preparation, Dawn did not which eventually led to her withdrawing from the long trip which then morphed into a solo trip for me. I tried to fit in a tune up trip with Lee, aiming for an overnighter to a Hoover Wilderness destination, but the fit to Lee's work schedule did not fit Nature's schedule. A 60 percent chance of thundershowers was forecast for those two days, so we called that off and rescheduled a dayhike (no remaining two-day slots for Lee prior to my departure on the long trip) to a well-known Mokelumne Wilderness lake on Wednesday 8/7.

Part I. Mokelumne Wilderness dayhike, Wednesday 8/7.
For additional training to mimic backpacking as much as possible, I loaded extra items into my pack which included a ton of trail food I didn't eat, a lot of extra lures I don't take on my hard backpack trips, and a soft cooler with blue ice and two pints of Moonraker's No Plans No Problems. The label says "What better way to wrap up a day on the lake than with a crisp west coast pale ale". The daypack weighed a bit less than what I'd take for an overnighter but probably more than a lot of folks would.

The hike had the added touch which was that it repeated a dayhike I did last did with Lee (carrying quite a bit less, no less) in 2022 in which I really struggled, presumably related to cancer treatment. On that trip, Lee waited patiently on every switchback until he asked if my struggles were due to said treatment. It prompted him to tell me I should so some sort of training going up hills. He suggested I try running up hills, but given that running was hurting my knees, I decided to do hill training with a heavy pack. That training regimen and a getting up to the Sierra quite a bit in June put in my best backpacking form in many a year ascending Thousand Island trip out of Rush Creek. In addition, I had passed one of those "age milestones" that have long been associated with retirement--65 years (as of 8/2)--so I thought this would be a nice belated birthday statement to self.

As it turned out the 'between trip training' appears to have worked and our hiking time to destination was cut from 3.5 to 2.5 hours and I went from struggling to keep up with Lee to getting by with about an 80 percent effort on the uphills (and about 50 percent on downhills). I also found out (realized it toward end of hike back to car) that we've been hiking out of the "wrong" trailhead for the last three trips (2018, 2022, 2024). I think the "wrong" trailhead adds more than 0.5 mi and 200' of gain one way but it's not so easy to estimate this off of maps. Those infernal dirt roads without signs. Oh well. We ran into a lot of PCT hikers on the trail, including one northbound fellow on day 95 who had turned 65 on July 2 and gave us stickers related to his YouTube channel "65 and Alive Hiker". He filmed a short selfie video with me and Lee and we spoke of fishing prospects along the PCT. He had bypassed the lake Lee and I were heading to and regretted it a bit, given that he had a Tenkara which he'd use to get some extra meals when he could.

Craft beer in cans is so convenient!

This destination can be very crowded on weekends, and on a recent weekend, an experienced High Sierra angler found the lake so crowded with fisher-backpackers that he couldn't find elbow room to make his own casts except for a very limited amount of time. This illustrates the practical downside to fishing popularity of some lakes. Most folks think that fishing pressure can fish out a lake or "spot burn" it. In reality, fishing pressure seldom has much impact on the fishing quality at all, but it can impede one from fishing a place, especially for a small lake (as this one is) or one with a very limited number of prime casting spots. For example, I can think of two of my favorite Lakes Basin area (Sierra Buttes area) that I really can't fish if I find someone occupying my prime casting spot (this has happened once each for these two lakes); one of these ia a rather large lake. In contrast there are some large lakes with endless possibilities for casting spots such as Thousand Island Lake. That's an extreme example because it probably has the longest shoreline of any backcountry lake in the High Sierra, but there are lots of lakes which have abundant shoreline casting spots where anglers don't have to worry about getting crowded out. Most folks who camp at or visit the lake Lee and I headed to are not PCT hikers because few PCT hikers take the 1-mile dead-end spur to the lake. In any case there was a reason why Lee and I chose to dayhike midweek and it paid off because we had the lake to ourselves from time of arrival (ca. 1130 am) to departure at a few minutes before 4 pm.

