Tim Huckaby’s 2026 Fly Fishing Season Forecast for the Wild Section of Upper Kern River

Short answer: it’s going to be a great season.  I could be wrong. There is some “rocket science” in my speculation.

The long answer follows, along with some science, and my reasoning for my bold prediction.

There are many factors that go into a great fly fishing day when fishing for trout on a river:

• The weather (specifically the barometer, but also cloud coverage, the air temperature and wind)
• The time of year
• Water temperature and clarity
• The moon (solunar forecast)
• The natural food sources that are available and where the fish are feeding in the water column
• Fishing Pressure by Humans
• Flow

On the Wild Section of the Upper Kern River, the most important of all those factors, by far, is flow.

I have written this many times. not only on this site, but also in magazines.  And I have the 25+ years of experience fly fishing the Upper Kern River to back up that statement.

The Wild Section of the Upper Kern River fishes best when the flow is under 500 CFS.  At 250 CFS the river is crossable in many locations and fishes very well.  At 150 CFS and below there is just nowhere the Kern River Rainbow can hide from a good cast because they are compressed from a huge space into a small one.

The North Fork of the Kern River (often called “main fork”) has a total length of ~165 miles.  It drains Mount Whitney, which at 14,505 feet is the highest mountain in the contiguous United States.

So first let me define what part of the Kern River I’m talking about. The Wild Section of the Upper Kern River is in the Golden Trout Wilderness of California’s Sierra Nevada Mountain Range.  The wild section of the Kern starts at the headwaters flowing out of Lake South America at the base of Mt. Whitney and officially ends 5,600 feet upstream of the Johnsondale Bridge (JDB).  My definition of the end of the Wild Section is much farther upstream at the confluence of the Little Kern River. This area is also often called the Forks because the only way to get to it is earned by way of the Forks of the Kern Trailhead.  The wild section of the river is surrounded by both the Golden Trout Wilderness Area and Sequoia National Park.

The first of many downstream dams on the Kern River is The Fairview dam, which is 3 miles downstream from the JDB on Mountain Highway 99.  The Fairview Dam “protects” the upper section from the prolific trout stockings in the recreational section.

So the Wild Section of the Upper Kern River is a freestone river, which is a river that is primarily fed by runoff, snowmelt and/or rainfall, rather than by springs or tailwater releases behind a dam.  So Mother Nature dictates the flow during the springtime runoff in this river.  In March of 2023 it peaked at 24,000 CFS.  In October of 2014 it was below 100 CFS.

Under my guidance that the river doesn’t fish best until it’s under 500 CFS, in a typical runoff year, that typically means the river doesn’t back down and fish well until the middle of July.

It is my prediction that 2026 is not going to be a typical run-off year.  Time will tell if I’m right or not. In a typical year the Upper river peaks between May 1st and mid-June between 3,000 and 4,000 CFS.

Through a number of internet resources I watch the flow of the Upper river (above the Fairview Dam) like a hawk every single day of the year.  For me the most useful website to do that at is the Dream Flow site here because it gives you a 7-day, 30-day, and 5-year history of the flow. As I write this in the first week of April, the river has been falling for ten straight days. That’s not unprecedented. But it sure is strange. I’ll speculate why below.  I also follow snowpack. but there just isn’t a prolific amount of information or sensors in the mountains that can make any predictions of runoff with confidence.

For many parts of California, including areas in the Sierra Nevada, this March was the hottest in recorded history. I hope you’re still with me because here’s where it gets interesting:

Record Hot, Dry March Wipes Out California Snowpack, Leaving No Measurable Snow for April Survey

“The Department of Water Resources (DWR) conducted the April snow survey and found no measurable snow, a stark indicator of how record‑hot March temperatures and high‑elevation rain have erased the Sierra Nevada snowpack months ahead of schedule.”

To me that means we’re going to have an insignificant runoff, which means we’ll be fishing the river a month, if not two months, before we normally get to, starting in mid-July. This is not unprecedented. We had four straight drought years back in 2012-2015.  Those were the best fishing seasons, by far, that I’ve ever had in my close to 30 years of fishing the Upper Kern River. Those seasons are well documented with pictures on this site.

Am I excited? You better believe it!  If you want to fish with me, I do it in a number of different modalities, including:

• I guide for Peppermint Falls Ranch. At PFR you can guarantee a lack of fishing pressure because their giant swath of private property makes it impossible to get to that section of the river, any other way. No backpacking needed. They’ve built a trail system down into the canyon. You can also helli-fish from PFR. They have a helli-port on site. We get in a helicopter and fly to the back side of Mount Whitney and other places where very few humans have fished the Upper Kern River.
• I guide for Golden Trout Pack Station. They’ll put your stuff on mules so you don’t have to backpack with 40 lbs or more on your back. You can ride one of their horses or hike it. They’ll take you miles and miles up the river to places that very few humans have seen, let alone fished. They’ll even feed you if you want.
• We can backpack by way of the Forks of the Kern Trailhead (or some other trails for those who are more fit and/or more adventurous). The descriptions of those modalities are here.

So gather up your Upper Kern River flies from my site and let’s go!