The Mammoth Double Day

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Traditional outdoor adventures often force you to choose - fish OR snowboard, mountain OR water. What if you could do both? This is the question that inspired the double day.

The boys from the shop headed up to mammoth mountain with a goal of snowboarding in the morning and catching trout in the afternoon. It worked out better than we expected and we ended up catching around 30 trout each in the afternoon session alone! Here’s our tips on how to do this adventure yourself! We think you’ll have a blast, and the spring season is the perfect time to give it a go. 

Early Morning Laps

The early morning wakeup is critical to the success of the double day. Not only does it allow you to extend the amount of time you have in the day, but it gives you the most optimal snow conditions. Start by arriving at the mountain early and riding till the snow softens up around noon. As the weather heats up in the spring, the snow quality gets progressively worse as the day warms up. You can expect to get around 10 runs in if the lines are short before the snow gets slushed out at around 12. That’s your cue to load up, grab some lunch, and head to the lake. 

Afternoon Bites

We already had the inflatable Hobie i Trek 9 and 11’s packed up in the car so we grabbed a quick lunch and had a pretty quick turn around. Using the turnaround time efficiently is super important to getting a full fishing session in the second half of the double day. The Hobie i Treks pack down small enough to fit in most mid size cars along with all of your snowboarding gear so you don’t have to make a stop on the way to the lake. We chose to drive to Convict due to its easy access, beautiful surroundings, and close proximity to the mountain. Once you get to the lake, rig up your kayak and fishing gear and start looking for fish. Since we use Hobie’s inflatables for these trips, we spend around 15 minutes blowing up all three kayaks and getting them rigged when we arrive. We were using a mix of fly fishing as well as conventional fishing and both techniques were effective on our trip. When searching for fish with any technique, the Hobie Mirage Drive is critical for keeping your mind on fishing and your surroundings. The pedal drive system is very efficient and allows you to make small movements that keep you in the zone. Additionally, the Mirage Drive 180 allows for instantaneous reverse propulsion at the pull of a tab. Using the efficiency of the Mirage Drive takes your fishing to the next level. If you don’t know where to look for fish, start at a river inflow. Trout love moving water so if the lake you are fishing has a creek flowing into the lake, that is often a place where a large mass of fish congregate. 

Once you're all done catching and are ready to come back to the ramp, just start pedaling! Most of these lakes get pretty windy in the afternoon so be aware of the conditions around you. One day we ended up kicking back in around 20 mph of wind, but the Mirage Drive made short work of the distance we had to cover!

If you're interested in adding adventures like this to your life we’d love to help you out here at Fast Lane kayaks! We feel the pain of using water toys that are complicated and hard to use. That’s why we love the fast and easy fun that Hobie kayaks offer. 

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