Fishing success at this place does tend to be vary from day to day, through the year, and during the day. Dawn dislikes the place because she skunked there on her only visit in 2018. I skunked on my first two visits here (1978 and 1991) and both Lee and I experienced slow fishing in 2022 in which we totalled only 5 fish of which only one was good sized (Lee's) in a very sustained fishing session (11 am to 530 pm). On this trip, we fished from about 1145 am to 3 pm with a break of from about 2 to 245 pm during which time Lee Jet-boiled some water to make himself a hot meal (one of those delicious Peak Fuel meals which is also kinda unhealthy with 130 percent of one's saturated fat allowance per package--Lee did the whole package for himself), and we each had one of those Moonraker pale ales. Lee had a fairly slow day in which he caught one 14" cutthroat and lost a golden in the 13-14" range whereas I had belated birthday present of a day with four cutthroat running 13 to 16.75" and one golden-cutthroat hybrid of 17.5". I was rather surprised to see sporadic rises at this lake at this time of year (and a fairly warm day). Some of the rises by large fish were very close to shore and large cruisers were often visible. Where I could view them, it appeared that the nearshore cruisers were feeding primarily upon something on the bottom (caddis fly larvae, perhaps?), but they would also rise on occasion. The cruisers included both LCT and goldens.

A beefy LCT of 16.75". Chef Lee couldn't wait to fillet this.

This appears to be a golden-cutthroat hybrid. It was long (17.5") but skinny with way less meat than the thicker LCTs we caught.

Lee loves eating cutthroat owing to their yummy fatty meat, so we kept five of the six fish we caught (Lee deemed my 13-incher too small to keep) so my pack hiking out was heavier than coming in. Those five fish weighed a lot more than the two pints of beer, food, and water we consumed, so my pack hiking out was about my usual overnight pack weight (coming in, given that I commonly pack out fish). We breezed out to the car in under 2 hours. On the home stretch which Lee described as going on forever I saw a body of water to the left and finally figured out that we'd been hiking to the so-called "wrong" trailhead for the last three trips (had wondered why local topography didn't seem to match where I thought we were).

With an ETA of 10 pm or so back in the Bay Area Lee asked to stop for dinner some place and he wanted a place with above-average food. When I go solo, I usually try to hurry home directly and eat leftovers on arrival, but Lee prefers to find a restaurant. We ended up trying Amador Brewing's Hoist House in Pine Grove. They don't have a kitchen but the food truck outside served up tasty food. They brew some quality beer, too, and I was impressed enough to buy three four packs to take home to Judy.
In the years since I first visited the destination in 1978 there have been some major changes in the fishery and in fisheries management throughout the Sierra. In the years since 1978 craft beer has taken off. For those of us who want high quality beer after a hike, we now have lots of options. In fact, now that most craft beer is canned, fine beer is more "hikeable" and, for many of us, a worthwhile hiking "luxury item".

Amador Brewing Hoist House, Pine Grove along CA88. Highly recommended.

Part II Tune(Not)Chuck(Yes) 8/12-15
Initially I had hoped to exploit what I thought was terrific hiking shape (still past tense related to Thousand Island trip) into a super ambitious game plan to hit Martha Lake from "High Rancheria" on day 2 with an epic day 1 planned to Blackcap Basin by way of the usual off trail shortcuts plus the unnamed pass E of Scepter Pass. Upon further consideration I downsized hiking expectations to a 7 to 8 day version of the 5-day 2008 Tunechuck trip (ie Tunemah, basin below Tunemah, Blue Canyon, Woodchuck Country). This was not only taking longer to do a 5-day trip but I was also omitting some significant hiking components done in 2008, such as the climb of Finger Peak and a off trail backpacking route that investigated Maxson Lake; the latter was eliminated from further consideration in 2008 as a result of finding stunted brookies there. The only part of the game plan that was as hard as 2008 was the first day which was planned as duplicating the 2008 day 1 (hardest day of the 2008 trip) except from High Rancheria this time instead of Hoffman Mtn, the kickoff point for the 2008 trip.

Day 1 (Monday Aug. 12) began well enough, but I may have "gone out too fast" in the opening hour. Be that as it may after doing my usual off trail shortcut between Round Corral Meadow and the Chuck Pass trail, I really labored in the final ascent to Chuck Pass then glanced in horror at my watch. At first I thought I read my watch wrong. "I can't possibly be THAT slow." But the watch didn't lie. It had taken me 4 hours to reach Chuck Pass. I was far from the hiking strength I'd been at for the Thousand Island backpack. Perhaps I needed more true High Sierra "tuneup" in addition to the sea level training. It probably didn't help that I developed really bad heel blisters on the Mokelumne dayhike, hadn't healed yet, and started to get worse from the very first uphill strides of the hike. I also found out that I don't like doing long off trail solo backpacking trips. I hadn't tried one before and I don't plan on doing one again. I had a real crisis of confidence and took a very long break at Chuck Pass to snack while arguing with myself inside my head about what to do next.

