First Post & Hwy 108?'s

[WadeK]

Hi all!,

I usually don't make it as far North as this neck of the woods living in Bako, so I haven't posted on this board. I usually post on the Fly Fishing Addicts board which deals more with SoCal. I practice C&R and haul out more trash than I pack in. I've been Fly fishing for 10+ years and have been an avid fisherman for 35+ years. I'm also a member and previous board member of the Kern River Fly Fishers Club which is a member of the Federation.

I'm planning a trip with my 13yo son, part of which takes us the length of Hwy 108 from West to East. I've got a spot I want to go at the East end, but I want a stop on the West side for cheap/free overnite tent/bp camping and some fishing in the evening and morning before getting back on the road. Any suggestions? Is the Clarks Fork worth looking at?

Tight Lines,
Wade

[Darian]

Sorry, I can't help with Hwy 108 area but welcome to the Board.... There are some guys that live down in the souther area that do post here. Maybe one of them has some info for you. enjoy your trip.... :D

[Sammy]

check out frasier flat campground. It sits on the south fork stanislaus. can get a little busy but good fishing, especially with dries. and beautiful of course.

have fun and welcome to the board. Here is a the icon of the guy playing the violin. :-({|=

[Bill Kiene semi-retired]

Call, email or stop by for accurate information on fisheries east of Modesto from my friend Bob Nakagawa @ the Sierra Angler Fly Shop.

http://www.sierraanglers.com/

PS: If you ever go up or down on Hwy 99 through Modesto, CA I would highly recommend you stop by the Sierra Angler Fly Shop and chat with my old buddy Bob who is a very knowledgable veteran in this sport.

[WadeK]

Thanks Guys! I'll check out the Shop and that CG. Any other suggestions?

[trouterfan1]

PM sent for area to try

[k9mark]

Wade, anywhere from Dardanelles to Kennedy Meadows for camping. Personally, Kennedy Meadows would be perfect for you guys.

[fj40]

Got a place up there and all above suggestions are right on. Yours as well at Clarks Fork. Dave

[RDS]

Hi Wade,

There are quite a few places to try on the west slope up Hwy 108. You can fish the South Fork of the Stanislaus which flows out of Pincrest Lake. There are quite a few access points to get to the river with one of them being Frasier Flat as mentioned. You and your son might enjoy the short drive into Pinecrest just to check out the scene as it is a nice place to visit in the summer.

Up a little further you can take the Beardsley Resevoir turn at the sign and follow it down and fish the Middle Fork of the Stanislaus. It is a good fishery for wild fish but it is in a canyon and you have to do a little work to fish it successfully. Further up you will also find the Middle Fork of the Stanislaus as it parallels the highway. You can fish any of those areas for mostly planted rainbows.You will also find the the Clark Fork turnoff which takes you to the Clark Fork of the Stanislaus. There is a campground there and you can fish around there for planters or you can fish upstream towards the wilderness area and fish for wild fish. There is a trail for you to follow. If you continue up the highway you will come to Kennedy Meadows which also has a campground, store,restaurant, etc. Kennedy Meadows is also the Middle Fork of the Stanislaus and is a very popular spot in the summer. The further you get away from the campgound, etc the less people you will see, as usual. There are also many creeks in the area such as Herring Creek but because of the lack of snow this past winter the creeks might already be a little skinny. I haven't checked them out so I don't know.

There are quite a few places to fish and I have just given you a rough rundown of some of the more well known areas. If you need any more specific info you can let me know. I hope that you and your son have a great trip. Personally I have two daughters and my oldest one has no interest in fly fishing at all. I am still working on the younger one so I still have some hope. Have fun.

[WadeK]

Sorry to dig up an old post, but I realized as I was about to ask for info for a new trip, that I hadn't posted a report here in reference to the trip I took before. So this is a repost of the reports I put up on the Addict's site.

