Oncorhynchus mykiss gilberti

Kern River Rainbow
Sides shine in the golden sun
Fly on the river

Rain in L.A.

Rain comes to L.A. this year in the early fall; Indian summer with cool nights and a warm day punctuated with the sound of rain drops falling from the eaves of the roof, softly at first, then louder, then softly again.

My daughter, in the middle of her first college mid-terms, says it’s pouring where she is, about four hours worth of driving north. The stress has made her cranky. She doesn't like it, doesn't like the rain, doesn't like the tests, doesn't like anything at the moment. The rain will change, so will she.

I’ve never farmed a day in my life, never known a crop. My father grew up farming. He could grow anything, once taught that to me. I’ve long since forgotten. I’ve no green thumb left.

I sit listening to the rain, loving its sound and the cool breeze on a warm autumn day that comes with it. I worry about the crops I’ve never grown, and the fish. I know them.

She Caught Her First Fish

Image via Wikipedia

My daughter is nothing, if not headstrong. I think it comes from her mother. I don't think I'm headstrong or stubborn. People who don't know me don't agree with that, but it's true. It's just that I don't change my mind very easily. I think my ideas are worth something.

My daughter's name is Julie, or Julia when she is really pissed. Did I mention that she is a teenager? Some friends of mine, who have lived with teenagers recently, tell me that the kinds of attitudes I’m alluding to here are pretty common among people in that age group. Ok, so...I’ll just work with it; no big deal.

Well, it is. Let me give you an example. About four years ago, when she was still somewhat new to being a teenager, she asked me, just out of the clear blue, “Daddy, can you teach me how to cast a fly rod?” I had been giving casting instructions to various strangers for some time, so I thought this was an easy question to answer. I quickly responded “Oh...I think that can be arranged.” Right about now the father of any teenage daughter, especially a fly fishing father, has a better lock on the dynamics of this thing than I did then. They can probably see where this is going. But I couldn’t see it at that time.

Little did I know then that a much more accurate answer would have been something like “Hell no; you are not interested in taking direction from your father. Go find a stranger to do that, if you really want to learn how to cast a fly rod.”

I think that what was going on was that she was unconsciously developing her skills at manipulating her father, something she already had down pretty well. This undoubtedly is practice for use in the future on some poor, unsuspecting bastard who will become her husband. Did I mention that she is beautiful? I mean, people who are not related to her tell me that, so it's not just a father-type statement.

Oh, the thing about the manipulation is an X-Y chromosome thing, I think. It's just part of being a female. It's not going to change.


So I took her to the casting pond and began to work with her. She was pretty good catching on to basic ideas. After she had practiced for awhile, I began to suggest more subtle techniques she could use to improve her cast. "Start your forward cast more slowly, and lead with your elbow. Bring it all the way down to your side, near your hip". She very nearly dropped my cane rod on the asphalt as she gave me a look that conveyed the unspoken teenage attitude "I know that". “Hmmm”, I thought to myself. “There seems to be a communication issue here.”

I’m pretty fond of my only bamboo rod so this could have spelled trouble. I explained to her the value of the rod, how much I’d paid for it, and why she should consider it an honor that I’d even let her use it for casting practice. Strangely, she did not appreciate any of that. What's more, she had lost interest in my telling her what to do, how to cast, or how much the rod cost. I'm her father, and I have experience communicating with students, so this became a challenge for me.

She didn’t care about my challenge. The attitude was flowering into one of open rebellion, reflecting that she did not want me telling her much about casting, fishing, or anything else. I was never rebellious; don't know where she could have got that kind of attitude.

I would tell her that she was tired, and needed to take a rest break. Of course that didn't slow her down, and a few minutes later I was getting out my handkerchief to dry her tears of frustration.

“If she could only learn from my mistakes” I thought to myself. I recalled that I probably responded to my parents the same way when I was her age. Did I mention that she is very bright? She graduated near the top of her high school class, with lots of honors, so the claim isn't just one of those father-type things.

A friend and former casting student who had successfully raised some kids of her own gave me the news that day as she watched us. "Jim, she's never going to listen to you tell her anything about casting, at least not at this point in her life; you're her father. You two are too closely related." Oh...ok. So, I found some help. I turned her over to some friends who are masters. She got better. This was bitter sweet for me. My daughter was becoming pretty good with a fly rod, but I was not the one who taught her. You get the idea.

