Eastern Sierra Fly Fishing Report: Week of September 25, 2026

A dry cold front pushed across the region this week. It brought no rain with it, just cooler air and a good shove of wind over the crest, and it moved the season along another notch. The headline for us is on the Lower Owens, where the summer release is finally winding down: the river came off 517 CFS on Tuesday and was reading 463 CFS this morning. That is the number to keep an eye on, because the day it drops into wadeable water the best fishing of the year opens up on a river almost nobody has touched since spring. Crowley is still the sure thing, the Upper Owens is sitting in the waiting window before the big fish push up out of the lake, and Hot Creek is a morning trico game at 5 CFS. Here is how we see it. Every fly below is one we tie ourselves, so tap any name to grab it.

Crowley Lake

Crowley is our pick again and it is the most dependable water on this list right now. Surface temperatures have dropped into the middle 60s and that has turned on midge hatches that run all day, which makes the choice easy: fish midges and keep fishing midges. McGee Bay and the whole north arm from Layton Springs through Green Banks and the channel are where the fish are holding, in anywhere from 8 to 15 feet. The catch is that the bite this season is very spot specific. One zone will be stacked and the flat two hundred yards away will be empty, so good electronics earn their money here and locating fish matters more than the pattern you settle on. Rainbows and browns are showing up in numbers alongside the cutthroat now, so a full Crowley slam is on the table. Sizes 16 to 20 cover it, and remember the no bait season regulations have been in place since August, two fish at a minimum of 18 inches.

Try: Black Buzzer, The Black Chironomid Pupa, Chironomid Nymph Red, Epoxy Buzzer Red Pearl.

Hot Creek

Hot Creek is down to 5 CFS, which is about as thin as this water ever runs, and it is a morning fishery start to finish right now. Trico duns come off first and the trout eat them hard, so start on a size 22 female trico parachute and be ready to switch to a size 22 spinner as soon as the fall begins, because they turn over to the dead spinners quickly and will refuse a dun once they do. When the tricos taper off, look for bigger mayflies and go to a size 20 blue winged olive or a size 20 parachute Adams. There are still grasshoppers in the grass, so an afternoon breeze is a good excuse to throw a size 12 hopper at the banks. The weed beds are at full growth through the canyon and will not die back enough for real nymphing for about another month, so keep it on top or hang a very short dropper. The interpretive site has been taking a lot of pressure. Evenings are quieter.

Try: Sparkle Dun Male Trico, Trico Male Poly Spinner, CDC BWO Dry, Adams Parachute, Elk Hair Hopper.

Upper Owens River

The Upper Owens is holding steady at 58 CFS, running skinny and clear, and it sits right in the waiting window. Overnight lows are dropping into the 30s and 40s, which is exactly the trigger the migratory browns and rainbows need, and a few early fish have already nosed up past the monument. The main run is still to come. Until it arrives, fish every deep hole, deep run and undercut bank as though a big one is in it, because a handful are. Small dense beadheads in sizes 16 to 18 on 5X get down fast in narrow holding water without spooking anything, and covering water down and across with a size 6 to 10 streamer at dawn and dusk is how we would look for the biggest fish in the river. There is a morning hatch of size 18 blue winged olives and tricos that the juveniles are all over, and a few late terrestrials will still move a wild fish. Cattle are inside the fence and the spawning gravel deserves your respect, so wade light and stay out of the shallows.

Try: BH Pheasant Tail Angel Hair, Copper John Black, BH Krystal Bugger Black, Wooly Bugger Brown, Foam Ant Black.

Lower Owens River, Wild Trout Section near Bishop

This is the one to watch. The river was sitting at 517 CFS on Tuesday night, 458 CFS on Wednesday night and 463 CFS this morning, so the summer release out of Pleasant Valley is on its way down. At this level wading is still out and the willows and tules make bank casting a chore, so for now we would fish an hour before sunrise and an hour after sunset with a size 6 or 10 streamer thrown downstream and stripped back against the current, and save size 18 caddis, parachute Adams and blue winged olive parachutes for the evening. Be patient with it. All that cold high volume water kept temperatures and oxygen in good shape through the worst of the heat, and it meant almost nobody fished this river all summer. These trout have not been hooked since spring. The week those flows drop into wadeable range is going to be the best week of the year down here. One access note: a section of Pleasant Valley Dam Road is closed through October to vehicles, foot traffic and fishing, though access from the upper end of the reservoir at Control Gorge stays open. The Owens River Gorge reopens today after its flushing flows.

Try: Muddler Minnow Classic, BH Zonker White Bright, Elk Hair Caddis Brown, Adams Parachute, CDC BWO Dry.

East Walker River

The East Walker is running around 218 CFS with clarity that has come back to good, and water temperatures have finally eased enough that you can fish the whole day instead of just the ends of it. That is the best news this river has had all season. Where you go matters more than usual. Almost nothing worth repeating has come back to us out of the Mile, but the water below the Highway 182 bridge has been fishing well, which tells us the fish have not moved back up yet. Down there a dry dropper or straight nymphing has been doing most of the work, with streamers producing early in the day. At these flows the trout are spread out rather than stacked, so cover water and treat every seam as though it holds one. Hoot owl advisories are done for the year across the region, but a thermometer still belongs in your pack this time of year.

Try: Czech Nymph Natural, Copper John Black, Elk Hair Hopper, BL Bright Red Weighted Squirmy Wormy, Egg Sucking Leech Olive.

Bridgeport Reservoir and Twin Lakes

Word out of Bridgeport is that the reservoir fish have started moving out of the channels and spreading through the main body of the lake, and the channel bite that carried the last few weeks has slowed right down. The boats covering open water are the ones doing well now. For a fly angler that means a sinking line and a slow retrieve over the flats rather than parking on the inlets, and Rainbow Point is the shore water we would try first, because shore fishing should come on over the next couple of weeks as the lake keeps cooling. The Twins have toughened up a little but there are still decent numbers of fish coming out, mostly early and late. Nothing solid has come back to us from fly anglers on the Twins this week, so we are going on what always works there: a sinking line with a leech, a bugger or a soft hackle, fished slow and deep. If you are towing a boat, the inspection station at the Bridgeport ballfields runs Thursday through Monday, 7:30am to 3:30pm, expected to stay open through October, and it cannot handle ballast tank boats.

Try: Leech Black with Pink Egg, BH Krystal Bugger Peacock, Brown Hackle Peacock, BH Zonker White Bright, BL Blob FAB Sunburst Fire Tail.

Weather Outlook

An early autumn dry cold front has already pushed through the region and no rain is expected with it, because the moisture is staying well north in Oregon and Washington. What it does leave behind is cooling through the weekend and gusty wind over the crest and down in the valleys, so plan your banks so the wind is at your back and do not count on delicate long casts. Bishop sits around 87 over 47 today and holds near 87 on both Saturday and Sunday. Mammoth Lakes runs 64 over 44, which means cold mornings up high and a comfortable afternoon. We did not find a separate point forecast for Crowley itself, so expect Long Valley to fall somewhere between those two sets of numbers. A cooling trend is likely to build through next week, and those cold clear nights are what pull the heat out of a river, so conditions should keep improving.

Every 395 Fly Co fly comes with a tutorial for the water it is tied for, so you get the pattern and the way we would fish it. Questions about any of this, or about what to put in your box before a trip, come straight to us at 395flyco@gmail.com.