A Special Day on the Upper Kern River
It was mid September, 2024. In all honesty, I wasn’t as normally excited as I am to get to Upper Kern River by way of the Forks of the Kern Trail with 45 pounds on my back. I was coming off 5 straight weeks of fly fishing adventures in Wyoming and Montana. I was just home for a week. Let’s just say my wife was not pleased. And she made it very clear she wasn’t happy about me leaving again for 4 nights backpacking on the Upper Kern River. But, this was the annual trip with the San Diego Fly Fishers club. I’m the president of the club. I organize and “cat-herd” this trip each year. I mean, the Forks is my place, right? I should have been stoked. This trip was postponed 2 months earlier when the forest service cancelled our permits because of fire. I had people counting on me. I couldn’t back out. Plus, the flow of river and the weather seemingly lined up perfectly. It had all the makings of a special trip.
But how do you top 5 straight weeks of fly fishing in WY and MT on some of the most famous rivers in the world? I mean, I fished for 33 straight days and loved every minute of it. Sometimes I went days alone. And I cherished those times. But, mostly a new set of friends joined me each week. It was such a great trip for my soul. I lost weight, my blood pressure went down and I stopped biting my fingernails. After that trip, I decided I was going to do everything possible to do it every summer for the rest of my life. So, how do you top this?:
- Lower Green River, Section A near Dutch John, UT
- Worthen Creek, WY
- Leg Lake, WY (backpacking in the Wind River Range)
- Unnamed Lakes in the Wind River Range (backpacking) + streams, WY
- Wind River in Dubois, WY
- Hoback River, private section, WY
- Green River headwaters near the Green Lakes, WY
- New Fork River, Alpine, WY
- Cliff Creek, WY
- Upper Green River near the Warren Bridge, WY
- Upper Green River BLM, WY
- Hoback River in the Canyon, WY
- Crystal Creek, WY
- Gros Ventre River, WY
- Wiggins Fork of the Wind River, WY
- Stillwater River, MT
- Clark Fork River, MT
It wasn’t that I was burnt out on fly fishing. Or that I missed watching TV. I brought a starlink with me on that 5 week adventure so I could stay connected with family and with work and still make meetings. I think it was just that I had seen so many new places and fished so many new rivers, the Upper Kern just didn’t seem that special anymore. I had fished that section of the Upper Kern river hundreds of times before. I know the first 10 miles of the Upper Kern from the confluence of the Little Kern River like the back of my hand. I know every run, pocket water, hole, head, tail, riffle, rapid and pool. There are only 2 permits that allow guiding on that part of the Upper Kern River in the Golden Trout Wilderness and I’m listed on one of them.
It was special. I didn’t know what I was in for. I had a special day on the Upper Kern River that fly fisherman dream about their entire lives. The funny thing was that a big storm hit Kernville (35 miles to the south) hard the prior two days and that crash of the barometer made the first two fishing days below average. It was that 3rd fishing day that was special.
It has everything to do with a unique species of trout, indigenous to this special river in California’s Golden Trout Wilderness. The Kern River Rainbows (KRRs) are wild natives which constitute 99% of the fish in the river. There are so few places left in the world where a single unique species of wild trout are untainted by nonnative stocked fish. The Upper Kern River is one of those places. Granted the hybridization of the Kern River Rainbow (KRR) is spreading upriver from the stocking mistakes of generations before. Hybridization is where one species breeds with another. In this case it’s the KRRs breading with stocked rainbows. There is also a brown trout population in the Upper Kern that is growing and moving up river. You can’t stop it. There doesn’t even seem to be a motivation to slow it down. When describing the hybridization problem, I even had a biologist from the Forest Service say to me, “What is the problem? The fishing is still great, right?”. Well, yes it is. But, that is not the problem. I have written this non indigenous and hybridization “issue” before.
You have heard/read about “the stages of a fly fisher” undoubtedly many times before. My version goes like this:
- You’re happy to catch a stocked trout on a fly rod
- You catch fish on flies you tie yourself
- You focus on quantity (40+ fish days)
- You focus on quality (big fish and/or only wild fish)
- You catch fish on a rod you built yourself
- You focus on other species (ie: saltwater and/or bassfly fishing)
- You only fly fish with Dry Flies
- You purposely make fly fishing more challenging becuase the rewards are so much greater
Well, now after close to 35 years of fly fishing I’m in phase 8. The sheer pleasure of making fly fishing more challenging; accomplishing those miracles casts and drifts, those impossible sets, those physical battles. Largely fishing with Dry Flies. Well it, is a thing that is difficult to describe.
