Fishing Conditions and Hatches: Fair-Good

One thing to keep in mind is that somewhere around noon the water below where upper Hot Creek joins in the water is getting up to 70+ so plan on moving upstream if you are going to fish the afternoon. There is a temperature gauge on Hot Creek right above the Owens River Road bridge. In the last week that water has not been below 97 degrees and tops out around 112 degrees midday. If you're not familiar with it, to get to the upper most branch of Hot Creek, go through the first drive through gate on the main road and immediately turn left. The confluence is between the first and second walk-thru gates.

Fishing has been inconsistent, but the pressure is reasonable. Plenty of Tricos, 6-8 for the female emergence and 9-10 for the spinner fall. Also early, midges and some bigger caddis. There is also a mayfly hatch (#18-20) that starts around 10:30. If you're lucky you'll be out there on one of the ''good days" when the fish are rising all morning right into the afternoon hopper fest. Midday the Hoppers are out, nothing like the last couple of years but still fun. Also, midday are the Tiny BWO, # 24-26 and their idea of egg laying is a dive bombing technique from way up high making them hard to spot. If you see a flash out of the corner of your eye you weren't hallucinating.  With the resident fish being schizophrenic, one day eating attractor nymphs and the next day they're into the mayflies and midges, we suggest trailing a midge (#18-24) or mayfly (#16-22) behind an attractor nymph. That 1/2 moth 1/2 caddis white insect you see zig zagging close to the water is an aquatic moth. Not much is known about their life cycle, but you may have run across the larval form and not even known it. If you get hung up on the bottom and what you bring up looks like a small, ragged leaf, turn it over. If there's a line of organic matter down the middle that's the moth larva.

DF&G calls it the 4th of July run. With the temperatures getting warmer in Crowley and the algae growing the 12"-20" browns are starting to move up and should be throughout the river system in the next couple of weeks. Once in the system they will stay until spawning late fall to early winter.