ForbesOnTech

East Fork San Gabriel Canyon Summer Trout Report and Suggested Fishing Spots

A handful of my dedicated field scouts who regularly fish the East Fork of the San Gabriel River in Azusa Canyon checked in this week reporting that rainbows are biting about three miles upstream from the East Fork Ranger Station and even further in a series of under fished pools and fast rills upstream of Iron Fork Creek and the East Fork. Although no one is catching limits, anyone who ties a nymph pattern on their fly line’s tippet and lets it drift through the rills is getting hit by acrobatic trout.

One of the reasons I always recommend the Iron Fork/East Fork confluence is because it’s under fished and loaded with healthy bright silver rainbow with crimson flashes. Although it’s an approximate nine to ten-mile hike up the East Fork the pools above the Iron Fork are cold enough to pen significant numbers of hold over trout well through the end of summer. This section of my natal stream is the jewel of the Angeles National Forest.

 It has trout, unparalleled scenery, and placer gold deposits that have washed down from the western slopes of nearby Mt. Baldy.

It’s not uncommon to have two or three hits in one hour here and even the most dedicated fly fisherman should think about carrying a bottle  of Pautzkie’s salmon eggs as well as some egg hooks and split shot if you’re looking for trout to put in a pan and you can’t find a fly pattern that works.

Two other stretches of the East Fork have been producing trout this summer:

The first is the small creek that joins the East Fork down stream from the  old wooden bridge that marks the entrance to Big Horn canyon (which will forever be known to me by the name it was known by when I was young, "Cattle Canyon"). The most productive way to fish this small tributary is to hike one-half mile to one mile up the canyon and drop a nymph into the stream and let it carry down stream into a pool.  Then work your fly back up through the pool and stream, paying attention to the occasional bump of a hungry trout cautiously feeding below the surface.

The second spot that my field scouts say is producing right now  is the confluence of the East Fork and the tail waters of the  San Gabriel Dam. This section of the canyon may be one of the San Gabriel River’s most productive sections. It has several things working for it-- large numbers of stocked trout that are carried down stream, fast flowing cold water, and, most of all, holdover populations of trout from the waters behind the dam (including a small resident population of brown trout that were introduced decades ago to control the dam’s burgeoning bluegill population).

If you’re a trout fisherman in Los Angeles County you don’t need to drive 200 or 300 miles to the Sierras to get a line wet. Excellent trout fishing is right at hand. Just take the 210 Freeway to Azusa Avenue (Highway 39), go up the canyon and turn right at the East Fork Bridge.  There’s plenty of open water, ample rainbow trout and abundant unspoiled scenery. Give it a try but leave a few acrobatic rainbows for me.—Jim Forbes 08/07/2009.

 

n.b. Valid California Fishing License and a Forest Service Day Pass are required (and must be dispayed on your car). the pass can be purchased for a few dollars at the Forest Service hut on the south side of the San Gabriel Canyon Road as you enter the canyon.

First '09 Trout Opener Reports-- Fuller Lake and East Fork San Gabriel Dam Confluence Both Recommended

I’m singin’ those “Sierra Trout Season Opening Day, Cause I’m stuck in San Diego Again” Blues this morning.

I hate when  my two best trout scouts call me long distance to tell me they caught quick limits by 10 AM, and are “going to nap.” It’s calls like this from members of the “Neener-Neener Brigade” that makes me want to take them  out albacore fishing and have a little game of “Pay Back” by innocently reaching over with my fishing pliers and accidentally cutting their line when they’re trying to land an albie in my boat.

I really wouldn’t do that, but I have thought about it.

But my buddies are pretty excited about the ‘09 trout season. The angler who turned me on to Fuller Lake, (which is about 10 miles east of Grass Valley, CA on Highway 20), reported he limited out in less than an hour, hooked a lot of trout but returned everything under 13-inches. John P. doesn’t lie about fish so I expect he has a stringer of big fat rainbows and one or two large spring brownies—which are most often caught at Fuller at the inflow of a small creek not far from the old Auburn Rod and Gun club building.

