California's Eastern Sierra trout opener is normally a fish-after-fish weekend. The 2026 edition was not, and it took a counter-intuitive change of jig weight and a near-dead retrieve before SeaSpanker could pull anything consistent from Lee Vining Creek and the lakes around June Lake Loop.
"I'm using a 16th ounce mini jig as you saw. Getting some very few bites, very few followers, and we're not seeing a lot of activity from the fish," he said in a mid-trip break to camera. "It is tough compared to years past. Usually opening morning it's on like it's fish after fish at least for a good long while. But on this trip it is very, very slow."
The first bite of the trip came on a Lee Vining Creek covert near Aspen Campground, where SeaSpanker was throwing a 1/80-ounce ball head from Trout Bit Tackle paired with a Golden State Fishing inchworm in black galaxy. The current there was barely moving, the water gin clear, the fish — almost certainly holdovers — were spooky.
"I wanted something that can give me a really, really slow presentation and something that looked as natural as possible," he said. "So I figured a real dark worm that uh looks like it's almost floating or I could move very, very slowly in the water. Basically what I'm doing is casting out as far as I can and with that 1/80th you can't get a super long cast. I'm just reeling and bouncing the rod tip, but extremely slow because that thing is so light." Several fish came on a true pause — "a couple of them I got where I might have said I was dead-sticking it."
When the local fish wised up, he climbed back to the truck, walked to a fresh stretch and stepped up to a 1/32-ounce mini jig in desert locust to buy himself casting distance and a slightly faster sink without giving up the slow swim. The first rainbow of the opener slid into the net there. "First bow of the opener. There we go. Nice little fish. Go."
The real lesson came at Grant Lake. SeaSpanker says he and his fishing partners — Josh and "SD" — had been seeing fish on the sounder but couldn't draw a strike. Instead of staying with the standard 1/16-ounce mini jig the Sierras usually demand, he tried something he picked up years ago for Sierra holdovers: a 1/32-ounce ball head and a small minnow, fished as deep as he could get it.
"Where I was, I was in about 15 ft of water, and I just decided to try it because nothing was happening and I felt there were fish in the area," he said. "What I was doing is I was able to use my anchor wizard on my kayak and anchor. So my wind was at my back and I'd get a good cast with that 32nd and that minnow. And I'd let it sink all the way to the bottom. And then I just do three light pops up and reel in the slack. Three light pops up, reel in the slack. And just continue that process."
That presentation broke the slump. A brown trout came on the dead-stick fall, and rainbows followed when he kept the bait barely off the bottom. "A brown trout on a 32nd head. So I'm just letting it sink to the bottom. Just pop, pop and reeling in the slack. And they're picking it up."
Why was the trout opener so slow? SeaSpanker is openly puzzled. He went to several lakes, including Crowley — "SD did real well, he was on his boat. But I was on my kayak in another part of the lake. I hooked up one and it broke me off, decent fish, and that was it" — and the sounders weren't lit up the way they normally are pre-opener. "We were starting to think like we were wondering if they even stocked pre-opener," he said. "A lot of those fish were holdovers. They didn't look like they were freshly stocked. They looked like they'd all been in the water for a very long time."
His takeaway, and the line he leaves anglers heading to Mammoth, Bishop and Lundy Lake Marina with this season, is the one that always travels well: "Don't stick to one style of fishing. Change it up. Change your baits, change your presentations. Because the fishing was tough and you had to if you wanted to get bit."