Too early this year to poke around Sierra streams around, say, the 4000 or 5000 ft level?
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Too early this year to poke around Sierra streams around, say, the 4000 or 5000 ft level?
June is usually the top month for mid-elevation trout streams...on average.
May during drought years and July during heavy snow pack years.
National Forest is "closed". You may run into some locked gates depending on where you are fishing. Hopefully this will change soon. Alot of lakes and boat ramps are starting to open so I'm thinking they'll follow suit.
So the National forests (there are many) are not “closed”. Many facilities are closed, but it varies from forest to forest.
https://www.fs.usda.gov/about-agency/covid19-updates
I popped up to the Silver Fork of the American for a couple hours today to check it out along Silver Fork road above Kyburz. Gates were open and there were a few people around in undeveloped sites. Per the Eldorado National Forest website, the trails around the confluence of Caples Creek and the Silver Fork are closed due to damage from the Caples Fire last fall.
https://www.fs.usda.gov/eldorado/
Fishing was good. Catching? Meh not so much. I was just poking around so my expectations weren’t high. I got some solid refusals on a Stimulator and grabs with an Adams and a black ant. Nothing that stuck though. There were a few runs that I might have dredged with an indicator nymph rig, but I didn’t bother to set up for that. It is really pretty water, it lots of places that looked awfully fishy didn’t produce any discernible action. Maybe it gets hammered by folks from the campgrounds? Or maybe I just suck.
Anyway, still time well spent in a pretty forest...
The issue is all the forest service roads that are closed. The ones that get you to the better water and not the roadside stretches. Stanislaus had a really long list of closed roads on their page.
I went out into crystal basin on opening day. The water was still pretty cold and some snow on the ground.
Two weeks ago I fished one of the forks of the American around 3000’ elevation and caught enough fish to keep me entertained. I might go try something this afternoon up 50 somewhere if I get motivated.