He told me that the best producing fly so far have been midges tied to #20 hooks and woolies on #14’s. I wish I were there right now, or,

Fishing the East Fork of the San Gabriel River at its sand and rock-rilled confluence with the San Gabriel Dam.

Occasional fly fishing partner Billy C (a highland Scot who lives in Arcadia CA) told me this morning that the rainbows are surging up from the San Gabriel Dam in what he assumes are “spring spawning runs.”

The East Fork is my natal fishing stream. I may pop up there next week for a couple of hours; since it’s unlikely I will be able to get up to the Sierra for at least two weeks.

You don’t need a lot of skill or expensive equipment to fish anywhere on the East Fork. My “outfit” consists of a pair of cut-offs, my good luck, but ripped savagely by my young cat, “Dan, “green, pink and yellow tie dye t-shirt and a pair or nasty old Converse athletic shoes. I fish the East Fork with a seven-foot limber rod, and a 6x tippet in front of a nymph tied to a #18 hook or midges on smaller hardware. I also carry a small selection of deerfly and other patterns, but most of my luck on the East Fork has always been with nymphs or midges.

Oh the horror: I’ve also been known to use bait at the confluence of the East Fork and the San Gabriel Dam. My best results have always been with Pautzkie’s premium salmon eggs on a laser sharpened egg hook attached to an unweighted line floated down stream. If the rainbows are there, they’re likely to hit a salmon egg when everything else fails and when they do, don’t be surprised when they go aerial or head down towards the dam.

And that’s this years first report on fishing at Fuller Lake and on the East Fork of the San Gabriel River at  it’s confluence with the San Gabriel Dam.  Happy Fishing!—Jim Forbes 04/25/2009.

The San Gabriel River's West Fork-- Fun Bicycle Fishing for Young and Old.

  

A stretch of the Almost Wild West Fork, pools, rills and trout (photo Local Hikes Inc.)

While most of writing about Los Angeles Countytrout fishing is limited to posts about the San Gabriel River’s East Fork, there are other venues to catch rainbows.

            The much smaller West Fork here for example. Fed by a small handful of streamlets from drainages to the west of highway 39 in the Angeles National Forest, as well as a small discharge from Cogswell Dam, the West Fork of the San Gabriel River offers great access, clear cold water and stretches of barbless-hook-only catch and release fishing.

            While I’ve seldom caught West Fork trout longer than 12 inches, this stream is a fabulous place to introduce novices to fly fishing, or to merely strap a fly rod and fly wallet on the back of a mountain bike and explore a phenomenal primitive riparian habitat. One word of caution: be sure to pack in enough drinking water to remain well hydrated since there is no drinking water on the near nine mile well marked trail up to Cogswell dam.

            Mountain bikes are the best way to explore the West Fork. Park your car near the gate and begin pedaling up the trail. There are several great places to get your line wet, trying to tease native or other rainbows into taking a fly. Most of the West Fork’s best fishing spots begin about five miles up the trail in a series of small rills that flow into sandy bottoms or small rocky ponds. Overgrown streamside brush most often necessitates tight roll casts or side casting. My best results have always been with light five foot tippets and small midge or mosquito pattern flies tied on # 16, 18 or 20 barbless hooks. Because the West Fork is overgrown for much of it’s length, I use a custom six-foot, three-inch, fly rod with a soft tip.

            The combination of small flies that match insect patterns, a light tippet and a rod with a soft tip has worked well for me on the West Fork. So have a bicycle, short pants, a mood expressing t-shirt my ancient JC Penney tennis shoes, as well as a packed lunch, two bottles of cold water and the unshakeable belief that you’re will catch a huge trout, this trip.