1st installment:
Friday 7/27/2012 I got off work, went home and packed stuff into the truck for the trip. I should say JAM-packed stuff for the trip. I’ve been seriously prepping for this trip for over 3 weeks and still felt over packed and under prepared and generally scatter-brained. More so than any trip I can ever remember. Leading up to the trip some things went very right and some things went very wrong. Then some of those same things flip flopped.
As an example, the yard-sale Optio W10 waterproof camera my landlady/housemate had just given me to replace a poor film camera that died, gets set on the roof of my truck while packing. You guessed it. Seconds later, as a Greyhound bus is going by, I knock it off the roof of my truck and its run over. So, no trip pix. I didn’t even have it 5 minutes.
Saturday, 3AM Leave Bako, get ½-way to I-5 and remember XY&Z, go back.
Saturday, 7:30AM Get to Ex’s in Hollister to pick up Jeffery. Emily informs me I do have to take her to a 4-H meeting after all and can I stay overnight and drop her off at the Fair tomorrow? Oh well, so much for sticking to an itinerary. I should explain that I love doing stuff like this for my Daughter. However, this trip was supposed to be a reward to Jeff for taking care of her animals while she was lucky enough to go on a trip to SE Asia and we were supposed to meet up with friends to convoy for part of the trip. We swap things around and put food in the Ex’s refrigerator to make room for her and I make calls to reschedule which actually works out for the better (at this point).
After dropping her off at the meeting, I took Jeff to the rifle range. I had given him a .22 for his 13th b-day and hadn’t gotten to finish having him site it in. We got it to group about ½ to 1” right of the Bull’s-eye at 50 yards, before we had to go pick up Emily.
When we get back to the Ex’s, Jessica, their 3 year old ½ sister walks up to us and sobs “Emy, Wooster kicked me!” There’s a gash on her shoulder that’s still oozing blood. Emily turns to me and asks “Will you show me how to Slaughter that Damned bird? Where having Chicken and the Rabbit that bit her yesterday for dinner.” She then took Jessie into the house to bandage her up. I felt miserable because I had given Emily the Rooster for an early 17th B-day present. It was a beautiful bird that was the same breed as her 3 hens, but Em assured me it had a “pact with the Devil”, having now drawn blood from every family member that lived there. Jessie used to help Emily collect the hen’s eggs before I brought him.
Jeff helped me catch and dispatch the Rooster and yes, it managed to draw my blood too. Emily helped with the Rabbit while my Ex kept Jessie, Raymond and their Dad occupied in the house. He’s a little squeamish. :^) The feathers seem just OK, with no dry fly quality hackle. The stew was good, if a little tough and stringy and took too long into the night. Neither of these animals had been raised for food, so it was to be expected. Em saved the rabbit pelt for a purse to go with the jacket she made last year. The Chinchilla coloring should make for a pretty purse.
The next morning we scrambled to get everything for the trip repacked and Em to the Fair in San Jose to take care of her pigs. The packing went too easy with everything *…40 minutes into the drive to the Fair I realized we didn’t have the oars to my kick-boat. Then Jeff, ever thinking about his stomach, asked if I got the coolers and refilled them with the food out of the fridge? Doh!! I hate being rushed!
We dropped off Em and wished her luck. Instead of heading to Tracy to meet up with my buddy, we went back to Hollister to get what we forgot and made plans to meet him in Sonora. As I was finishing repacking I found my light jacket that Em had borrowed the night before. We’re headed into Bear country for a week and my only light jacket was splattered with bunny blood. Well that should make for an interesting trip!

To be contiued...
I fish for my sanity. If I catch it, should I still practice catch and release?

