High Sierra Trout

[John H]

I hiked and fished the Sierras the last week of July. I went in at the Crabtree trailhead and spent eight days in Emigrant Wilderness and a small corner of Yosemite. Great time to be in the mountains as long as you don't mind paying the mosquito tax. Water everywhere, plenty of snow still around and plants and animals trying to make the most of the short summer. I found some pods of feeding fish, spotted some nice cruisers, caught a couple of pretty nice ones and took a zero at one lake. Quite a trip.

https://i.imgur.com/GRZAqti.jpg
Beautiful place to walk and fish.

https://i.imgur.com/9fs39rh.jpg
Someday I would like to walk along the top of that ridge and look across Northern Yosemite.

https://i.imgur.com/4sVHioC.jpg
Morning sun on the end of the granite and the beginning of the Eastern Sierra.

https://i.imgur.com/rPWI5S2.jpg
Running down the dream. My bug protection suit and some high quality trail.

https://i.imgur.com/51FcIB3.jpg
Some trout trying to make it happen while the flows are good.

https://i.imgur.com/JpEDGTj.jpg
A couple of spawners in a meadow stream. Had to go into stealth mode for this shot.

https://i.imgur.com/lJpad3n.jpg
Nice cruising rainbow. Blends in perfectly with the bottom.

https://i.imgur.com/VF0Zxi7.jpg
I love the big afternoon sky. Makes you want to be out there living large.

https://i.imgur.com/hai9r8H.jpg
This fish was gulping mayflies. It took four flies to fool him. I thought I might not get him but a size 14 parachute adams was close enough. Miracle that I did not spook him.

https://i.imgur.com/QmTvYlt.jpg
That is a great backpacking trout. No big deal on the Lower Sac but a trophy at 8500 feet in the Sierras. Bead head wooly bugger.

https://i.imgur.com/bOOsUkN.jpg
Brook trout release.

https://i.imgur.com/jh3thgp.jpg
The endangered Sierra yellow legged frog. Found him at a small fishless lake. This guy is a big part of the move away from planting. Probably a good thing but it is still nice to find lakes with spawning habitat and a population of grabby fish.

https://i.imgur.com/aLP1CDw.jpg
He was a pretty cooperative subject.

https://i.imgur.com/u08V7N1.jpg
Some guy set this down next to the stream and walked off without it in about 1975.

https://i.imgur.com/CQjKdfl.jpg
Stumbled onto this place while on an off trail route. Yellowhammer Camp established in 1922. Several abandoned buildings and equipment. Kind of a ghost town although I think the Crabtree pack station is going in there now.

[Bill Kiene semi-retired]

As usual, a very inspiring post and photos...................Thanks John.

[Smitty Fish]

Great post and pictures! Love the high sierras.

[ARichcrook]

Great pictures of some beautiful scenery and surprisingly sizable fish!

Thanks for sharing.

Rich

[John Sv]

YESSSSS!!!
Yahoooooo!!!!!

[OceanSunfish]

Absolutely awesome!

I would've just had fun watching all those fish finning around that stream........... That area has got to be incredible right now after that long winter.

I've started at Bell mostly. Do you have any insight as to the difference between the two starting points?

[DLJeff]

Beautiful shots John. The shot of the shallow gravelled bottom with trout lined up reminds of the outfall of a lake I used to hike into in Colorado. The prettiest cutthroats would line up like that. Nice find of the yellow legs.

[JohnR]

Wow, those are toads (the fish, not the frogs) for high elevation. Great photos!

John

[John H]

Sunfish -

I think the walk from Bell is a little further but I have not started there. I have gone in at Kennedy which is okay but the drive is another half hour or something like that. I went in at Cherry Lake once which was terrible - long drive and long walk. Crabtree is pretty good but I have been in there a few times so I need to shake things up and find a new route for next time. I saw a guy going from Kennedy to Tilden Lake. I might try something like that. Hetch Hetchy has access to good lakes and the Yosemite permitting has never been problem for me. You start at 3900 feet so it is a sweat fest at the beginning but it does have the Yosemite cachet.

