We just returned from a trip to Pinecrest Lake in the Sierras, just north of Yosmite, 1 mile west of Strawberry. We camped in site C14. A great location private, peaceful, not too close to the road and not too far from the lake or the store. The weather was perfect for most, but more hot and dry than I prefer. We took the 4.5 mile hike around the lake where there are fantastic views of the surrounding granite mountains, trees, and the lake itself.
Most of the people we encountered were oddly from the Santa Cruz area. We exchange numbers with one retired couple and plan to have them for over for dinner soon. We also ran into members of the Santa Cruz Fire Department during our lake hike. Nice strong men on the go.
I took an inflatable raft onto the lake to fish. It was too small and difficult to maneuver, the ore locks are in the wrong place. They were too close to me, the ore jamming my body. After I managed to squirm 180 degrees to the opposite end, they were too far away. It was even more difficult fishing from the thing. I plan on selling it on craigs list. I rowed across the lake and trolled a spinning lure which was hit with a good strike about mid way into the lake. I thought it was strange that the fish wasn't caught on that big sharp treble hook. I found a spot on the south side of the lake where the fish were hitting the surface all around and stopped. Changed to power bait and casted. The bait snagged on the bottom immediately. I pulled the line and it dragged my rubber dingy directly over the bolder or log I'd caught below. Suddenly there was a snap and my pole was broken in half. I was in shock and couldn't believe what had just happened, it was surreal. In 45 years of fishing I've never experienced this before. I was also hoping that no one on shore noticed the red faced idiot with the half pole in the rubber dingy. I left the area immediately and switch to the backup fly rod. Casted about with a dry fly in a cramped manner. After a couple hours I needed a bathroom and to get out of that thing so I decided to head in. At that moment a fish struck my fly and came toward me. Reeling in I felt a couple of good strong exciting tugs and had the immediate thought that I could fish all day. Then suddenly the fish was gone and the fly was free. Once again I found myself trying to comprehend how that could happen. I rowed in. Everyone that I talked with later told me that it was a slow day and they had caught only 3 or 4 fish. Next time I'll just fish from shore.
The last morning I wanted to make Cyndi a gourmet breakfast, pancakes and bacon, with orange juice and hot coffee. I mixed the batter using milk instead of water, added our remaining two eggs, not called for in the recipe, and threw in plenty of blueberries. The bacon was cooking and the first 3 pancakes were on the griddle.. Cyndi emerged from the tent to find me standing proudly at the cook stove, a perfect campfire burning, table set for breakfast, hot coffee ready and the smell of bacon in the air. Then it happened. Small hard green spiked pine cones began falling like bombs from 60 feet above out of the three log pole pines surrounding our dinning area. Cyndi yelled look out and ran back toward the tent. I was afraid to look up for fear of being hit in the face. I said "don't worry it's unlikely that we'll be hit" as I attempted to calculate the actual odds of being beaned by one of the projectiles. But it was as if the little tree squirrel had had plenty of practice. A moment later I was hit with a painful grazing strike to my back just missing my head. I yelled "ow" moved toward the pancakes to turn them as a direct hit landed in the center of the griddle sending batter flying everywhere and onto my sweat shirt. I retreated to the tent where Cyndi had taken shelter. In a couple minutes the bombardment ceased and I finished the breakfast. The pancakes were great!
Highly recommended, remember C14!!
We returned home in at 10:30 pm pulled into the driveway stopped the engine and got out. We both stood there for a moment and realized that this was the most quit moment we had experienced in 4 days, dead silent and perfect cool moist ocean air. It was good to be back home in the paradise Rio Del Mar again.
