Re: Does Polly Dome Lake Have Fish?

My google searching on this topic has been inconclusive. I spent a night at Polly Dome Lake in June, and attempted to do some fishing while I was there. While mosquitos were numerous, the fish were not. In fact, I saw no evidence of fish whatsoever - no trout rising at sunset or anything like that. Has anyone ever caught a fish in this lake? Or was I trying to fish in a lake with no fish?

At least it was pretty...




Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/04/2015 08:48AM by froglegs.

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froglegs
My google searching on this topic has been inconclusive. I spent a night at Polly Dome Lake in June, and attempted to do some fishing while I was there. While mosquitos were numerous, the fish were not. In fact, I saw no evidence of fish whatsoever - no trout rising at sunset or anything like that. Has anyone ever caught a fish in this lake? Or was I trying to fish in a lake with no fish?

At least it was pretty...

From July 2011: http://yosemitenews.info/forum/read.php?3,41027,41071#msg-41071

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chick-on

May Lake has fish. Polly Dome Lakes (at least the big one) have fish. You can avoid Murphy by xcountry up to Polly Dome Lake.
I have only been there once but I'm pretty certain that you can walk around it and completely avoid Murphy. That is what I would be prepared to do.
(I'm fairly certain the trail used to go that way anyway)

The first time I visited the largest Poly Dome Lake sometime in the 70s, it had a superb rainbow trout fishery with many fish that were into acrobatic leaps going after bug life. The next trip a few years hence was one of the strangest backcountry scenes I've ever witnessed. I saw no fish at all and there was a reason. The shallow lake has many small granite boulder islands across its waters. Atop every rock island was one to several seagulls and many others floating about its waters. Dozens of white California gulls. Over the years I've seen lots of seagulls on Sierra Crest region lakes and they all of course come from Mono Lake. But usually ones just sees at most a few gulls at a time. And usually they fly along shores looking for dead floaters. Obviously they must get sick of eating brine flies and shrimp and dream about eating real fish. Well I visited a third time yet a few years later thinking maybe all the trout had been scared down to the bottom. Nope, nada none zip. Suspected rainbows died out because there is no spawning stream and planting of fry in all Yosemite park lakes was discontined. Note instead of taking the Murphy Trail, I always visited the lake via the direct route from the SR120 Virgin Dome area to Whiz Domes that passes through a dense shadowy forest of tall red firs so is a favorite home of bears.

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http://www.davidsenesac.com



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/04/2015 08:54PM by DavidSenesac.

Interesting to hear about your experience. I guess I won't try to fish there again! But I might have to go back and explore the smaller lakes - not with my fishing pole, though.