[WadeK]

Installment 2:
Next Snafu: We got into Sonora before my buddy Joey. So we went to tour Columbia State Park, the historic Gold mining town. This is a cool place everyone should check out; just remember most everything is 2-3X what it should cost. I had great cell reception throughout the 108 corridor with Verizon. Joey had AT&T and no reception outside of the central valley, we later found out. He was 1-2 hours behind us and we were going to meet him at Wal-mart after going to the park. Obviously we couldn’t get in touch with each other and 3+ hours later I was worried he’d had problems. After checking with the local CHP office, Jeff and I got gas, (cheapest on the whole trip $3.55 Sonora Arco/AMPM) then fire and camping permits and proceeded to the place Joey and I had decided we wanted to fish before finding a camping spot that night.
Pulling in at sundown, there he was. We hadn’t seen each other for too long and knowing he’d be leaving for a mission trip to Haiti with his soon to be bride, in a month or 2 it was a little emotional. We also met Mathew, the young man he’d brought with him, which he mentors from church. We found out we’d both waited at Wal-mart for over an hour on opposite sides of the parking lot and completely missed each other, with me circling the lot before they got there and after they left.
I missed 3 strikesin 2 minutes on a #16 Para-Adams then nothing for an hour before it got too dark. We were at the after-bay of a place Wildman would have been comfortable before he became known just for his Mustache. Nobody else had a hit but they were all throwing barbless hardware.
We then found a campsite up by the lake. Dinner was ‘Qed Polish sausage on French bread with Goulden’s mustard, canned corn and Pork’n’Beans, then Chili for those who were still hungry. Good, but it sure did make the tent flaps move!
I washed the jacket out and hung it high in a tree, well away from camp. No tracks were found around it in the morning, even though a campsite at the opposite end of the CG had a late night visit from a Cinnamon colored Black Bear.
-CAUTION: Conventional and the B word fishing ahead.
The next AM I was the last out of the tents, well after 8 and felt wonderful after my best night’s sleep in 2+ weeks. Being in the pines does that to me. Joey was down at the lake, operative word DOWN. The lake was at least 50’ below full pool. The boys were disposing of groceries in odd combinations such as Bacon and marshmallows and…, as boys will. I told them what not to eat, then joined Joey down by the lake with a 3wt and a UL spinning rod. A troller came by and told us he had lots of fish at 40’ on his sonar, with nothing shallower than 30’. Oh well, so much for FFing the lake, which I kind of expected from the heat and water level. Joey had been casting conventional lures and took that as a queue to soak bait. Being a little despondent about the situation, I joined him. We caught 3 stockers over the next 1-1/2 hours, all of which fought just ok for the 1st 10-15’ then turned into wet socks when they hit the warmer water near the surface. With breakfast on a stick, we returned to camp.
The boys had already gotten on swim-shorts and were trying to blow up a leaky air mattress they’d found by the lake. They asked if they could blow-up my Kick-boat and I replied “Who’s going to carry it back up from the water later?” Chirp-chirp the crickets sure got loud as they looked at the lake level, each other, then me. I told them where to find the float-tube I’d borrowed for Jeff and to be careful with it. By the time they had it ready, we had breakfast ready. The boys having already raided the groceries packed away as much as Joey and I did and more. A pound of Bacon, 18 eggs and a tube of biscuits gone and I got 3 slices, 2 eggs over medium, ½ of a stocker and a biscuit. Are we sure the Bears didn’t visit us?
-SAFE to read again
The rest of the day was spent by all of us swimming, diving off rocks, playing in the float-tube and me getting world class sunburn when I fell asleep in the tube with a life jacket on and a hat mostly covering my face. Perma-vest is NOT a good look for me! Fortunately I wasn’t planning on shaving for the trip so my whiskers and a long sleeve shirt somewhat hide most of the burn area. I wanted to go fish the after-bay which has a COLD water discharge and is special regulation water, but the rest of the pansies in camp didn’t want to go back down there after freezing the first night. Instead they teased me about wanting to cook the fish down there by putting my sunburn in the water. Kids can be so cruel!
I couldn’t tell you what we had for dinner other than it had beef stew, ramen and green beans among other things in it. The boys made it and it was edible other than they used up too much oregano and all of the Italian sausage that I was going to use in my pasta later. After that I slept like a log until I moved and the sunburn let me know I shouldn’t have 3 different times.
-FF ahead
In the AM I was the 1st out of the tents and fish were rising down at the lake. As carefully as I could I snuck down and took the temp 66F. There were 2 rises in succession coming towards me about 7’ off the bank. I already had the line ready and without a false cast I dropped it where I thought he’d come up next. The PA I had on was sipped by a 15” Brown not 5 minutes after I made it to the water. This strong fish did 2 cartwheels and a greyhound before giving up. After I got him in, revived (which took a long time) and released him, I didn’t see another rise. As soon as sunlight started hitting the hills above me I checked the temp again and it was 69F. I wonder if a swirl of warmer current hit the bank or what happened to raise the water temp 3F in less than 30 minutes?
Joey had to be back to work that afternoon so we broke camp and said our goodbyes. While getting things packed I spilled juice on the sleeping bags. Darn it! Instead of leisurely rolling into our next camp at nightfall after fishing and traveling all day, we had to find a Laundromat. I knew there was 1 in Bridgeport so we pushed to make it there before 4, not knowing when it might close. This allowed us to hit a few places but not spend the time I wanted to.
1st stop was Donnel overlook. Wow! You can see miles and miles. Lakes, river, waterfalls, granite monoliths, geologic formations, thick and thin forest…
Clarks Fork looked beautiful but I only managed to C&R a 7” wild Rainbow on a Parachute BWO and missed a smaller Brown for ~2 hours of fishing both dries and nymphing. Jeff was happy to swim and play guide, pointing out spots he thought fish might be.
I thought about stopping at a place Craig had suggested, but we were running out of time.
Coming down off the pass was the steepest road I’d ever been on. 26% grade ahead said 1 sign. I dropped all the way down to 1st gear and 4Low and still managed to heat up my breaks to where they slipped a little.
To be continued