When she graduated from high school this past spring, I asked her what she wanted for her graduation. I'd already sent her on a trip to Europe the summer before, so she knew not to expect too much. "I wanna go to Yosemite" she responded. I was a bit surprised. When she was very small we would take her to Yosemite valley each fall, around her birthday in late October. I took her once when it was just the two of us. I pitched my tent, and we stayed dry in it during a night of heavy rain. She was thrilled to spend the night in the tent, but now she was a full-blown teenager, and I thought she had forgotten all of that. She knows of my love for the place, knows that I have backpacked over large stretches of it, dating back to a time long before she was born. But I didn't think she really had any interest in it.

I told her to find a hotel or motel. A day or two later she said that she couldn't find anything available, but that she really didn't want to stay in a hotel or lodge anyway. She wanted to camp, sleep on the ground. "What kind of teenage girl do I have here?" I thought to myself. We wound up at a place called White Wolfe in the high country, about 8500'elevation, far away from the valley, which is good, because in the summertime, the valley is as crowded as Disneyland.

A recent article in a fly fishing magazine had caught my attention. The author said that one of the reaches of the upper Tuolumne river was a good place to catch fish. The area he wrote about seemed like a short hike from the road. which was more of a consideration for me than it was for Julie. Did I forget to mention that she's a cross country runner, was for all four years of high school?

I figured I might be able to put her on a fish in that section of the river. One evening after we arrived in the campground we happened to meet a ranger who told us that her friend had been catching lots of fish in that area of the river on terrestrials, specifically, black ants. Since I had some of those in my fly box, I felt good about our prospects.

While we were driving to the trail head I gave her a few pointers on catching a fish. She had not done that yet. But, I was gonna take it lightly, 'cause, like I said, she is no longer in the mood to listen to me tell her what to do. Surprisingly, she listened carefully, and seemed to absorb everything I had to say about the natural drift on the water surface of an insect, setting the hook, playing the fish, proper handling and release of the fish, and line management.

We arrived at the spot indicated on the map, and began our hike to the river. We soon came to a place on the river that looked to me as though it might contain fish. It was located in a beautiful meadow, with panoramic views of the snow speckled mountains to the east. The river was broad and shallow, perfect for her to wet wade. A gentle steady breeze came out of the northeast, carrying the sweet smell of lodgepole, Ponderosa and Jeffrey Pine. As it weaved its way through the trees near the stream, it made the only sound we could hear, a sound of solitude, the sound of the Sierra.

I decided that she and I would enjoy the place however the fishing turned out. "Why don't you set up your rod and reel here?" I said. She had learned how to do that by watching me when we were practice casting, and she'd become pretty good at it. I tied on a #18 black ant, a bit small. And then I realized that the breeze was quartering toward us over the river, but decided to let her sort that out for herself.

She stepped into the water and waded out a bit from shore; made her first tentative cast, then another. Continuing, she became a bit more confident. She realized that she had done this before, just not on the river, not for real fish. Watching the fly drift downstream, she picked it up when it began to make the little "motor boat wake" I'd told her about. As she cast she half mumbled "I'm throwing tailing loops" but seemed unable to correct them. "You're trying to compensate for the wind by using too much power on your forward cast". "Damnit! I'm lecturing her again" I thought. She was too busy trying to keep her balance standing on the wet round rocks in the middle of the river to argue with my remark.

As I watched, desperately trying to emotionally disengage from her fishing, I noticed a small rise, then another, about twenty five or thirty feet upstream from her. She was not looking at that part of the stream and didn't see the rises. I casually asked her to get out of the water just beside where I was sitting on the bank. I took the rod from her, and shortened the length of her leader tippet, and tied on a larger black ant. I was doing my very best imitation of remaining calm, even though every fiber of my being was screaming inside of me "God, if you've ever thought of granting me a favor, let it be now, and let it be that she catches this fuckin' fish!" I dunno. Is that a prayer?