            Alas, while you’re almost certain to get a few hits on your fly, when you manfully rip lips, what you most often catch are little five or six inch dinks. But there are bigger fish here; you just need to keep your eyes open for pools near small water falls, confluences of small year-round inflows, and dark objects darting in and out of the dappled shadows.

            Do make sure to load your fly wallet with an assortment of insect patterns on small barbless hooks. The insect hatch on Midspring mornings has to be seen to be believed.  So do the trout, jumping for their food from a brain-freezingly cold wild stream.

            I’ve always fished the West Fork using barbless hooks and catch and release techniques. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn’t. I always come back with more flies in my wallet than I started with.  You find those expensive flies in overhanging branches or deep inside stream side poison oak bushes.

            But at the end of any West Fork fishing trip with young novices, there’s always the near seven or eight-mile  high speed coast back down the trail, then highway 39 down to Azusa, for a late lunch at Carmens’, La Tolteca or In-N-out, all on Azusa Avenue.—Jim Forbes on 2/07/2007

Fine Fall Fishing Except for the Gold Dredgers-- up on the East Fork

I took a quick trek up the East Fork of the San Gabriel Rive last week. I threaded my fly rod, tied on a 6X tippet and mottled minnow fly and started hiking up the river from the parking lot beyond the East Fork Ranger Station.

            Fall on the east fork is one of my favorite times to fish. Mornings are just cold enough to help lower stream temps, the smattering of wild oaks are beginning to color up, and the river flow is down enough to make fording this still clear stream a simple task.

            In fact I was able to make two crossings by walking across river stones. By early October rainbows get really spooky. I make my approaches as quietly as possible and use high spots on the trail besides this stream to  looking for moving shapes facing upstream, tail fins ghosting just enough for the fish to maintain steerage as they wait for prey to come scooting out of stone strewn rills.

            The great thing about this fishery in the fall, is that the fish are hungry and as long as you don’t scare them by splashing through the water like a crazed water buffalo, the rainbows can be teased into biting. I counted 10 fish before I rolled my fly into a pool at the base of a rill about two miles upstream from the Ranger Station.  No joy, and the trout sortied to safety through water that unfortunately was slightly muddy.

            By this time of the year, much of the upper East Fork runs clear, although the water level seems down this year.

            I tied on a tiny midge fly and smiled as I saw it land upstream and float over the pond. The flash of silver with a stripe came off the bottom of the pool like lightning and gulped my fly in an instant. I gently coaxed the fish streamside and scooped it up in my net. This fish was destined for my memory bank, not the pan, so I took a quick moment to look it over. Its scales were clean but the fish wasn’t very active.  I unhooked it, cradled it in the water and felt it surging back to vibrancy. But there was one more thing I wanted to see, so I gently pried open its gill cheeks and looked at inside.  Damn, they seemed to be loaded with fine sediment, which interferes with the fish’s ability to get oxygen from the water.

            I put the fish back in the stream, let him recover and with a flick of his tail, he was gone, none the worse for his encounter with me.

            I gathered my net, rod and reel, had a quick pull of water from my canteen and walked another half-mile up the stream. The noise coming from around a bend in the stream confirmed my guess; gold dredgers, sucking up gravel and recirculating dirty waste water back to the stream.

            Approaching the bend in the East Fork I instinctively glanced down to the side of the stream, where I saw 13-inch trout fins up and very dead, caught in some weeds. I picked up the fish, looked at its gills and saw that they were muddy. I placed the native one-foot rain bow in my creel and shouted up the canyon, hoping my voice would carry over the noise of a small muffled four-stroke engine chugging away.

            While most gold seekers seem to enjoy being alerted of a third parties’ presence, I don’t take a lot of chances when I’m travelling alone. Better to be heard than surprise a lock jawed 30-year-old prospector with pin wheel eyes who suspects someone is out to rob them of  a few hundreths of a gram of flower gold they’ve taken from a stream.