[WadeK]

My Mom was supposed to meet us at Sonora Bridge CG that night so I stopped in to see if she was there before heading into Bridgeport. As we drove past the first campsite a lady flagged us down. Before I could say a thing, she told us where my Mom was camped, that she had already paid and to be aware of the bears because 3 had been seen there that week. She asked how our trip had been so far and half a dozen other questions. I figured she was the camp host, being a little over friendly, but later found out she wasn’t. Almost every time we drove by after that it was all the gossip you could (n)ever want to know. She was pleasant, but obviously a bored busybody.
Mom accompanied us into Bridgeport. While I took care of the laundry, they checked out the shops and I checked out a rather HOT brunette that came in and did some wash. Half-heartedly made some small talk, but it wasn’t going to go anywhere. It probably didn’t help that I’m 41 and she might have been 30 on the high end. After the laundry was done I met Mom and Jeff at Ken’s Sporting goods and Mom got Jeff a Jr. Hunting license as a late B-day present.
Back at camp, dinner that night was BBQ’d Chicken w/ all the fixings. Good Stuff! We BBQ’d them on a propane Hibachi type grill that leaked grease out of the bottom all over the table. We cleaned it up as well as we could but, about 3AM I awoke to find a smallish thin Bear polishing the painted picnic table with his tongue. It didn’t bother anything else or even harm the table, which kind of surprised me.
Wednesday AM I couldn’t get Jeff to wake up early for the hike into a pig factory I wanted to do. So instead of hiking at gray-light like I wanted to we headed to the EW at about 9:30. Arriving at ~10:15, the water was very clear and the fish were spooky. I managed 2 hits but spent most of my time trying to get Jeff into a fish. It was tough to say the least. He hooked up twice by ~3:00, but both were lost. We’d worked about a mile of water and Jeff wanted to go somewhere else or go back to camp. I told him lets drive to another area of the same river.
In a prime Big fish spot I swung an Articulated Sex Dungeon streamer. On my 3rd swing, I was stripping it back when it was Annihilated! Line shot through my hands so fast it hurt. A coil of line wrapped around the back of the rod. POW!! The 1X tippet shattered. Jeff looked at me like he was dumbfounded then whispered “That was HUGE wasn’t it?” He had been playing in some slack water, but he immediately picked up the other flyrod, a 3wt, and asked for a streamer. I thought about telling him how undergunned it was for this spot, but instead I gave him a Cone head bugger that it could barely handle. We flogged the water for another 1:30 for nothing. I really wish he had hooked one.
On the way back to camp we talked about the hike tomorrow and that it’d be ok for him to take his rifle. I told him about the Bacon wrapped Pepper and Cheese stuffed Rabbit my Dad used to make and when we should leave.
To be continued