We walked upstream a short distance. "Cast right there" I said, pointing to the middle of the stream. "Let the fly drift as long as you can without having it drag." After she placed her first cast, suddenly a fish struck, but she didn't get a hook set. She seemed perfectly relaxed, but the tension was mounting in me as if I were watching one of those horror movies, the kind that used to make my palms sweat. Feigning indifference, I said "Ok, pick your line up, and cast to the same place, and let the fly drift to the same spot, the same way as last time." She followed my directions, made a good cast, and put the fly just where I'd told her. Slowly, the fly floated downstream without any drag. The suspense mounted. I could count the number of times the fly bobbed with each ripple it floated over. I was sure the fish would make another pass at the little black ant. It did. Wham! A bronze flash shown on the sun-sparkled surface of the river as the fish suddenly took the fly. This time she got a good hook set. I told her to reel up all the slack line she had laying at her feet. She barked at me "It doesn't matter as long as the fish isn't too large...that's what you said." She was right, so I shut up, never an easy thing for me to do. Julie quickly played the fish over to shore, climbed into the water, took it in hand, and held it in the water while she removed the hook from its mouth. There was no girlish squeamishness, no protestation that she couldn't do it. She quietly set about her task of gently holding the trout while she removed the hook, and then, just as I'd told her, faced the little Brown upstream, and moved it back and forth in the current until it swam out of her hand.

Now it was time for another lecture. I reminded her of the time when she was much younger when I'd told her how important it is to tell the truth, not to lie. I explained that there is an exception to that rule. "In order to be a good fisherman you need to tell a lie from time to time, and it has to be a convincing lie, a good lie, not just some bullshit that nobody will believe". This time she did not protest my instructions, just listened quietly. This was just after she had caught a nice 12" Brown trout. I'll leave you, dear reader, to mull that over. The fish really was that large. No, it really was. Nice first fish for a young lady new to fly fishing. If there's a lie in this story, it's not here.

That night we came back to our campsite at White Wolf, happy and a bit tired. Before we left home, Julie had discovered that the Perseid meteor shower was due to occur in mid-August. She's the one that chose that time for us to go to Yosemite. She thought it would be a good opportunity for us to enjoy a meteor shower; she was right.

After dinner we strolled around the campground, and found a break in the trees, a spot where the view of the night sky opened up. We could see Ursa Major, Cygnus, Hercules and the Summer Triangle; Cassiopeia, Perseus and the meteors coming from that part of the sky. They were hurtling through space at the rate of about fifty per hour, lots of 'em. We both loved it, and marveled at how fast they must be traveling to make their arcs of light across so much of the dark, moonless sky. We watched until sleep began to fill our eyes. It had been a good day. I was grateful for my daughter, for all of her successes, and for her first fish.

The rest of our time in Yosemite sped by. It was gone before I knew it. When we left she reminded me that she had cried when we left Yosemite when she was a seven years old girl. She said she still felt that way.

A week later, I left her at her new home at University of California at Merced for her first year in college. That's the place where her life and dreams will begin to take shape. There are lots of important things I need to tell her, things I want to make sure she's taking care of, hasn't forgotten, lots of reasons to call her. But the old hands, more experienced and wiser than I, tell me that she doesn't need me for all that stuff so much anymore. She needs to have her own successes, make her own mistakes. Now is the time when she begins to live her own life, without my interference. She has caught a fish now. I don't know if she will ever fish again, but she knows how. She'll do fine.

The Surf Snob

I'm a snob. I mean, I act like a snob, especially when it comes to certain things, like fishing. I'm exclusively a fly fisherman, even though a spinning rod would come in handy from time to time when chasing down fish. The curious thing though, is that I don't have the kind of bank account I would expect a snob to have. Most of the people I know have more stuff than I do, and stuff is how you measure the size of someone's net worth, at least in Los Angeles.

I think it has to do with the fact that I was the only boy in my family, and my dad spoiled me; no, really spoiled me. I mean, four years of military boarding high school, and my very own car by the time I’d graduated, for chrissakes!

Ok, so I went on to graduate from a well known university with some academic distinction, and then completed a graduate program from another well known university. But I just don't have the big bucks! One of my friends tells me that I am educated well beyond my abilities. That has a ring of truth about it for me.

So it was with some trepidation that I agreed to go fishing in the surf with my friend Ray, when he called.
“Whadaya doin’ this comin’ Saturday?” My mind raced. I knew he was going to ask me to go cast a fly rod into the surf with him. I couldn’t come up with an excuse.
“Nuthin’” I responded.
“Wanna go surf fishin’?”
“Where?”
"Up next to Eric’s place."
“What time?”
“We have to be there by 7:00 a.m.” Ok, now the possibility of an excuse was coming into the picture. In order to be at Eric’s by that time, I would have to leave my place a little before 6:00 a.m. See, the thing about the trout that live in my home water is that they keep civilized hours. No hatches in the very early morning, so no need to get there early. The afternoon hatch is when all the action happens. I like that about them.

