Grant Lake

Grant Lake is the reservoir at the north end of the June Lake Loop, and it is a different animal from the three natural lakes south of it. LADWP built an 87-foot earth dam across Rush Creek in 1940 and turned a lake of about 150 acres into roughly 1,100 acres and 47,525 acre-feet, close to four miles long at 7,130 feet. CDFW planted rainbows five times between the April opener and mid-July in 2026, and the June Lake Loop Trophy Trout Program adds bigger fish. The reason a fly angler comes here, though, is the browns. They spawn in Rush Creek above the lake, grow fat on planted rainbows and Sacramento perch, and get very large: a 20 lb brown came out of Grant in 1991, and fish over 10 lb are still possible.

Treat it as a reservoir, not a pond. Los Angeles moves this water around, and storage has swung from about a quarter full (11,800 acre-feet in April 2022) to brim full in 2024 and again in spring 2026. In dry years the shoreline backs a long way off the ramp and the weed lines you found last season may be dry ground, so check the level before you drive up. The fishing is mostly streamers. Swim a sculpin, a leech or a Woolly Bugger on an intermediate or full sinking line along the steep drop-offs. The best brown windows are early May, right after the opener, and from September to the close, when the browns push toward the Rush Creek inlet to spawn. On summer mornings an indicator chironomid or a callibaetis nymph on the flats at the south end will keep the rainbows busy. In August the fish go deep, so fish the first hours down the channel through the middle.

Grant is the one loop lake where water skiing and personal watercraft are allowed, after 10 a.m., and the afternoon wind and summer thunderstorms come up fast on this open water. Fish the morning and get small boats off early. Grant Lake Marina at the narrows on the west shore has the ramp, rental boats and float tubes, and camping from the opener to mid-October. After it closes, a float tube or your own boat is the only way out, and late fall is when the browns feed shallow enough for a tube. Sierra Drifters guides the lake by float tube, drift boat and powerboat if you want someone who knows where the fish sit at the current level.