[WadeK]

That night, over a dinner of kielbasa sausage on hoagies with Swiss cheese, sautéed onions and sweet mustard, baked potatoes with sour crème, bacon and chives, baked beans, cran-apple juice, cinnamon rolls and hot cocoa, we nailed down the plan with Mom. Mom made hearty sandwiches that night and had eggs, pancakes, bacon, and muffins for us before we finished loading my pack in the AM. It’s nice having her there with the camper and all the trappings (oven and running water) that go with it.
After dinner Jeff read the Hunting Regulations booklet cover to cover AGAIN and asked me to clarify a few things and help him figure out exactly where we would be hunting so he could figure out what was in season and legal to hunt with his rifle. I love it that he took responsibility for knowing this all by himself, ahead of time. Last year I made the mistake of hunting with a father and son that clearly didn’t have a clue what was in season and what they could legally hunt with a .243 and a .22. After reading them the riot act when they both at an out of season Goose in flight, I won’t ever go near them again and only stopped short of reporting them when they promised never to hunt again and would sell the guns. This wasn’t what I wanted, but probably was for the best.
We hit the trail by ~8:oo which was way later than I wanted to, but not too bad. I was proud of how Jeff handled his rifle the whole time. This was his 1st time carrying a firearm in the field and it was never pointed in an unsafe direction, he didn’t load it until after we crossed the 1st fence and unloaded it for the 2nd fence crossing (which he didn’t know about until we saw it). He passed the rifle at the fence crossings like he had done it 100 times, yet it was obvious he was watching his P’s and Q’s. He was on point the whole time safety, hunting, and ethics wise.
We hiked and hunted slowly, spending a lot of time glassing the edges of the meadows the trail skirts. We saw scattered Cattle, but no game. At ~10:00 we came to “Come together lake”. There’s no fishing in this lake and it’s very well posted. It was obviously very low, but there were fairly nice fish rising everywhere. I noticed some of them seemed to be doing laps between the weed lines and the general area of a couple bubblers, feeding along the weed lines. I was thinking if the lake we’re headed to has anywhere near the activity of this lake, it should be an epic day. Jeff asked if we could take a swim here as it was starting to get hot. We swam for quite a while.
I noticed that fish would move into the areas we swam through about 5-10 minutes after we left that area. The Damselfly nymphs were on the move to hatch and there were also rafts of dead Midges that we freed from the weeds that were growing solid out to about 15’-20’ off shore. When we got out 17 Damselfly nymphs climbed out to hatch on the rock I got dressed on.
After seeing that I wanted to get to the other lake but Jeff wanted to continue hunting. In a little glade I saw a bear track crossing the trail. It hadn’t filled with water like some of the other tracks, all of which were in a seep. I figured the bear had crossed within the last hour, so that made my neck hair stand up. I told Jeff to come back and walk beside me but didn’t tell him why. We walked even slower after that and Jeff asked why. I told him if we were going to see anything, I figured this was the most likely area. We finally made it to the lake without incident and Jeff glassed around while I inflated the float-tube.
When we got there, there was a little wind. By the time I got the tube inflated and everything ready there were white caps out on the main body of water. I stuck to the edges for a while and Jeff walked the shoreline still hunting. The wind died down and after telling Jeff to stay within site I headed out to find a drop-off I’d been told to try. I fished it for a while as well as a few other areas for nothing. Then the wind started gusting and before I could make it back to where I launched from I took 4 waves over my head. Whitecaps were everywhere even rolling deep into the weeds. On hitting shore, I took down the tube and just sat there. I was a little depressed about the fishing, since this was a major portion of what I had planned the trip around, but the scene before me was beautiful even as it was disheartening.