My avoidence of surf fishing comes from the fact that I don’t want to fish with a fly rod in the surf because I’m a snob, like I said. It’s uncivilized. You just don’t use a fly rod in the surf, not anywhere in the ocean. Yes, there are lots of people who do fish in the ocean with a fly rod, but they all seem to be caught up in some kind of delirium, fishing for Mako sharks (talk about crazy!) with a fly rod, fishing for Bonefish, Permit and Tarpon. Sharks and Tarpon on a fly rod! Anybody who knows anything about fly fishing knows that a fly rod is to be used on a stream, fishing for trout, well, and for salmon. And yeah, ok, maybe on a lake sometimes, but even that is stretching it. Nope, I just have it in my mind that a fly rod is to be used for a stream, and maybe by kids for Bluegill and Bass on farm ponds (because that was my introduction to fly fishing).

My thought is that fly rods have nothing to do with the surf, nothing to do with the ocean. At least that's my opinion. Fly rods are for catching trout on a stream. And to be properly caught, they should be taken on a dry fly, not something with lead weight and an "indicator". The reason for fly rods is to delicately present something that closely mimics the type of bugs the fish are eating at the time, to the fish, and to do so in such a manner that they will be fooled into thinking that the thing is real food. And all of this on a stream that requires some thought in itself before you step in it.

So, it's all I can do to give some slack to the people who don’t adhere to these standards; not to judge 'em as inferior human beings. So, surf fly fishermen don't rank high in my esteem hierarchy. At least they didn't until my first trip to the surf.

“So why do we have to be there so early?”
“Because that’s the best time to catch the tide; wanna go, or not?” Ray was getting annoyed with my response, or lack of one, to a fairly simple question. I was pushed into a corner; if I didn't come up with an answer soon, I was pretty sure he was gonna hang up on me. Remember, I’m a snob. If there’s any hanging up to be done, I wanna be the one doing it.

“Yeah, ok, what the hell.” He had just asked me to go fishing with him, and I sounded like I was doing him a favor.

“Ok, go by the Fisherman’s Spot, and get yourself a 250 grain integrated sinking head line.” See, I knew there would be a hitch. Now I’ve gotta go spend money, and buy more stuff.

“Don’t worry about putting the line on your reel, we’ll do that when you get out to my place this afternoon.” Now I've gotta drive thirty miles out to his place. Already this surf stuff is sounding like a bad idea.

“Alright, alright” I tell him.
“Can I get you to help me organize my lines?” He agreed, and I’m off to the store and then to his house.

When I got to Ray's, he showed me an effective technique for organizing my fly lines so that I can figure out what’s what just by looking at 'em; and, I discover I have a six weight line that I didn’t know I had. He also began to tell me about surf fishing with a fly rod, just to give me a little instruction prior to my stepping onto the beach. In the process, he began to tell fishing stories, really good ones, that caused me to start salivating like a some kinf of a Pavlovian dog. Jeebus! I’m getting really excited about casting a fly line into the surf, and I don’t even approve of it!

Matter of fact, I got so excited that I drank an extra cup of coffee, and didn’t sleep worth a darn that whole night. I was like I was when I was a kid the night before I was going fishing or hunting. I couldn’t believe that sort of excitement could still happen to me!

The next morning, I’m awake the moment the alarm goes off. Dressed and out the door in record time, I arrive at Eric’s place ten or fifteen minutes early.

The day started with a typical California coastal overcast, fog everywhere, grey and nondescript. Then, occasional breaks in the fog to reveal deep blue sky and ocean with cyrstal white waves breaking, crashing with a noisy roar in front of me, sparks of water reflecting bright sunlight splashing everywhere around me. Then just as quickly as it appeared, the deep azure blue of sky and surf was gone, everything back to the hypnotic grey and silence of the fog, robbing the waves of their sound. An occasional train goes by on the tracks by the beach interupting the grey summer fog silence with the busy sound of people going somewhere unknown and far away.

I’d heard about this surf fishing business before, and I knew it was entirely possible for me to get skunked. One has to pay one’s dues, after all. But that wasn’t my experience. I had a fish on the third cast. With no idea what I was doing, couldn’t keep the line in the stripping basket, I was catching a fish in spite of all that.

"Cast it high in the front"; "Remember, it ain't gonna be pretty".