Leavitt Meadow is a good place to go in. I went to Fremont Lake from there a few times and had good trips. They used to plant Fremont and I took a tube in there and had a great time. It is only nine miles and there is a pack station if you want to ride in. The plantings stopped and then started so I don’t know if there are fish there now. Fremont has no spawning area so it is reliant on planting unless brook trout get in there.

[John H]

John R -

Those are toads by backpack standards. I spotted and caught another pretty nice one and there was a family with a couple of boys there when I caught it. Hopefully those kids got the fishing bug from seeing that and get after their dad to get them a fly rod. They seemed pretty interested and took my picture.

I did some thinking about the biggest backpack fish I have caught. Probably cutthroat in Yellowstone on Slough Creek but that is kind of a different category. That is a cool place but I think it is pretty crowded now.

[daveiam]

Fabulous photos . . . as always.

[Odonata]

Super shots. Oddly enough I started from Crabtree the day you posted and just got back last night. Super tired. Took four days, got out to Huckleberry and back, with some side excursions. Mosquitoes were very enthusiastic indeed :). Brought some homebrew foam damselflies and dragonflies and found them popular with the lake dwellers.

I prefer Kennedy Meadows in late season, after the resort closes in October. Quiet and cool, though the days are shorter, and free parking in their lot. Sometimes a dusting of new snow adds some spice.

[John H]

Right on! Way to get out there. Sounds like we spend time doing the same things in the same places. Speaking of that - I saw a guy while I was hiking who I met at Mount Whitney in 2016. I don’t know him and saw him only that one time at Whitney but he recognized me. Crazy. He was going from Kennedy to Tilden Lake.

Two days to Huckleberry is a pretty good pace. I camped at Wood the first night and then did a long loop from there to Huckleberry. You probably recognize some of the places in the photos. I did also fish damsels in there. A few fish were feeding on them at Huckleberry but mostly they were cruising the flats looking for whatever they could find so I stayed with the sinking line and wooly bugger. Bad mosquitoes and good fishing seem to happen at the same time.

[Odonata]

I think next time I will plan for a couple days at Huckleberry. My first day was similar to yours, except I was unable to cope with the camping situation at Wood and dragged myself on to Red Can, which was very nice but fishless, as far as I could tell (had been there in 2017 and thought the same). But I was so tired by then I just didn't care.

It was my first time to Huckleberry and I was seriously wowed. Around 9pm or so after I'd finished dinner and ready to turn in there was a trico spinner fall (had never seen them before), and the tiny bugs were seemingly falling out of the sky and coating my stuff in them. Which was interesting because I was sleeping out ... (the weather was just so nice, unlike the last time I went during a thunderstorm cycle).

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/48492452202_e5a1539122_b.jpg

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/48492282791_4072419537_b.jpg

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/48492471797_ac77004d16_b.jpg

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/48492513187_0c00afda2e_b.jpg

[John H]

I have not been to Red Can but was guessing it was without fish. I like your lake shot. I assume it is from the west end of Huckleberry but maybe it is Red Can. Looks like you got some nice fish. The bugs put me in my tent by 7:00 most nights. I have gotten in the habit of going to sleep early and getting up as soon as it is light. I used to live for the evening bite but that has changed.

[Odonata]

Yes, the first shot is from the west end of the lake. In the morning I headed down around the outlet, crossed the creek and walked around to the other end, taking the maintained trail back to Lertora (I'd taken the unmaintained trail down from there and it was actually in surprisingly good shape, with cairns in many places).

I remember vainly trying to brush the tricos off my bag and watching more and more accumulate. In the light of my headlamp I could see black ants carrying off little trico carcasses. I imagine the fish were just as happy...

Here is Red Can Lake. I found it quite scenic; probably great for swimming, and a nice jump-off point for exploring some other cross-country destinations. I saw lots of insects, but no signs of trout eating them.
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/48492251396_4a0b5a5925_b.jpg

Cross country heading around Wood, down to the trail to N Fork Cherry Creek, Cow Meadow Lake, etc.
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/48492441207_618679b2e0_b.jpg

Another shot heading back up to Lertora from Huckleberry
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/48492297411_ed10615e9c_b.jpg

Now that the aches and pains have subsided a bit I'm imagining my next trip :)

[OceanSunfish]

Beautiful. A long hard winter up there does wonders! Seeing all the lakes full to the brim is incredible. Thanks for sharing.