I decided to truncate day 1 and stay at a destination that had originally been planned for night 5 or 6. The plan was to shorten day 1, then do a long day 2 to get more or less back on schedule. I figured that day 2 would find me better acclimated and ready to deal with an extended off trail odyssey. In my childhood I recall struggling on a number of day 1's then being very strong on day 2.
I didn't sleep well that first night, with the main issue being the throbbing pain in my right heel (blister) so I didn't feel all that refreshed on the morning of day 2. Other aspects such as fishing and simple laziness entered in to killing my incentive to push to Tunemah. And this all happened under perfect hiking conditions: cool afternoon temperatures (low 60s highs), consistent but fairly mild breeze, zero mosquito harassment (except for first rest stop ascending Rancheria trail), and minimal wildfire smoke. Ah, what a shame to "waste" such conditions. But I can't really say I "wasted" the conditions in enjoying a much more pedestrian trip. Now the trip plan was cut to 4 days with two nights camped at Crown Lake and the third and final night spent at Woodchuck Lake.

I'd camped at Woodchuck Lake on multiple occasions (2007 Blackchuck, 2008 Tunechuck, 2015 all-family trip, 2021 overnighter with some students, 2021 3-night stay with Dawn), but this was my first time camping at Crown Lake. I think that for most of the time prior to September, Crown's camping spots might suffer from mosquito harassment, much more than Woodchuck where you can camp "on the rim" above the lake instead of having no alternatives to "being in the bowl" above Crown. However, under the conditions of Aug. 12-14 the mosquitoes were a non-factor. I'm pretty sure this trip is precedent setting for me. I think it is the first backpacking trip I've taken before September on which I didn't get bitten once; I'm also one of those folks who is a real mosquito magnet. The relaxed schedule also afforded more time than usual to potentially investigate some of the other lakes nearby, such as Scepter, Chimney, and Marsh lakes.

Whereas I had hiked midweek before in this area, this is the first time I didn't encounter anybody at either Crown or Woodchuck Lakes (certainly first time I haven't seen someone else at Woodchuck). I suppose this brought home one of the other things I don't like about solo backpacking. I don't particularly like sitting around camp without someone to talk to. I figure I can deal with it for one or perhaps at most two nights, but three nights...Nah, probably won't do this again either. Everybody has a different tolerance or liking to solo stuff.
In the years since my first visit to the area in 2007 I've seen some changes in visitation pattern as manifest in the use of campsites at the lake and conditions of trails to and from such lakes. Woodchuck shows a lot more recently used campsites than Crown (where I didn't happen upon a recently-used one). I'm guessing that most folks going to Crown get there by going to Woodchuck (or just past it) first. The spur trail down from the Crown Pass trail is well developed, whereas the trail south of Crown Lake is faint and overgrown, as is the trail over Chuck Pass. I recall that in 2007 and 2008 the trail south of Crown Lake was more well-trodden and easy to follow as was the trail over Chuck Pass. There seems to be an increase in folks using High Rancheria since 2021. In 2021 it was a classic "goat trail" sort of use trail connecting the High Rancheria road-end parking lot to the main Rancheria. I remember having to remember landmarks and such at the split so that I'd know where to turn off on the return trip. That connecting trail is much better developed now and it is heavily used enough so that the turnoff of this spur was visually obvious. There were no vehicles at the regular Rancheria and High Rancheria trailheads as of Monday 8/12, but three other vehicles at High Rancheria and three at the regular Rancheria as of Thursday 8/15 when I hiked out.