Ray tells me that I'm his fishin' buddy, whether I like it or not. He doesn't really have all the education I do, at least not formal education. We're a lot alike, and we argue with each other, so we can ocassionally scare people who make the mistake of going fishing with us without really knowing us. He is a Master instructor, but he wouldn't tell anybody that; ya just gotta know him, and that's not easy. He's my instructor, and I'm struggling to learn how to follow the master. Now I was catching a fish, and he had to stop instructing me so he could take a picture. Most of the finer points, I learned, were designed to keep me from knocking my brains out with a heavily weighted fly whizzing by my head at a pretty good rate of speed. I got ahold of that idea quickly, though, when the fly came zipping past my face. I think I heard it whistling as it zoomed through the air.

We stopped for lunch. It had been a good day so far, and I'd caught several fish. After a leisurely lunch, we went back to the surf, but then everything fell apart, just fell to pieces. Knots in the running line, which I had never experienced in all my days of fly fishing; line jumping out of the stripping basket and wandering off in the surf, kelp attacks, you name it. My lack of sleep caught up with me, and I had to leave and go home and go back to bed. But I think I'm gonna go back for some more of this surf stuff. Ya just can't say no to Ray.

What's Wrong With Today?

I spend my life worrying about what is going to happen soon, tomorrow, next week, next month, next year; or fretting about what happened yesterday, last month, last year, even years and years ago.

Today, though, I'm just fine, and my day went just as it was supposed to go.

The Long Trip to the Kern

Image via Wikipedia

A few days ago, I decided to go fishing on the Kern River yesterday. Nuthin' new with that; I spend a lot of time on that river. It's kinda my "home water", if I or anyone else in Los Angeles has any such a thing. I started going there not too many years ago, and before I knew it, people were asking me for advice about the river. Whadu I know? I normally refer 'em to the guide up there at the shop in Kernville. So, this time, I took my own advice and called the shop. They made it sound like comin' up to fish was a good idea. They said Stonefly hatches are starting at around 7:30 p.m.; that coupled with high water meant that the fish were keying on that one hatch, hanging on the sides of the river to avoid the current and get to the bugs. The thing is though, it's a long trip, about two and a half hours drive each way. It's a good idea to call ahead for info before undertaking a driving task like that. Also, if you're gonna be fishing a 7:30 p.m. hatch, and then goin' back to L.A., ya gotta plan on gettin' home shortly before midnight. I'm a bit long in the tooth for those kinds of hours.

Once, not long ago, I told the story of that river to an old friend of mine who lives up north, and isn't likely to ever see this river. So let me tell you the story of the river that I told her not so long ago.

It’s not like the Sierra freestone streams of northern California. The land the river flows through isn't as lush and verdant as the mountains farther north or even the higher elevations of the local mountains. This part of the Kern, the part Merle Haggard sang about, is located in the very southern end of the Sierra. It would be fair to describe it as a drainage for the Sierra Nevada snow melt, even though it really doesn't handle all of the runoff from that range.

The river rises west of Mount Whitney at a much higher elevation than where I fish it, and when it gets this far south it is running below 5,000 feet elevation. For its first 30 or 40 miles, it occupies a dramatic canyon in the midst of the Sierra. On a topographic map it looks like some glacier has carved out the gorge over many thousands of years. This is a “freestone” stream, meaning that it has a steeper elevation gradient than other rivers with gentler changes in altitude; it comes down fast. Stories told by the old timers of the river claim that it is the most rapidly descending river in the continental United States. That accounts for the almost continuous drama of the river, including, you are informed by a sign as you enter the canyon, the loss of more than 242 lives since 1968. It can be quite dangerous. Last summer, three people lost their lives on the "Lower river" within the space of a week.

I suppose it's that freestone drama, the dynamic unrelenting power, its huge boulders and water as hard as the rock itself, that first attracted me to the Kern. It just plain looks like a mighty river, the kind I used to see in outdoor magazines when I was a kid, the kind I dreamed about. Maybe that's why I sometimes fish places on the river that I know will not produce a take; floating a fly through all that white water seems to me like a waste of time, but it is something I really can't resist. I challenge my assumptions about where the fish are, test my faith, act on my hope. Who knows if there's a fish just below me, ready to take whatever comes its way? I can't see under that white water, and the fish can't see above it. Neither of us knows the other is there. That's the test, the act of faith for me.

That's what a fisherman does, act on hope, exercise faith. Oh, sometimes we see the fish, but most of the time don't see it. Unless we see it rise, we don't know if a fish is where we think it should be or not. The real good ones, the oldtimers who have been doing it most of their lives, know there are fish where most of us don't think any should be. They catch 'em in those spots.

