This report was just submitted by Andrew and Art Gomez – Thanks Guys!!!
“There are numerous places to fish for trout in California, even in SoCal you have more than enough places to find quality fish, but there is no place that can offer you the beauty, picturesque landscapes, and beautiful trout the Eastern Sierras can. I have been coming up to Bishop CA with my dad to fish in the F.A.T.I.T (Finest annual trout tournament) for 15 years now. The tournament is a 2 day event with fishing on Friday and Saturday, and the awards ceremony on Saturday night. About 7 years ago we decided to start coming up the Wednesday before the event, to take in as much of the wonderful country and fishing as we can. 
We got into Bishop at around noon and figured we would try to get in a little fishing before the day was done. We decided to take the hike to fish Pleasant Vally Reservoir, where earlier last month a Bishop local caught a 19# Brown Trout!. We fished it for about 2 hours for only a few small rainbows, but still a nice day none the less. On Thursday we got up early and went to Convict Lake. Convict I known for being a windy lake, and sure enough by 10am the wind was coming down the mountain and making it almost impossible to make a decent cast, but while we were there, we did manage about 3 nice bows and lost a nice one to boot (Only fishing with 2# line will do that to you).
Our fish at convict were being caught on inflated night crawlers rigged with a 1/8oz sliding sinker with a carolina keeper to a 2 foot leader. Convict has always been good to us and of course the view was amazing.
After getting blown off Convict we decided to go to Lake Mary up near Mammoth Lakes. We had never fished this lake before, but we had heard nothing but good things about it. After talking with the local tackle shop owner we came to find out that they just stocked the lake the previous day! Well that was about the best news we heard all day, so we got to soaking bait. Threw out green powerbait and an inflated worm and….Bam! Less the 2 min in the water and a double hook up. Both decent sized fish, about a pound or so, but when your fighting them on light line its a blast. We stayed at that lake the rest of the day and easily got our limits. All were on powerbait, they didnt seem to prefer any one color, and nightcrawlers.
Friday came and we fished lake Crowley! I don’t even know where to begin…weather was amazing and so was the fishing. No bait and wait on this lake, and not during tournament day. We were after big fish! Trolling is the key to catching big fish on this lake, and that’s exactly what we did. Our setups for lake trolling were a Seeker inshore series rod BCSW 705 8-15# with a Diawa Firewolf 17H and a Quarrow Tiderunner TRB 701H 15-30# with a Shimano TR 100-G both of these are rigged with leadcore line. The fish were in about 27-32ft of water, so we fished about 4 to 5 colors deep. The lures of choice today were Tasmanian devils and needle fish. We trolled mainly off points and drop offs, we got our biggest fish of the day coming over Sandy Point heading towards Greenbanks. With day one of the tournament in the bank we only managed to weigh one fish which was 2.12# (fish need to be over 2 1/2# to even qualify for placement). Once again I highly recommend coming up to the Sierras. I always look forward to this trip and will continue to make this a tradition with me and my dad for as long as I can. “