            I asked how they were doing and gave them the fish. They didn’t want to talk so I ambled on, making 10 to 20 more casts before I beat feet for my car and the 95-minute drive back home to Escondido.

            I’ve grown up realizing that the Angeles National Forest and the East Fork of the San Gabriel River are multi-use recreational areas. I fundamentally understand that my love of fishing does not overrule some else’s enjoyment of gold prospecting.

            But when I find dead native rainbow breeding stock asphyxiated by amateur gold dredgers, I get a little pissed off.—Jim Forbes on 10/06/2008.

 

A Forgotten East Fork Tributary and Two Tussling Rainbows-- The Wild Fish And Shy Big Horns Are Still There

I had to make a hasty trip to my Mom’s house in Azusa—which has been sold and is now in escrow—and made a spur of the moment decision to throw my fly rod, fly wallet and creel in the back of my car before I left.

            My business with the realtor took only a few minutes so I jumped on Highway 39, hooked a right  at the

East

Fork

Bridge

and motored up the canyon.  Looking out my passenger window, the East Fork looked cold, clear and willing.

Thinking it may be a while before I got up there again, I broke my routine to try a tributary where I’d seen 12 and 16 incher jumping at the morning bite a couple of months ago.  I parked the  Prius, tied on a seldom used dorky minnow pattern I’ve used before and headed up a high trail adjacent to this seldom-fished  feeder stream and walking to a wide spot in the trail where I could look down into a deep pool.

            My first thought was “Holy Crap! It’s loaded with big trout.”

            I did a quick count before I walked quietly down to a spot upstream of the pond, thinking it had been years since I had seen any part of the

San Gabriel

River

’s East Fork system with more than  six fish holding in one pond.

            My first cast was from eight feet away, the 4X tippet and fly gently landing and carrying into the pond.  I saw a trout flash silver and head upstream towards my fly. It hit.I missed. 

I retrieved, smoothed the fly and roll casted back up stream of the lying-in-wait trout.

            I was ready for the hit and surprised by the trout’s run to the bottom of a frigid pool.  I gently brought him to the surface, stepped into the stream and had him off the hook in less than two minutes.

            At about 10:30 the pool exploded to life as trout jumped at a late morning hatch.

            I opened my fly wallet, checked my tippet to make sure it wasn’t abraded, stretched or frayed and tied on a coachman on a barbless #16 needle sharp hook. Three casts, and one more fish that wanted to run. I put it back and watched it fin its way to the bottom of the pool.

            The tinkling of dislodged granite on the north facing slope above me signaled I wasn’t alone. The image of  hoof prints of wild bighorn sheep by the side of the stream and the physical memory of two more trout caught in a small stream that’s only 30 miles from downtown

Los Angeles

got filed in  the part of my brain dedicated to a life time of East Fork memories. I took a long pull from my water bottle and hit the trail back to my car.

            Slipping back down the canyon I glanced over at the little arroyo down stream from

Camp

Williams

where I planted an oak sapling in memory of my aunt, Bonnie Sele, one of the two girls who lived on the East Fork as children in the first two decades of the previous century.

            Swirling cigar smoke from a contraband short Cuban made me think of old-timers who taught me how to fish this small stream and whose stories of wild trout that interbred with returning steelhead to produce fierce San Gabriel River rainbows, left me awestruck all those years ago.

            Soon I was back on the freeway to

Escondido

. My ties to Azusa and the San Gabriels may be temporarily severed by the sale of my boyhood home, but I know where I can go anytime to bathe in the memories of my youth, and maybe catch a few nice trout too.—Jim Forbes, 07/31/2008.

 

(author’s note: I deliberately didn’t mention the name of this specific East Coast tributary but the hints of a north faciong mountain and evidence of mountain bighorn sheep should give it away. Have fun and leave a couple of rainbows for me, please!—jmf)

Perfect River Conditions and Willing Trout--Best East Fork Trip Ever

The combination of warm early spring sun on top of some recent rain (which translated to snow on the slopes of Mount Baldy and Iron Mountain on the San Gabriel River’s East Fork made for one of the best fishing hikes I’ve ever made on the East Fork.