This is a great example. On this special day I got to fish alone. Don’t get me wrong. I love fly fishing with others. Especially beginners and those in stages 7 and 8. But typically if I’m not fishing alone on the Kern I’m guiding at some level. But, I love fishing alone just as much. I was working up “the other” side of the river. At 250 CFS there are places where it is possible to cross the river. Since this was the lowest flow of the year and I did have a bit of trouble crossing I knew I was going to fish water that had not seen an artificial fly yet this season. In the distance I saw a big KRR rise. But, It was over 50 feet upriver. Instead of exiting the river and walking up stream and putting myself in a good position for an easy cast like you should. Or slowing carefully wading closer with stealth. I grabbed the challenge of the 50+ foot cast to the 2 inch window it required. Other than the obvious challenge of the cast, the set is almost impossible in a situation like that. With so much line out, you cannot get tight without a lightning quick, herculean set. Assuming you get a take, one of 2 things typically happen in this scenario: You miss the set or you break off in the violent process of setting. I lucked out. My Huck Hopper stuck him in the face and he stayed on. Now I faced the issue of battling a fish who was now over 60 feet away and swimming fast. And the guilt that comes with fighting a wild native fish too long to exhaustion and consequent death because of it. So I “horsed him”. I turned him hard, he jumped. Even at distance I could see it was a big KRR. But, then he ran back fast at me. I was ready for that. With that 16” KRR in a manageable range now, I fought him quickly to hand where I released him without ever taking him out of the water. I smiled and said to myself, “I could call it a day after that.”. I did not.
My problem is I’m having trouble understanding why most of the fly fishers I know (and I know a lot of them… all over the world) have not come to this stage 8 of “enlightenment” with me. “Why would you throw a bobber on the Upper Kern when you can dry fly?” And don’t get me started on tenkara… that is just plain stupid on the Upper Kern River. “Why would you even run a nymph if fish are rising?” When you do the hopper / dropper thing you are negatively affecting the drift of the dry fly on top.
Here’s a hot tip for those wanting to be a great fly fisher on the Upper Kern: Don’t automatically go to a dropper. The dropper negatively affects your drift. it acts as an anchor slowing your dry fly down making it drift unnaturally. I believe a huge part of this special day, and why i did better than everyone else, was because without a dropper I was getting great drifts (well, that and the Huck Hopper just works there). Wait until you stop getting takes on top for 20-30 minutes before tying the dropper on.
There is a stretch of the Upper Kern just short of 6 miles from the confluence that I kept thinking about as I worked up river. It’s where my son Mark, now a guide in Montana, caught 2 fish at a time when he was 15. It’s winding bend of 3 separate runs. It’s barely fishable unless the river is under 250CFS because it’s a dangerous set of rapids. At this flow tamed, I had already crossed the river and was fishing the “left handed” side. As I approached, I could see multiple places that could hold KRRs. I had a single big Huck Hopper on. I think I C&R’d the first 5 of my casts. I said out loud to no one, “Does this get any more fun?” as I laughed. I moved around and up, I bet I caught 3-4 more. And they were all big fish.
“Sand Camp” was just up river from me now and a hour earlier, on their way back to camp, a couple buddies from the SDFF club said, “We hit sand camp pretty hard so you may want to skip it.” As I approached it, phase 8 kicked in. The challenge was obvious. Two people caught multiple fish here and put it down. So, yea, with the same Huck Hopper on, I looked across the rapid at the head of the run. “There’s no way those guys had the ability to cast it across the river, over the rapid, mending in the air, hoping for a rise on less than a 2 foot drift.” Whack! Another 16”. I nailed another 20” with a “normal” drift in the seam next. That is where I called it.
It was a long 2 mile hike down river and over the mountain back to camp. I looked at my fancy Garmin watch and I already had 27,000 steps. All by myself with plenty to reflect on. I was smiling and thanking the fishing friends I have accumulated that have now passed. “Mike, Ken, Jack, Sam, thanks for a great day.” All in all, I know I caught over 25, none smaller than 12” and all on dries. 5 over 20”. All on a rod my buddy Jack, who passed a year earlier, had made for me.
As I walked into camp, I leaned my rod against a tree and dropped my fishing pack. I walked towards the group headed for my backpacking pouch of Jack Daniels. One of them proactively came at me with a “How did ya’ do?” I smiled and simply said, “Great day”. No details. Just a simple, “Great day.” Everyone had good days. I congratulated each of them. I mixed the JD with river water in my cup. I sat, stared at water, smiled and reflected. No one there needed to know about my special day. I’m blessed.
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