Getting There

We drove through Yosemite via Highway 120 to the east side - went out of the park at Tioga Pass and went down to Ellery Lake Campground. It is not inside the park boundary so technically you are not in Yosemite National Park. The Ellery Lake Campground is the only campground at the lake and is not large so expect capacity in peak months. In late September we were among one other group there.

The Hike

If you stay at the Ellery Lake Campground you can find your way down to the water easily by walking through the campground and down to the inlet at the northwest side of the Lake. From there you can traverse the shoreline to the left - northward. This area is very shallow with a channel winding through it. It didn't look promising to begin with so we drove over to the east side where the deeper water was. The bank is easily traversable over there.

The Fishing

We started fishing the lake by the Lee Vining Creek inlet on the west side. We chucked lures into the channel but didn't get any action. I didn't see any jumps, rises or any signs of life out in the lake. It should be stated that Lee Vining Creek holds wild Rainbow, hatchery Rainbow, wild Brown and I would assume Brook Trout from the fisheries (Spuller, Fantail, Shell Lakes) upstream that feed into it. Interesting history of the aforementioned watershed can be found here - Sierra News Online. Aside from the wild populations in Lee Vining Creek, the lake receives regular plants of catchable hatchery Rainbows from DFW in the summer months.

The grass always looking greener on the other side, we packed up our gear and drove over to the east side of the lake. The shore was steeper, promising a better depth than the shallow area by the inlet. When bait fishing with the kids I'm always looking for water that's between 15 and 30 feet deep. I float my bait about 14 inches off the bottom with a sliding sinker.

We cast out a couple poles with inflated crawlers and waited, soaking in the high elevation sunlight and scenery. We moved around a couple times but never received any attention from the fish. If I didn't have the kids I would've traversed northward along the shore, casting lures, until I found a honey hole. If someone knows how to fish this lake - reach out to me.