Sierras Fly Fishing Report

6wt · 2025-09-30T11:01:40-0400

Here is your semi annual bump for the fly fishing section.

Flew to California and rented a camper van to explore the sierras with the family for just shy of a week. Due to it being a family trip I didnt get to fish as much as I would have liked but saw some pretty country and knocked off 2 new species.

First stop was a campground located 10k feet up. Got camp setup and couldnt resist a short hike down to thr creek. Little water(could jump across it in most places) and little fish but there were plenty of them and they were pretty.

Next day i woke up early and burned a hall pass to hike over one of the nearby mountains and into a different valley. Ass kicker of a hike and only more small goldens to show for it but it was really my only option for a day trip.

Up up up and a view from the top. Yes the creek was down there somewhere.

Relocated to the Kern river valley. The area was gorgeous and i wasnt complaining about the lower elevation. Out goes hall pass #2 for 3 hours on the kern. I fished hard with only one kern river rainbow to show for it. Supposedly these rainbows are native to the area and are different from your standard rainbow but looked pretty similar to me.

Was able to get him on a streamer which is my preferred way to fish bigger water.

Final fishing stop was the famous kings canyon. Gorgeous but the fishing was nothing crazy. Family hike with 10 small rainbows and 1 decent one on a dry dropper.

Flies used were my standard foam caddis and a pheasant tail dropper. Found a cool mix between a game changer and a wooly bugger at the local fly shop that i used when streamer fishing.

specktackler57 · 2025-09-30T11:05:25-0400

Great report.

lastcast · 2025-09-30T11:15:58-0400

Looks awesome! Nice pics!

K-Bill · 2025-09-30T13:50:17-0400

Really cool report!

sws763 · 2025-09-30T16:43:44-0400

Awesome report! Thanks for sharing.
I used to fly fish the Sierra Nevada area, mainly fished the Owens river and Mammoth area a couple of times a year.

PG Greg · 2025-10-02T22:45:47-0400

Any recommendations on the RV rental place.

6wt · 2025-10-03T08:11:34-0400

We used Outdoorsy, like an airbnb for campers. We ended up with a modified sprinter van that came stocked with a ton of camping/cooking supplies and had no complaints.

WadeK · 2025-10-03T09:53:03-0400

I miss my old stomping grounds! The Goldens you are holding are actually pretty respectably sized for stream caught fish.
On the Kern, were you upstream of Johnsondale bridge? Less than a mile below it there is a waterfall, of sorts, that more or less cuts off upstream migration. Above there is where the Kern River Rainbows are mostly found with the purity increasing as you go upstream from there. Below there they have stocked lots of other kinds of Rainbows like Coastal, McClouds and Eagle Lake strains. Even though the one you are holding has white fin tips, I think he isn't purebred KRR. It looks like a Coastal Rainbow made it into his lineage somewhere along the line.
The Kings is a hard river to fish and I'd say you did well for being inside the park and not hiking miles away from any roads. I know I have seen that boulder and think it was near Grizzly Falls, maybe downstream a little. Did you take the Boyden Cave tour?
Were you working on the California Heritage Trout Challenge?

6wt · 2025-10-03T11:03:49-0400

WadeK said:
I miss my old stomping grounds! The Goldens you are holding are actually pretty respectably sized for stream caught fish.
On the Kern, were you upstream of Johnsondale bridge? Less than a mile below it there is a waterfall, of sorts, that more or less cuts off upstream migration. Above there is where the Kern River Rainbows are mostly found with the purity increasing as you go upstream from there. Below there they have stocked lots of other kinds of Rainbows like Coastal, McClouds and Eagle Lake strains. Even though the one you are holding has white fin tips, I think he isn't purebred KRR. It looks like a Coastal Rainbow made it into his lineage somewhere along the line.
The Kings is a hard river to fish and I'd say you did well for being inside the park and not hiking miles away from any roads. I know I have seen that boulder and think it was near Grizzly Falls, maybe downstream a little. Did you take the Boyden Cave tour?
Were you working on the California Heritage Trout Challenge?

Yep I enjoyed my time over there. May make it back over that way for a dedicated fishing trip at some point as id love to backpack in at forks of the kern or one of the golden trout areas.

Yep, the kern day I started at johnsondale and probably hiked 2ish miles upstream before i started fishing. Im no expert at fish id, just saw that the fins looked clean so it likely wasnt a fresh stocker and called it good enough.

The kings had some of the clearest water ive ever seen but didnt fish nearly as hard as I would have expected. Didnt do the cavern tour as we got into the canyon late and the kid was passed out when we drove by it on the way out.

I wasnt doing the challenge specifically but i keep a species list so i was trying to check the boxes while we were in the area. We drove past the turn off for little kern country but the timing didnt work out and didnt want to backtrack the next day.

Sugarfoot · 2025-10-03T10:32:39-0400

Beautiful! I wanna go! 😂

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