Fishing is a quest for something unseen, unknown, a mystery that so completely captures my imagination that when I'm doing it, nothing else matters. I guess you would call that a meditation. I just call it fishing. I put my fly on the water to test the unknown. It's an action making my faith, my hope, real. It's what makes a fishing trip into a fishing story.

Now, though, now that I'm out there where I know no fish will be because I cannot resist that scene, that specific piece of water, the river no longer talks to me. It's screaming at me with a white noise that awakens an old memory of a time long ago, like the sound of a jet taking off from a runway on a small island far away, while I stand there, waiting for the airplane to stop shaking the ground with its deafening sound. I try to ignore the fear I feel as I stand and cast my line in that treacherous white roar, concentrating on getting a tight loop on my cast, getting my fly just where I want it, sunlight bouncing off silver droplets dancing wildly in front of me, behind me, all around, knee deep in fast white water risking a cold swim in my single minded pursuit of the fish, conjuring up in my mind all that is a wild western trout river, sprawling wide and flat, uninterupted except for the fisherman, thinking of a time when rivers flowed freely and there were plenty of fish to be taken, when a wild river wasn't a rare thing and was uncrowded, of a time when fishing hadn't become a business with trade journals and product roll-outs.

These thoughts pass through my mind as I leave Bakersfield in the early summer, rolling past golden fields and the sudden appearence of dark green orange groves that constrast starkly with the dried blond grassland. In March, the fragrance of orange blossoms fills the air with a heavy sweet perfume; I like to have my car windows rolled down during that time. Other than the Orange groves, there are no trees between Bakersfield and the mountains, just rolling hills of dry grass.

A two lane road carries me into a narrow canyon with the suddenness of the sound of a gunshot. Both sides of the canyon rise up quickly away from the river as I enter the Greenhorn Mountains, one of the southernmost ranges of the Sierra. This part of the river is called the “Lower Kern”, or just "the Lower". The sides of the canyon above the sheer rock walls show grass, green in winter, golden in summer and speckled everywhere with dark rock outcroppings that suggest volcanic lava from who knows how many hundreds of thousands of years ago. White water appears in the river almost immediately after entering the canyon, cascading in every direction over large grey and white granite boulders. The flow is dependent on how much water is being released from Lake Isabella. Sometimes it's low, but there is always water, precious water splashing down from the lake for the farms downstream in the hot, dry valley that will take it all.

The river's banks are green here, thick with grass and trees, Sycamore, Oak, Cottonwood and some Willows. Spring and summer bring cotton bolls from the trees, floating on the breeze. Smallmouth bass make this section of the river home, but no trout. It's too warm for them here.

The narrow winding road rises, gradually at first, then more steeply, and moves away from the river to more commanding views of the canyon and the green and golden hills surrounding it. A quick glance at the fish dam, briefly visible here, tells the amount of water flowing over it, how much water is being released from the lake, and so how safe it is to wade the Lower.

The road changes into a long stretch of highway in the middle of these mountains, bringing into view the first powerhouse below the Lake, called “Borrel”. It’s channel and flume catch a lot of small Shad, beat 'em up, and shoot 'em out into the river. This water is fresh out of the bottom of the lake, and it does hold trout. They gorge themselves on these smaller fish, grow large, and develop "attitude". They don't like a hook in their mouth. Some say the trout in that stetch of river suffer from liver disease, from too much protein. Trout here are so fat that when one of them leaps out of the water, it hits again with a sound like a boulder being hefted into the stream by a boy throwing one into it.

Shortly after this place, Lake Isabella suddenly appears, filled with runoff in the spring and early summer, then dropping as the summer wears into the fall. Kernville is a little town situated a mile or two to the north of the lake, known long ago as "Whiskey Flats". During the spring runoff fish from the lake move up through town on their way to spawn. If you’re lazy, you can catch fish in the river right there in town, but I prefer to go farther up-river, say about 15 miles or so. Up here, the flow of the river is more dramatic, more beautiful, and the fishing is less crowded. Also, about ten miles upriver from town the real mountains, the true southern end of the Sierra, show themselves just to the east, rising up to 10,000 feet or more. Tall connifers, Lodgepole, Ponderosa and Jeffrey Pine, dot their peaks, and contrast with the golden fields and rock cliffs and outcroppings lower down the steep slopes, looking to the observer 6,000 feet below like tiny bits of green moss on a rock. It takes about sixty miles of switchback road to reach these magnificent trees and the cool mountain air where they live at a place called Sherman Pass. Along the way, you pass places like Salmon Creek Falls, Chemise Flats, McNally’s, the latter an old tavern and motel with a jaded history. Upriver from McNally’s is Fairview dam, used to capture water for the flume to the powerhouse just above Kernville, another of the powerhouses fed by the river. About 5 miles up river from Fairview, is the Johnsondale bridge, and the beginning of the wild trout water. From that point the road leaves the river, and you must hike in to get further up stream. For most of that 5 mile stretch between Fairview and the Johnsondale bridge, the river hugs a sheer cliff on its west side, has some deep pools, and holds some big fish, Rainbows and a few Browns.

