The Appeal of the Upper Owens River

There once was a time when fly fishing wasn’t very cool or popular. And then they made a movie about the power of rivers and casting for trout starring one of Hollywood’s all-time biggest heartthrobs and everything changed.

“Fly fishing wasn’t that popular and it wasn’t the norm,” said longtime Eastside fishing guide and the owner of Mammoth Fly Fishing Adventures Harry Blackburn. “Once ‘A River Runs Through It’ came out and Brad Pitt made fishing look cool, things changed. Even girls wanted to see that movie.”

The film, based on the even better book by Norman Maclean, hit theaters in 1992 and really began the fly fishing movement in America. Maclean’s story captured the beauty and the challenge of fishing with a fly rod, and the way time spent on a river can help people connect and heal.

After the movie swept across the country like a massive mayfly hatch lighting up a mountain stream, what had once been a small brotherhood of fly fishers in places like Mammoth Lakes became an army of anglers in search of trout.

“Before that movie came out we were the minority,” Harry said of his fellow fly casters. “It’s not like it is now where you see a fly rod on every other car.”

Harry grew up in San Diego County, fishing bass ponds like Lake Poway. He first visited the Sierra Nevada in 1969 and began taking trans-Sierra hikes from Mammoth Lakes to Yosemite when he was just 12.

Once he moved up and started calling the mountains home, Harry quickly got into the sport his father had a passion for, fly fishing. Harry soon fell in with the small group of like-minded local anglers known as the “Mammoth Fly Rodders.”

There were very few guides then, so Harry adapted his skills as a ski instructor and coach—something he’s been doing for over 30 years now at Mammoth Mountain—and became a fly fishing guide during the warm weather months.

Harry’s guiding and fishing career would lead him from Bridgeport to Bishop, from the Bahamas to the Yucatan, to chasing steelhead on the legendary waters of the Pacific Northwest. But for his money, it’s awfully tough to top the Eastern Sierra.

“I don’t think people realize the diversity of fishing we have here,” he said. “There are streams, creeks, rivers and all kinds of different lakes. It’s crazy how much fishing we have around here.”

While Harry acknowledges that Hot Creek is the most well-known fly fishery around and that Crowley Lake is the “super star” of the region, he also said that the East Walker has huge appeal and notoriety for being a smaller version of the classic Western river.

But the fishery he has perhaps the strongest passion for is the river that runs through the Long Valley Caldera, the Upper Owens.

“I love the Upper Owens. It’s a pretty classic piece of water,” said Harry, who spent years guiding on the famed private waters of the Arcularius Ranch.

Harry explained that there are a handful of reasons that make the “Upper O” so unique and special.

To begin with, the history of the river is pretty fascinating, particularly so once the city of Los Angeles started fighting for its water. At one point a tunnel was built through Bald Mountain to bring water from Grant Lake south towards the great city. It dumped out by Arcularius Ranch and for years, its large flows made the Upper Owens much larger and deeper than it had naturally been. Eventually, the flows were decreased but the river channel had been forever changed.

The only untouched stretches now can be found above the old Alpers Ranch to the headwaters. Coupled along with some other private property, the two main ranches protect about 10 miles of the river from the general public. This oasis from large volumes of anglers actually helps the trout populations.

“It definitely allows the fish to find places where they won’t be disturbed, especially during the spawn,” Harry said.

The Upper Owens is also a popular spot for some of the larger trout in Crowley Lake to come up for spawning, including what Harry calls “Sierra Nevada steelhead.” A strain of large Kamloops rainbow trout planted many years ago makes an annual migration up the river and the fish are something to behold—especially if you’re going to be releasing the hogs after you catch them so they can keep the cycle going.

Ultimately, what makes the Upper Owens so special is its ease of year-round access and the stunning views it affords.

“It’s almost too easy. It’s a small stream that is easy to wade or walk along and cast, and the size of the fish you can catch are impressive,” Harry said. “The Upper Owens is stunning in the fall when the colors are fading, in the spring when everything turns green and during thunderstorms in the summer. It’s eye candy and fishing as good as it gets. People are just in awe.”

Awe, amazement, and appreciation are the feelings most people lucky enough to fish the Upper Owens can relate to. It’s a pretty easy river to fall in love with, and thanks to its ease of access and abundance of trout, it has certainly helped countless folks like me fall in love with fly fishing.

As Harry said about the angling at the Upper Owens, “Trout don’t live in ugly places.”

“A river, though, has so many things to say that it is hard to know what it says to each of us.”-Norman Maclean