Mercury Rising

Fishing large mouth bass by morning, dry fly fishing for wild trout by evening, running down lost fishing buddies by midnight.  It was a long day... however I still woke up by 5:30am for the morning hatch.


The plan was to backpack a short ways into the wild trout section of the Kern River.  Tuck and Joseph were to meet us on the river sometime in the evening.  Erika had some red and white lacey string to mark our campsite.  I told Tuck to stop when he finds lingerie string hanging from one of the trees.  By midnight, beams of light and muffled chatter rattled Erika awake.  A shoulder shove later, I was awake and disoriented.  We figured it was the guys and I scrabbled up the trail and began  running.  Nearly forty five minutes later our fishing party is finally united.  A few Sierra Nevada's and a few hours later our fishing adventure begins.


The first evening prior to meeting with Tuck and Joseph had phenomenal dry fly fishing.  I only fished about one hour that evening.  Between 7pm-8pm one of the largest Caddis hatches I have ever witnessed unfolded in front of me.  Countless trout were rising, tail whipping, jumping in a feeding frenzy.  My hands trembled as I couldn't seem to tie my knots fast enough.  A tan size 16 deer hair caddis tied on a TMC 2312 did the trick. 

With the epic hatch I had experienced the prior evening, I was expecting  legendary dry fly fishing all day.  By mid morning, yellow sallies, golden stone flies, caddis, sulphur duns were all buzzing around.  Yet.. not a single rise.  The air temp was already pushing into the high 80's.  By noon the temperature must have already hit 100 degrees F.  But lots of bugs.

Golden Stonefly

Yellow Sally

PMD

I abandoned the dry fly and setup a two nymph rig.  Large stonefly as the point fly with a yellow sally nymph as the trailing fly.  I gave Erika a primo piece of water and instantly we were rewarded with rapid fire takes.

Talon Scars

By 3pm the fishing died.  It was hot and we were tired.  We hiked a few miles back to camp and met up with Tuck and Joseph.  We all snoozed for a few hours to rest before the evening hatch.  I headed downriver with Erika while the guys went upriver.  The hatch wasn't as impressive as the night before, however we both got more than we could count.  I was most successful on a size 16 x-caddis.

We were entertained by hundreds of swirling caddis surrounding a Black Diamond Apollo light,  as the center piece of our night.

Land of The Lost

June gloom is here in full swing in southern California.  Overcast days were hit and miss in May, and unfortunately the last Perris outing was a bust.  This time, we may have got more than we asked for... The morning was overcast for sure, however the visibility was less than 20' when we arrived.  The shoreline was hidden behind the curtain of fog and distant outlines became mind bending illusions.  I was expecting velociraptors and pterodactyls to appear as if we fell through a wormhole. 

As the fog slowly lifted, Charles and I finally realized that we had nearly lapped the middle island of the lake.  Nearly an hour was wasted fighting through the fog and weeds, we finally find the cove we were looking for.  I only brought one rod with me on this trip, my Sage XP 890 with RIO Powerfly floating line.  I started with a size 2 frog popper, working the reed lines and sticks.  It didn't take long to get my first and last topwater take.

 

The water in this cove was only a foot deep in sections.  Carp were tail walking over the reeds and making a ruckus.  Not many large mouths were found in this cove when compared to a few weekends in the past.  We left and headed east.  The sun pierced through the cloud layer by the time we reached the east cove and damselfly activity increased.  We switched to a foam backed adult damselfly that I tied the night before.

The damselfly got several takes but failed to connect due to poor timing or distractions.  Working fly line and flies in the sticks required zen patience as it will quickly wear down ones mind and spirit.  I will most likely tie more of these patterns and experiment with different hook types per Charles recommendation.  Once we left the east cove, Charles tied on his fugly fly which saved him from the skunk.  On our way out, the motor died yet again.  We rowed to the launch ramp this time as carrying it out of the beach was a hard lesson learned.  Hopefully covering distance will be easier with Cruise n Carry 6600 gas motor I picked up over the weekend.  Lets hope this Japanese machinery from the 80's will be as dependable as the cars from that era.

Headwaters

I woke up semi charged from the brutal lake Perris beat down.  My breakfast consisted of two advil chased with a cup of black coffee.  Without hesitation, I pulled the creekin' gear out of storage and drove off into the morning mist.

It just happens that exactly one year ago I backpacked into this fishery with Erika and Charles.  It was a much different fishery back then and I knew that the future of this fishery depended on it's headwaters.  Many pools that held many 14"+ trout had receded deep into underground aqua firs. I hiked on determined to find water and wild trout.

1yr ago this pool filled halfway up the boulder.

 Mariposa Lilies were showing their blooms, however the population seemed smaller this year.  I believe the species in sequence is C. plummerae and C. invenustus. 

The big-cone Douglas-fir were fruiting along the trail.. One of my favorite local conifers as it is endemic to the transverse range mountains. 

I finally find what I am looking for...

and plenty of these...

I also noticed a species of Mimulus that I do not remember seeing in the past.  At first glance I thought it was the common monkey flower M. guttatus.  Although, the flowers looked larger, the stems were shorter, leaves were smaller and overall plant was more compact. 

The remaining pools at the headwaters were loaded with a healthy population of rainbow trout.  If these pools remain through summer we should have a healthy supply of trout ready for downstream migration.  Let's just hope we get a wet winter.

Ouch!

Charles and I left for Perris at 5:15am to get on the topwater bite asap.  The weather forecast was calling for hot and sunny conditions all day.  By 5:45am the sun was already blazing with no cloud cover.  I had a feeling it was going to be a tough day. 

We fished the shallows and threw poppers most of the morning.  Not a single bass came up for my fly.  Charles had a handful of missed opportunities and eventually we switched to streamers.  I rigged the 6wt with T3 Outbound sinktip.  We switched flies several times and Charles finally got a take on his fugly fly.  I tied on the swamp mutant bugger that I have success with at Prado lake.  Eventually I got a hard take and hard fight from am angry foul hooked bluegill.  Ouch!

If the fishing wasn't hard enough why should it end there?  The trolling motor limped about halfway to the boat ramp until it basically died.  About a quarter mile later we paddled and carried the lifeless pram to the parking lot.  What a day...