Crystal Lake Fishing
Mammoth Lakes
Crystal Lake is less than a two-mile hike from the main cluster of Mammoth Lakes in California's Eastern Sierra. Tucked away against the Mammoth Crest and Crystal Crag, the beautiful mountain lake is a great destination for a day of fishing away from the main cluster of lakes at Mammoth Lakes. Crystal Lake's rocky and forested shoreline provide a variety of great fishing spots for fly fishing or spin casting for rainbow, brook, and brown trout.
The best fishing spots at Crystal Lake I found were along the left side of the lake, especially far around near the upper end of the lake. Although Crystal Lake is a popular hiking destination, especially with the locals, I found that the vast majority of anglers at Mammoth Lakes stick to the main lakes, leaving the outlying waters for the more adventurous. No one else was fishing Crystal Lake when I was there.
Crystal Lake
Sidetrips
A short drive from the Crystal Lake trailhead will take you over to Horseshoe Lake and the trailhead for the hike up to McLeod Lake (shown right). It's an easy twenty-minute jaunt up the trail to the lake. Fishing is good there for Lohantan cutthroats. Note that it is a catch and release, barbless hooks only lake.
Horseshoe Lake is not worth fishing. It is not stocked because the lake is so shallow. There are a few fish there, but nothing of size. Carbon dioxide seeping up from the ground in places around the parking lot make it an unhealthy spot to linger.
Nearby Featured Trips in Mammoth Lakes:
- Emerald Lake - a quiet lake, easy to reach, nice morning fishing
- T. J. Lake - a beautiful, secluded mountain lake
- Sherwin Lakes - a series of lakes offering good fishing
- Middle Fork San Joaquin River - 9 miles of river at Devils Postpile
Lake George and Lake Mary
In My Creel
- #16 Parachute Adams
- #16 Stimulator
- Woolly Bugger
- #14 Adams
- #16 Elk Hair Caddis
- #16 Pheasant Tail
Anxious to get one last good day of fly fishing in before the snow began to fall in the Sierra, I brought along a number of flies and nymphs I thought would be good for Crystal Lake.
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Recommended Books and Lures for Fishing Crystal Lake
- Fly Fishing Eastern Sierra Streams Where to Go, What to Use, and How to Get There, Mike Brown. Great book detailing the best streams in the Eastern Sierra. Color Photographs.
- High Sierra Fishing, Basics to Advanced Tactics, Billy Van Loek. This is the book I go back to again and again to improve my fishing technique in the high Sierra.
- California's Best Fly Fishing: Premier Streams and Rivers from Northern California to the Eastern Sierra, Chip O'Brien. An up-to-date guidebook, complete with maps, detailed descriptions of fishing locations, analysis of the seasonal differences which affect fishing, and fly patterns.
McLeod Lake