            Parking at the trailhead just up from the East Fork Ranger Station on Friday, I thought I might ry to make it up to the Bridge to No Where and Fish my way back down the canyon. Alas, walking up the East Fork, my plans were derailed after I noticed that pools up and down the watershed were filled with trout. I made my first cast into a pool about two-miles up from the ranger station. I zipped my barb less #16 wooly into the cold waters of the east fork and got a hit by a 16-inch rainbow that wanted to run, jink and jive among the not yet worn smooth of this classic East Fork trout pool.  My 4x lightweight tippet lasted a whole 10 minutes before it gave out as I tried to horse the fish to within range of my net. I tied on another fly and 4X tippet,  roll-casting the rig at the top end of a small rill where I thought there might be a few ‘bows waiting for tasty bugs to come wafting down on the icy clear current.  I guessed wisely and my fly hadn’t floated more than five feet down stream before a fat rainbow grabbed it, I set the line and stepped into the water, determined I would land the bow that began jumping within one minute of my hooking it.

            I lwt the fish perform his trout acrobatics for a couple of minutes, mindful not to put too much pressure on the line, but hopeful I could maneuver it close enough to my spot on the rocks that I’d be able to net it. There was enough fight in the fish to light up my hopes that it was a native wild East Fork rainbow. Bent over with my net in my right hand and my rid and reel tucked under my left arm, the fish made one last run just as I got it near to my net. Three minutes more and Mr. Rainbow was in my net. I looked at the fish closely and noted it blunt nose and dullish pink side. Oh well, “a feisty big stocker that’s porked out over the winter is more than “OK” I thought.

            I unhooked him, stepped into a deeper part of the river and let him swim away, to tease a fisherman another day. Although I could see more rainbows as dark torpedo shapes flashing their red or green sides in the reflected morning sunlight in the deepest sections of the pool I wanted to test my luck in waters further up the canyon where a lifetime of experience and countless stories over holiday dinners has led me to believe there is a much higher concentration of wild native fish. Beside, another guy my age and his seven-year-old fishing buddy were rigging up and wading out down stream from me.

            “Any luck?” they asked.

“Yup a couple of nice feisty rainbows and the pool looks really loaded,” I said as I took my disgustingly dirty t shirt off and used it as a screen to see what kind of bugs were hiding under boulders.”

The young fisherman earned a lot of points in my book by wandering over to see what insects were trapped in my shirt “Hellgrammites and nymphs” he said correctly. I slipped my short sleeve shirt back on, said “have fun” and hit the trail up the stream.

From down river, I heard words that made me smile “Hey gramps, looks like we should be casting nymphs, woolies and hellgrammite flies.”  The kid had it exactly right. It always warms my heart and makes me smile to see another generation of kids refine their knowledge of this world-class trout stream, only 42 miles from down town Los Angeles. Even if it means that I face more competition for trout, more informed fishermen is a very good thing for this stream and it’s future as a spot where avid fishermen using inexpensive gear trick a few trout up using basic flies.

After another hour of hiking I came to what is my second favorite spot on the East Fork, a large pond formed by an old hand made stone dam near an abandoned powder house made of cemented river stone. I took a minute to climb to a place on the trail where I could see down into the pond.  After seeing six or seven trout rise to snag bugs on a late morning hatch, I walked quietly down to the eastern edge of this majestic pond and cast an old dry Coachman pattern fly on a small barb less hook about 20- feet down stream.  I was intently staring at the fly as I worked it back upstream.  I saw two fish dart from the edges of the pool towards my fly but both fish interrupted their runs and seemed to loose interest as the fly neared my rod tip on the retrieve. Four casts later and I had a hook up. The trout pressured my line and bent my rod tip. I let him take a couple of pulls from my reel, hoping that the resistance of my floating line would tire him enough for me to see the fish before I could get it into position for my net. Only 30 seconds after I fed this fish some line, I was treated to a nice native 14-incher with crimson red sides imitating a Polaris sub-launched rocket twisting over the water in a fantastic jump.  Looking at the fish in mid-ai, I saw that my fly had fallen to the water. The trout turned and for a half second before he landed, I swear that old homegrown rainbow smiled at me. And, that’s hard for a trout to do. They have very stiff lips.

