Greetings from the high country!

We went up the Bishop Creek Canyon today to check things out and shovel a little snow at our resort. There is still about 2ft of snow at Parchers Resort on the South Fork of Bishop Creek (9,260ft elevation) but with the weather today (t-shirt weather) and a very warm forecast for the next several days, I doubt it will stay that way for long. There is just patchy snow along the creek below 9000ft which should mean excellent access for creek anglers on the opener.

South Lake is still frozen solid with no visible open areas. There is currently about 4ft of snow on the ground up at the lake. The upper parking area is already clear so folks planning to fish boiler cove or hike out to the inlet opening day are in luck. Just for good measure, we hauled up our power auger and drilled holes at three different points on the lake so we could measure ice thickness. All three measurements showed the ice to be between 24" and 26" thick which means the possibility of ice fishing on the opener is there. That is plenty of ice to bear heavy loads but with the upcoming heat wave, it's hard to say if that good ice will last for another week. It's in Mother Nature's hands now?Ķ..anyone even considering ice fishing should use the utmost caution. Dark ice is bad ice ??? don't even go near it!

Attached are images of the South Fork of Bishop Creek at 9,300ft, a picture of my brother Lane Smith drilling a hole in the ice at South Lake and a nice picture of Weir Pond. Enjoy!