Kings River

[BillB]

I got this bow today in the Kings River Restoration area.
Some may have seen some of Jay's videos of the area. I have not fished this area in many years and it looks better than ever. Kudos to the Restoration group, this was truly beautiful water.

[caniretireyet?]

Congratulations, Bill!

That is truly one of the most beautiful fish I've seen.

Steve

[Jay Murakoshi]

Bill

Fantastic fish!!! I know the flows have dropped and more people are starting to fish the river. I'm going tomorrow and do some more filming, hopefully to capture some fish under water with the new GoPro housing.
One of these days I'll break out the fly rod and try my hand at trout fishing. I'm only 25 minutes from the area you fished

Jay

[caniretireyet?]

Come on, Jay, give in and fish the dang river. I'll volunteer to film you hook setting those trout into next county. We can all laugh and shake our heads about the "salt guy." This will make all us trout guys feel only slightly better about all the grief we get as salt water newbies!

Cheers,
Steve

[junebug]

Very nice catch Bill. The restoration project has helped this river. With better enforcement of regs that could be a great stream. A couple hundred cfs more in flow would do wonders too. At this flow the fish seem to be more isolated and get a lot more pressure (and more poaching). I would love to see this stream stay at 300 in the winter. Hasn't happened the last few years. Hope to see ya out there this winter Jay. It's fun to go out slummin it once in a while!

Dave

[thepeacockspecial]

the river is quite amazing; however, i was there 2 days during the holiday. the first day i had awesome hookups as well as awesome fish. the second day, nothing at all. no surface action or anything whatsoever. Just LOTS of dead fish. i'm thinking some douche bleached the river?

[thepeacockspecial]

heres one of the bows i got that day. go small small on the flies if you do go, and pick up after yourself. if you see any weird or suspicious activity, report it asap.

http://img143.imageshack.us/img143/134/beast0.th.jpg (http://img143.imageshack.us/i/beast0.jpg/)

Uploaded with ImageShack.us (http://imageshack.us)

[Sammy]

i fished this river for the first time early last summer. There are some nice runs. Due to what I believe was on overnight increase in flows, the fishing was awful. Not a bite. (or maybe it was me)

I will say, that the area seemed to be in a sad state. More garbage than I could pick up and keep in my pockets. graffiti on trees. etc... Kind of got that gang vibe. Probably wouldn't have noticed it much if the fishing was better. :)

I'll be back though...

[BillB]

Typically the flows in late spring and early summer make the river nearly impossible to fish. Notice I said nearly impossible. It is big and fast, but there are places where a guy can get into some fairly large specimens.

Hopefully most of the garbage will stay on the lake side. The lake is host to a wide variety of questionable characters who also tend to drown themselves in large numbers and at high frequencies (maybe not enough though)! Unfortunately there are those who don't think God did very good job of designing trees and feel the need to beautify down to their standards. Any way, enough ranting. I did see a game warden entering Winton Park which is encouraging.

[briansII]

There can be a LOT of trash up and down the river. During high flows, a lot of that garbage is swept downstream, but most all of it still remains in the streambed, up on the banks, bushes and trees. There are miles of tangled mono, littering the upper sections close to the dam, and other popular areas. I would respectfully disagree with BillB. Most of the riff raff hangs out on the river. You only see a fraction of trash littering the banks up at the lake. There are times when it's not safe to be around the the "rowdys" that hangout at the river.

IMHO, there's some good work being done. I'm not so sure about the most obvious "restoration", the boulder placements, but the egg boxes seem to be paying off. The special fund for increased DFG presence is a great thing.

briansII

[thepeacockspecial]

in addition tothe other comments made about the high flows, avoid wading when the flows are over 1000. in fact, i dont fish the river if it is above 850. the rocks are SUPER slippery, and if you slip, you are pretty much gone unless youa re lucky enoguh to slip in an area with boulders to stop you from drifting down stream. even with studs, i slipped. I got desperate last year when the flows were above 800 and decided to wade across waist deep.. i was lucky.

[Sammy]

yeah I pushed the wading limits when i was there. Didn't fall in, but got a little nervous at times w/out my wading belt on. My brother, on the other hand, fell up to his neck. (which was hilarious)

I hear the upper kings is a beautiful place.

[BillB]

Actually BriansII I was referring to the Avacado Lake area and not Pine Flat. Sorry for the confusion. Back in the day we waded the river without waders because of the dangerous wading. My joints are a testimony to that tom-foolery! One of our favorite places was near Alta Weir where we had to ford a ribbon to get to the main river. My buddy was an all American tail back but very short (5'7" or so), and I came in at 6'2". That Mutt and Jeff combination made for some interesting episodes where I often saw Jim neck deep in the river! Oh, he has arthritis too!

[briansII]

Actually BriansII I was referring to the Avacado Lake area and not Pine Flat. Sorry for the confusion. Back in the day we waded the river without waders because of the dangerous wading. My joints are a testimony to that tom-foolery! One of our favorite places was near Alta Weir where we had to ford a ribbon to get to the main river. My buddy was an all American tail back but very short (5'7" or so), and I came in at 6'2". That Mutt and Jeff combination made for some interesting episodes where I often saw Jim neck deep in the river! Oh, he has arthritis too!

Hi Bill,

Yes Avocado can be a messy, but it's relatively clean these days. There's a regular cleanup crew that works the lake. On the other hand, the river has year around trash.

I hear you on the aching joints. The Kings is about an 8 Advil river. I take 4 midday, and another 4 when I get home. If I don't, I'm so stoved up, I can barely make it into the house. That cobble is bad news for my ankles.

briansII