My problem was two-fold with that trout. I don’t think the hook on that fly has been sharpened in ages and I should have paid more attention to the retrieve.  Never mind: I had more flies and I knew there were definitely more fish where that one came from.

  I merely tied on a new barb less hook I knew was laser sharp and made two more casts under a midday sun so bright you could see all the way to the bottom of the pool where experience has taught me that really big natives hang out, waiting to teach me new tricks.

I fished for another 90 minutes, catching and releasing three more 11- to 13-inch trout with well-defined snouts and bright colored sides.

            In a life time of fishing the East Fork, broken only by serving overseas in Viet Nam and a two-year period living in Washington, this could well have been my best trip ever up the San Gabriel River’s East Fork. The river is clear, cold and swift. The trout are rested, hungry and eager to rise to a fly.

            So,if you’re a Southern California fisherman looking for a top-flight fishing experience, load up your gear, make sure you have a valid fishing license and Forest Service Outdoor Pass, and head up the East Fork.

            It’s spiritual fishing at its best and it doesn’t require an airplane reservation, or a $500 shopping trip to an Orvis outlet.

            Besides, any place where a trout throwing a fly as it jumps and smiling at me as it does so is my kind of fishing paradise.—Jim Forbes, an old Azusa boy on 03/08/2008.   

Thoughts on Fishies and Dams Plus Video of the Glenn Canyon Big Water Release

I come from a long straight line of surveyors and other professionals who played witgh, mapped, moved or otherwise mad a living with dirt. Part of that tradition is an appreciation and fascination with structures that have been built to store water.

To this day, I consider dams examples of engineering prowess and the absolute proof of many things trigonometric. When I pass by a dam, my natural reaction is to stop and look at it’s face and glass the pools and downstream flows for the reflected flash of jumping trout or the dark torpedo shapes hovering at the base of rills or small natural falls. Driving past the lakes created by dams, I look for signs of fish on the water and try to locate confluences of fast flowing natural streams with the dam’s corresponding lake.

But as much as I love dams, the radical trout and salmon fishermen at the core of my soul recognizes that horrific impact dams have had on riparian habitats that were once clogged with spring run steelhead, fall run king salmon and year-round abundant stocks of wild trout. At MaForbes’ house in my ancestral home in Azusa is a photo of her family when she was a girl of about three. The photo was taken in the San Gabriel canyon at a spot now covered by the millions of cubic yards of earth and stone that form the San Gabriel dam. On a stringer held up by my grandfather, William Sele and his brother, Jim (who patriotically changed his name from “Otto” to Jim during the first World War) Sele are about seven 25-inch or longer king salmon, a couple of silver salmon, three bodacious steelheads and several fine messes of native rainbow trout -- a couple of which appear to have been old enough to develop proganthic, undershot, hooked jaws. It’s one of the most spectacular fishing shots I’ve ever seen and it was taken on my beloved East Fork, before it’s two dams were built.

While I enjoy looking at dams I do not like their effect on trout and salmon populations. Put a dam on a river and watch the trout disappear with the seasonal river flows.

Hey, I recognize this makes me a curmudgeonly fishermen here in the land of the great Cadillac Desert. I’m willing to live with that as long as I can still trick the occasional rainbow to hit one of my ancient scraggly flies up on the east fork of the San Gabriel River, where you can still catch wild tail-dancing trout.