After two relaxing days at Crown Lake (8/12-13) I packed up (8/14) and found the connector trail to take me to the Crown Pass trail and then to Woodchuck Lake. Some of the trail junctions in this region are not signed (or the signs are hard to see?). For example, I didn't see a trail sign for the spur to Duck Lake from the Rancheria trail and I also didn't see a sign at the junction of the Crown Lake spur and the Crown Lake trail. In contrast there is a prominent sign at the junction of the little northward spur to Woodchuck Lake. My favorite part of this hike is the stunning viewpoint at the crest of the ridge W of Crown Lake. I remember the first impression of that view with my group in 2007 ("Blackchuck") when my group took a long break there to take lots of photos. If coming from the west, you've been in "mid elevation country" up to that point and then you finally get a view of the real "high" Sierra with the tip of Mt. Goddard peeking over a ridge, Mt. Reinstein and the peaks above Blackcap basin looming to the east and then the amazing sightline to the south that includes the crest from University Peak southward, the Great Western Divide, and the Kaweahs. A bit closer one can see the backside of Tehipite dome overlooking Tehipite Valley, the opposite wall of Tehipite Valley, the pointy top of Mt Harrington. For me, gazing at this while "retreating" from Crown to Woodchuck Lake it was a reminder of what I missed not pushing on to Blue Canyon and Tunemah Lake and vicinity.

Mt Goddard (barely peeking over ridge on left), Mt Reinstein, the unnamed peaks above Blackcap Basin and Finger Peak with Crown Lake below in the middle ground. The true "high" country was just a bit to the east but I didn't get there this time.

At Woodchuck Lake I put my pack down at my favorite campsite which is on a high point west of the south end of the lake with a view down to the lake one way (rather far below in fact) and west to the Central Valley and California Coast Ranges. With the lack of mosquito harassment, I could have camped on "west rim" sites north of the outlet stream too, but the westward view from the high site is better, particularly of the city lights (Fresno area) at night. I was surprised to see evidence that the campsite had been recently occupied (ie since my last time there with Dawn in 2021); this evidence appeared to be somewhat recent use of a campfire ring. Some of my extra time at the lake was used to take a short scramble up the bluffs east of the lake to get a more "aerial" view of Woodchuck Lake. When I did this, I was surprised that I could see northward to the Ritter Range from there. Later that evening I took in the great sunset views from the "high porch" of the campsite. Dawn is the master of sunset photos so I had to do my part this time. In 2021 we had brilliant sunsets that were enhanced by a huge amount of wildfire smoke. That smoke blotted out a view to the Fresno-area lights as well as to the Coast Ranges earlier in the day. This time the sunset colors weren't as dramatic but the city lights were amazing.

Longtime favorite Woodchuck Lake campsite, high above the lake with a view to the lake, but also (leftwards) toward the Central Valley and Coast Ranges.

"Aerial" view of Woodchuck Lake toward the west. The favorite campsite is high above the left (south) side of the lake above the far side with the views to both sides.

One of the perks of the campsite is the fine sunsets and the city lights which are becoming visible in this view.

On the 4th day (Thursday 8/15) I took my time and eventually packed up and left Woodchuck Lake at about 10 am. I've done the off trail descent/ascent to the Indian Springs area several times (2013, 2015, 2021) and never quite hit it "perfectly" owing to the rather intricate topography. This time I nailed it, as well as the off trail, cutover to Round Corral Meadow. I finally met another person after I got onto the Rancheria trail. I overtook a dayhiker descending (had visited Duck Lake) with his big and characteristically friendly and enthusiastic black lab. The dog was big enough so that without too much jumping he could lick my face. This was summed up by his owner's statement of "that's enough smooches...". He asked me if I had run into two hikers headed for Crown Lake who were eventually aiming to climb Finger Peak. I replied that I hadn't. I had only walked across the Chuck Pass trail, rather than on it for any length of time on my descent from Woodchuck but I guess those were two guys who would actually be hiking on the Chuck Pass trail, unless they were tormenting themselves by going to Crown by way of Woodchuck (uggghhh that's an unnecessarily long hike). Later I ran into a large youth group backpacking; apparently they were aiming to camp somewhere short of Round Corral Meadow.

Part III. Some fishing details.
So, from a backpacking standpoint, this could be called a "wimp out" trip. Others have said they were hesitant to post on trips much more ambitious than this one saying that they were concerned their trips were too pedestrian. Well this trip is very pedestrian, but I post it to illustrate how sometimes we feel the need to change our game plan.

