The Lower Owens River

Located in the Owens Valley, the Lower O. is about 4,000 feet lower in elevation than the Town of Mammoth Lakes.  As a result it is often 20-30 degrees warmer than the Mammoth area.  This makes it THE place to go fishing when it’s 30 degrees and snowing sideways in Mammoth during the winter months.

The Lower Owens is one of the best winter trout streams in the state of California.  The river is open to fishing all year long but is usually fishes best in the fall, winter and spring due water flow releases out of Pleasant Valley Reservoir. 

The Lower Owens is an extremely fertile tailwater fishery.  It has a consistent cold clean water source with the added bonus of rich calcium phosphate banks.  These ingredients are conducive to the good water chemistry that harbors rich and diverse aquatic entomology.  The hatches on this river are some of the most reliable and intense of any stream in the eastern Sierra and the fish love it, I think as much, as the anglers do.

We fish the Wild Trout Section in the upper reaches of this river with traditional walk & wade trips allowing anglers to be intimate in their fishing experience.  We do our drift boat trips on the lower sections of the river-around the town of Bishop-where access to the river is tough due to thick streamside vegetation.

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