But back to dams. One of the real demonstrations of man-induced power is watching a dam keeper open up big 8- or 12-foot release valves and venting thousands of tons of water in a couple of minutes. Growing up in Azusa, I’d see the valves open up at the bottom of Morris Dam every couple of years, generally during or after rainstorms. For a brief couple of days, the water release would bring the San Gabriel’s River bed back to life-- for a bit.

This week the operators of the Glenn Canyon dam on the Colorado river opened up their primary release valves in an effort to flush silt from portions of the Colorado River. The video of this is so impressive I thought I would post it tonight. So…without further ado here’s what happens when you crack open a big dam’s release valves:

here

Free the native Mojave Chub and the humpback fish!

Somewhere down stream from that dam the fishes are screaming: “Yippee” as they ride the tidal wave down to the next dam on the Colorado River.--Jim Forbes, on 02/05/2008, rod and real ready for a trip up the East Fork, later this week.

Looking for Old Gold Diggings but Finding Wild Bighorns-- up on the East Fork

OK, I admit it. Late in life, I’m becoming a gold bug. Like most Californians who get infected, I associate finding gold with wading through icy cold streams, getting very muddy and spending a lot of time hunched over looking at gravel. I suppose my case of Gold fever is attenuated by my love of trout fishing. Where I grew up in Southern California there are as many legends about huge trout as they are about weekend panners that sometimes get really lucky and find a few flakes of pure gold trapped at the base of a natural rill in a seldom hiked portion of the East Fork of the San Gabriel River north of Azusa.
But, unlike a lot of gold seekers, I understand that the gold you find in river courses generally comes from a hidden seem of granite or auferious quartz, somewhere high in the mountains near rivers. And that knowledge, coupled with the loud noises of the ungodly remodeling project in my house in rural San Diego County, is what drove me to so something today I haven’t done since I was a teenager—take a long hike up a little traveled canyon that winds it’s way up the slopes of Mount Baldy. Carrying my quarter sectional map, my field glasses and a geologist’s hammer along with a cell phone with a fully charged battery, a packed lunch, two canteens, my space blanket and a light weight jacket I hit the trail mid-morning.
My goal was to hike uphill for three hours looking for signs of 19th century mining activity.It didn’t take me very long to find signs of exploratory mining. Back when it was quite fashionable to use explosives to move DG (decomposed granite) shale or other mineral formations to find quartz or other minera l seams. Using my field glasses, I found several piles of overburden that had been blasted to expose dim white quartz seams.
I spent a very pleasant four hours picking through geologic detritus to see if there was any evidence of color. Not surprising there was no sign of gold. But I had a very nice lunch on top of a small ledge at about 2,500 feet elevation. Spread out in down in “civilization” was much of the East Fork drainage and a view of the Whittier Hills some 45 miles away.
I did see something though that really caught my attention, a small herd of wild mountain sheep making their way back up Sheep Canyon towards safe cover on the sides of Mt.Baldy. The wild big horns in the San Gabriel Mountains are tough wily creatures. In a lifetime of hiking up here I’ve only come close enough to see individual animals a handful of times.
Watching these thickly fleeced wild things, I saw them break stride and pick up speed ascending an ancient game trail. A brief flash of tan fur one half miles behind gthe sheep made me understand why the sheep had taken off. I guess a puff of wind ha carried the scent of the bob cat far enough up the canyon to alert the bighorns.
The sun was moving down to the west when I scrambled down the slope, rejoining the trail through Sheep Canyon just up from where I had seen the bobcat. I stopped and looked at the prints in the wet brown dirt of the canyon floor. They were 4 to 5 inches wide and her loping stride was long enough for me to realize she was probably it was a mature 30 to 40 pound cat.
I didn’t find any gold and I may never hit a seam, but when I need to escape the madness of a remodel, it’s always nice to know that the wild things are still out there, if you take the time to be quiet, sit and watch. Jim Forbes- 1/02/2008.

