Fishing Conditions and Hatches: Fair-Good

One thing to keep in mind is that somewhere around noon the water below where Hot Creek joins the river is getting up to 70+ degrees 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. Having said this, with the nights getting longer and the tails of cold fronts pushing through the the area every couple of couple days the water temperature should cease to be a problem soon.

The Tricos are starting to fade but the BWO hatch should be starting back up before to long. The Trico emergence is still around 6-8 for the female emergence and 9-10 for the spinner fall. Don't forget that the fish will eat drowned Trico spinners well after the egg laying. As they drift downstream they will hold their attention long after the spinner fall ends. Still see a few PMD and a few BWO have started hatching, even though there aren't a lot the nymph patterns are starting to work midday. The caddis are fading too but the midges are around forever. Midday the Hoppers are out but they're seriously wise and won't eat them unless it's windy.  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 have moved into the river and are throughout the system. Once in the system they will stay until spawning late fall to early winter.

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