To be Continued

Sorry about this turning into the combined Illiad and Oddesy long version. Hopefully you guys are liking it.

[WadeK]

Final installment:
We moved back up under a overhanging bush away from the water and packed up while talking about the place and how even though it was handing us our backsides, it was still beautiful. Once we were packed up Jeff took point and I glassed for game. We didn’t see anything until Jeff stopped me and silently pointed into a gulley. At first I didn’t see anything but dead wood then I noticed 1 piece was actually a Grouse crouched down. They weren’t in season so we just sat watching it and it stood up and walked away after a few minutes. Jeff whispered “That was Cool! I’ve only seen those on TV.” Shortly after that I found some old empty shot shells. Hmm. After that we checked out the fish at the other lake as we passed by, they were going absolutely crazy on the west side of the lake making splashy rises at something. I watched the show for at least an hour while Jeff alternated between glassing for game and watching the show. 3 flights of geese came in while we watched.
This next part I already posted about on another thread here:
I recently found a new deterrent to theft.
On a hunting/fishing trip I took w/ my son recently, (TR to follow as soon as I finish writing it) we left an open empty scoped rifle case laying across the front seat of our truck. At dusk we were rerturning to the truck from a place that has Pork Bellied Brookies and at about 600 yards out we crest a hill and I see a mostly black and primer, late model Trans-Am-ish car pulled up next to my truck. 2 guys hop out and 1 drops my tail-gate and proceeds to start going through our camping gear. I took the rifle from my son and was about to get in position (for a warning shot) when the other guy saw the gun case through the window. He looked up in our direction, and then both jumped in their car and left. In Bridgeport the next day I let the Sheriffs Deputy know. He said he thinks he knows whose house to visit to find some fly rods and other stuff. Somebody want to check the Bridgeport papers for a followup? I talked to the Deputy at the gas station 7/3.
When we got back to camp it was after night fall and dinner was waiting. We told Mom about everything that had happened and she suggested going to see the Sheriff in the morning which was already the plan. Jeff fell asleep at the table after dinner, waiting for desert of canned pear pie. At a muscley ~130#, he was hard to carry to bed, but he wouldn’t wake up. The bear(s) didn’t visit us that night but did get 2 other campsites for a pound of bacon among other things. In the morning, after Jeff ate the remaining ½ of the pie, Mom headed home to Fallon NV and we headed into Bridgeport for gas and met the Sheriff’s Deputy while getting gas.
Just before leaving the gas station my phone got signal and I had a message from my buddy Ron, to go to the cabin at June Lake Loop. Sweet! For the last 4 years I have been invited to his churches “Fishers of Men” outing there the 1st weekend in June, and I’ve attended 3 of them. This year it was cancelled for that weekend with only tentative plans to reschedule as far as I had heard. It was rescheduled for the weekend we happened to be going through there, but Ron didn’t know since he moved up near Sacramento a while back. Good food, decent fishing, good fellowship even if we are Baptists at a Lutheran outing, a real bed and a real SHOWER for the 1st time in 8 days! I won’t bore you guys with the lure and bait fishing that was done while here. Saturday nights steaks were delicious. Sunday morning Jeff and I did stop at Gull lake and FF from the tube and kickboat for a Brown and a Bow each. Jeff got his dragging 2 buggers and I watched an indicator with 2 BH midges under it for my 2.
We hit the road at about 1 and the next stop was the Sierra Trout Magnet shop in Bishop. Talked w/ David and Stretch for a while then hit the road again. Stopped to rest at a place where the creek goes a different direction and fed the tiny Browns more of our sandwiches than we ate. It was relaxing watching them fin in the current and not trying to catch them. If anyone knows of another place to access this water that might be worth trying PM’s would be appreciated. We made it home by 9:30 and were asleep by 10:30 with the truck unloaded.
All in all, this was 1 of the best trips I can remember even though it was 1 of the worst in terms of fishing. I got to see my son take some real steps towards growing up to be a good man, had some good laughs, saw friends I hadn’t for too long, and even got to see my Mom.