This river is known as “The North Fork”. “The South Fork” lies on the eastern side of the peaks, on the eastern side of Sherman Pass. The North Fork is west of the South Fork, and the South Fork is therefore east of the North Fork. The distinction can be confusing. The "South Fork" comes into the lake south of the North Fork's entrance.

The Kern is a difficult river to fish because of the large granite boulders that are found both in the stream and on its banks, as well as the almost continuous drop in elevation that creates swift and tricky currents. I’ve learned to wade it with care.

As I mentioned before, the river is a major drainage for the Sierra Nevada range. It has carried those boulders down stream for a long, long time. Water flows in the river can range widely. For example, it is now running about 1000 cubic feet per second (c.f.s.). During the second week of June several years ago, it got up to about 9000 c.f.s. When the flows go back down, the fish will come out from hiding from the current, and they will be hungry.

Ralph Cutter in his book "Sierra Trout Guide" writes about a fish that is "native" to this river. By "native" I mean that the species was in the river before the first white settlers were here. Fishermen who know a little about trout in California call it the Kern River Rainbow. Biologists refer to this fish as Oncorhynchus Mykiss Gilberti. Cutter claims that it is the result of a hybrid between a Rainbow trout and a Golden trout that first occurred following the last ice age, when Rainbows were blocked from migrating to the sea to become the Steelhead we know today. I’ve caught a few of these Kern River Rainbows. They are quite pretty, with lovely, subtle colors, white tipped pectoral and anal fins, and flecks of gold mixed into the rainbow pink patterns along their sides.

Mayflies and their nymphs, Stone Flies and their nymphs, and Caddis and their pupa all inhabit the stream, and are common at certain times of year. Watching the Mayflies come off of the river during a hatch is quite a show. The “Dance of the Mayflies” is fun to watch, and you can reach out and catch one flying by when the hatch is going good. The hatches on the upper Kern are not as thick as they are on some western waters, but are nonetheless noteworthy for fishing. A captured Mayfly reveals what the fish might find interesting.

Adult Stone flies can be quite impressive, up to 1 ½ inches long, with striking red markings set against a dark brown or black background. Pteronarcys californica. One hitchhiked in my car back to Los Angeles with me, and decided to show himself to me the next day as I was driving down the freeway. Geeez! Stonefly nymphs can come in several different sizes, both large and small, the larger ones look pretty nasty; but because of their size, the trout really go after them. I guess the trout figure they offer about the most food for the energy expended.

The Caddis, like the Mayflies, offer a good clue what fly to use. Unlike Mayflies, however, Caddis’ wings lay back on their bodies, in the shape of a tent. The females lay their eggs on the river bottom, but cannot break the surface tension of the water due to their light weight, and their fuzzy bodies. So, they fly around 2 or 3 feet above the water, and suddenly dive straight down at the surface. If they succeed in breaking the surface, they will swim down to the bottom, encased in an air bubble, much like the air trapped in a sea otter’s fur. Then they lay their eggs, come back to the surface, and fly away. The trout key on them when they are doing this, and the fishing can be quite good, if you have the right fly, in this case, the right Caddis imitation.

In addition to the bugs and fish in the water, there is an abundance of other critters living alongside the river. There are beaver. A month ago, I watched a water garter snake sunning itself on a dry boulder in the river. And yes, there are rattlesnakes. the elevation here is low enough to allow cold blooded critters to survive. Free ranging cattle will startle you as you are driving down the road, and are worthy of respect. I recently came up on a calf on one side of the road, and the cow on the other.

There are birds on the river. My favorite is the water oezle. Some people call 'em "dippers". They stick their heads under the water to catch the nymps and pupa. Swallows swoop up and down the flat parts of the river when the bugs begin to come off of the river, and will let you know when a hatch is starting. Herons and Egrets round out a list of some of the birds to be found on the river. They stand motionless, patiently waiting for the meal they always seem to get.