From the off trail backpacking adventure standpoint this trip was a dud, but the fishing on this trip was probably the best I've experienced in 50 years of High Sierra fishing when measured from the standpoint of large fish and good rate of success. The Thousand Island Lake trip featured a few more fish caught, but the largest fish I caught there (16") was smaller than the AVERAGE size caught at one of the lakes on this trip. For an absolute premium experience (very large fish but good rate of activity) my previous best was in this lake with Dawn in 2021.

So as to semi keep the "Code of Silence" I will remind people that Woodchuck Country as considered in this report, comprises five lakes: Woodchuck, Crown, Chimney, Marsh, and Scepter. Fish were caught from two lakes. One lake "underperformed" with a top end of 16.25" and an average of 13.7" out of 14 brookies caught. These brookies, while they would be considered thick and fat anywhere else were, on the average not as thick and fat as the other place. The other lake delivered a total of 26 enormously fat brookies with an average of about 16.5" and a top fish of 19" that ties my PR brookie (other one caught at a N Sierra lake in 2022). In mid-August this level of brookie activity is thought to be rare, because brookies are commonly subject to the "midsummer slump". On the other hand, the visible signs of fish activity were scant. No nearshore cruisers were visible and there were periods of hours where I didn't see a single rise. When I did see rising fish, most rises were so offshore as to be beyond the casting range of my 3/8 oz Kastmaster. My hottest streak landed 7 huge brookies in about 40 minutes with a fish on about every 2nd cast and strikes on more or less every cast. During that time there was no visible sign of fish in the lake other than the resistance on the end of my line. The fish were enormously strong and with hook ups occurring far from shore, they took some time to land. They ran hard toward the bottom so I had to do a lot of "pumping and lifting" as one does when reeling in large ocean fish. Like most brookies they fought primarily deep but two of the big ones went airborne, "rainbow style". This trip sets some sort of personal record for me for 4-day trip with one lure lost for the entire trip, which is shocking considering that nearly all of my retrieves were along the bottom and that I've snagged and lost my share of lures at these lakes in past years. The only lure lost was due to a large brookie breaking me off. I had it on for a long time and got it close enough to see that it was in the same size range as the larger ones I had caught, but it was not visibly larger. Its head shakes were a bit more violent than the others, however, and one last head shake apparently broke my terminal knot.

First fish caught on this trip was this immense 18" brookie. This was truly a giantbrookie fest.

This 19" brookie tied my PR.

This 17.5" is was so fat the proportions make you think the fish isn't that big. These were some super heavy fish.

[texan]

Those are some nice brookies GB and you almost joined the 20 inch brookie club. A 19 inch brookie is very impressive as you know. Catching over 20 brookies that averaged over 16 inches matches your name GIANTBROOKIE. Also the day hike trip to the other lake that has cutts and goldens still produces. Nice to see that. All in all its looks like you had a great time even you couldn't do the longer trip. I want to go Martha Lake too. Thanks again for sharing.

Texan(Mike)

[skunksquadfishing]

Glad to see the fish in the mokelumne lake are looking healthy. I day hiked to the lake July 4th weekend and there were about 10 fish floating dead on the surface of the lake. I’m sure it was probably a combination of them being postspawn, the heat, and fishing pressure over the holiday. The few Golden I caught were actually in good condition but all the cutthroat were skinny and beat up. Perhaps its because the cutthroat are dumber and get caught more often.

Those were some great brookies! I think you’re going to break the 20 inch mark soon. I have had my eye on that area for a while and have been trying to convince my brother to go there for a trip this fall, but will most likely opt for the other giant brookie lake and 4x4.

[CAchief]

Thanks for the trip report, you've grown my anticipation for our backpacking trip to woodchuck/Blackcap next month.

I've watched that YouTube channel off and on. For those interested, here is the episode you reference!

https://youtu.be/_M_-NhJrRs4?si=hETtM_VFAUQSxSH6

[Harlen]

All in all a Great trip! Thanks for sharing your knowledge and fun with us. Too bad about Dawn's fitness--we love to see you guys hiking together.

What sort of unwieldy backpack weight did you stagger out with? Cheers, Ian and Lizzie and Nathan.

[sekihiker]

Wow! What a fishfest. As you know, I love that area and have spent a lot of time there. For once, I read every word of your long report. Usually I skim. Maybe I should go back and read them more carefully. Thanks for spending the time on reporting what turned out to be an excellent trip, even though you didn't get to your planned destination. The same has happened to me more than once in that area, but I've never been disappointed with the trip.