So runs the Kern, the only true freestone stream near Los Angeles.

The Things One Does on the Account of Fishing

Image via Wikipedia

Several Saturday mornings ago, as I was smoking the last of my last cigar, I discovered that there were no places in Mammoth Lakes where I could buy another. "Well", I mused to myself, "I guess this is gonna be a cigar free weekend". It didn't concern me all that much, because I knew I'd be busy with fishing.

I'd wanted to quit for some time, just not enough to do anything about it. It's a nasty habit, at least for everyone around me. Not for me, though. I really like tobacco; no, I mean I really like it. The more the better; cigars have alot of it. I love to finish off a day of fishing by lighting up a nice cigar on my way back from the river.

I used to tell people that I smoked 'em in order to protect myself from the possibility of any women coming around me. Don't get me wrong. I don't have anything against women; I kinda like 'em. Haven't been around any of 'em lately though, probably because of the cigars. Well, maybe my charming manner hasn't touched any of their hearts lately, either. It's just that all the women who are appropriate for a man my age have agendas. Marriage, and all that, ya know. However, because I've smoked cigars for so long now, I don't really have to worry about that. There are no women with agendas coming around me. Haven't been any for awhile.

I'm worried, though, that might change. It is now Sunday night. If I don't pick up a cigar before tomorrow morning, it will have been sixteen whole days without any tobacco, or nicotine of any kind. Yep, you read it right; no patches. Tobacco, my lovely Tobacco, whatever am I gonna do without you? What will I do with that extra $105 or so each week? How will I keep that same familiar fragrance in my car and on my clothes? But those things aren't what sticks in my mind. What sticks in my mind is the wonderful taste of tobacco; the familiar smell.

Nicotine withdrawal is some crazy stuff. I'm eating peanuts, carrots, fresh fruit, dark chocolate squares; you get the idea. The obsession hasn't quite lifted yet. I feel like I need to take a long backpacking/trout fishing trip just to get away from the things that remind me of smoking, which is about everything. See, I'm a creature of habit. Whatever habit I'm in, that's where I'm goin', that's what I'm doin'. So, I don't have this habit of not smoking as fully developed as it needs to be. I have to work on it some more.

And the women? I don't know. If they can put up with my fly fishing, or if they fly fish themselves, maybe I can handle an agenda.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Best Ways to Quit Smoking (fitnesstipsforlife.com)

And Now a Brief Pause for Politics, Folks

If you are trying to find some way to open the can of worms called California Water Politics, or California Water Policy, one place you might want to look is Aquafornia, The California Water News Blog. http://aquafornia.com/archives/9493 ; another would be Friends of the River http://www.friendsoftheriver.org/site/PageServer . And then, of course, after I publish this, Trout Underground (see My Blog List) comes up with an article by Matt Weiser in the Sacramento Bee: http://www.sacbee.com/378/story/1965438.html?mi_rss=Environment. It is relevant to this post, so I had to go back and include it, along with this picture of the American River, that doesn't do justice to the incredible color of its pristine water.



The photo shows the river well above Folsom Reservoir, at the Iowa Hill Road Bridge, the start of the wild trout section of the river. Not a salmon or Steelhead in it. Matter of fact, there's a dam between here and Folsom. But as you draw closer to the river, the beauty of its emerald green, crystal clear water just mezmerizes you. It's difficult to imagine what this river would be like with wild salmon and steelhead in it, but the attempt gets this old fisherman's heart going.

Mind you, this is just a small start. A non-exhaustive list of Stakeholders includes dam builders (power companies such as Pacificorp); dam busters (various environmental groups - CalTrout and the aforementioned Friends of the River); irrigation districts, including the famous Westlands Water District, recent purchaser of the Bollibokka Club; farmers (large corporate types, and small family types); commercial and sport fishermen (and the fish, hopefully well represented by them); river rafters and rafting companies; several tribes with cultural connections to anadromous fish; and last, but not least, you and me. Oh, did I fail to mention bottled water companies?

I believe it was Mark Twain who said "In California, Whiskey is for drinkin'; water is for fightin' over." Something like that, anyway. Things haven't changed much since his time, except that our salmon and steelhead populations have declined drastically in a very short period of time.

Enough!

Related articles by Zemanta

• Western Salmon Counts Down 90 Percent In 7 Years (huffingtonpost.com)