Five Days on the 2007 Fishing License and I'm up River on the East Fork-- Yet Again

I just finished celebrating my last Christmas in the house I grew up in the small backward town of Azusa, CA.  To celebrate this somewhat iconic occasion, I packed my fly rod put on my well used fishing shoes and headed up the San Gabriel Canyon to tease a couple of trout from my the wild section of the East Fork, the small stream that’s melded me to Azusa since I was a young boy.

            While others are looking at Orvis catalogs and thinking of the Spring opener, I’m slogging up the east fork, warm in my nylon coat, crossing this sparking cold watercourse four or five times to get to my favorite pool at the base of a set of close rills three miles north of the East Fork road head.

            I’ve made the slog up the East Fork so many times. I hike up automatically, taking the time to listen to mule deer clumping their way though the chaparral as I invade their stream front. A distant redtail screes and quail erupt from the edge of the trail, flashing low and left, seeking cover yet again. It’s a scene that imprints instantly in my brain, little different from the images of 15 and 25 years ago.

            It’s officially winter and the East Fork is up about six inches. 25 yards upstream I can see a pair of dark green torpedoes facing the base of the chilly rills, so I hit the river about five feet up from the fish with a zip cast that amazingly puts my #16 wooly fly exactly where I want it. I make a couple of pulls on the line as the fly skirts the end of the rill where I can see the trout repositioning themselves facing up river.

            In the blink of an eye I see a flash of bright red moving topside and briefly glimpse the trout sucking the fly in. I go tip up and tight line with the world’s cheapest ($8) fly rod and feel the flash of the trout as it tries to throw my fly. In five minutes the wild rooster rainbow is streamside.  I unhook him and gently let him swim away upstream.

            This portion of the East Fork is my absolute favorite place to fish. If the sun is out, it’s bright and unless someone is dredging up stream, the water is almost always cold, clear and fast. In 30 minutes I catch two more trout. I look at my watch and think that my feet are getting a tad cold.

            Soon, it’s time to head back to my car. I trudge downstream and glance back up the canyon. The soft sound of the East Fork is something  I store safely in my mind, along with the memory of strong, untamed wild trout that I’ve caught and released. I’m just an Azusa boys, who discovered the joy of nature that --only 39 miles from downtown Los Angeles—is still so untamed that mule deer are free to drink streamside without ever seeing a human and where it’s still possible to see wild mountain sheep, ghosting on game trails that are so ancient, they precede time. Oh, and where the wild rainbow trout gene ppol predate missions, express lanes and pioneers.

            Three trout on the East Fork with only five days remaining on my 2007 California fishing license?  Life doesn’t get much better for a kid, who found his own private retreat all those years ago, to the north and east Highway 39. Jim Forbes 12/26/2007.

Tail-Walking Wild Rainbows--A Reason to Hike and Fish The Upper East Fork

    Because I've covered the bottom half of the San Gabriel River's East Fork wonderland pretty extensively,  I've decided that it's time I did my bit to increase trail traffic up the canyon and write about a couple of my long kept secret spots for rip-lipping fun catching very crafty native rainbows and increasing your luck in panning for gold of engaging in a little nugget shooting.

    So let's hunch a little deeper into our rucks, check to make sure we have a lot of water, at least three days worth of high energy chow, a good basic rod and reel and some basic understanding of terrestrial directions. I wan to write  about the real East Fork wilderness, which begins on the upstream side of the Bridge to Nowhere and goes all the way to Wrightwood, on the northern face of the San Gabriels.

Hiking up to Wrightwood is no small undertaking. It's 25 miles or so of back country humping that's guaranteed to teach you the real meaning of the elevation lines on the topo or quarter section map you should have stashed in your back pack before you begin this ass kicking journey. If you're a dedicated wild trout fisherman you may not find a prettier or more challenging section of any river to fish than the upper reaches of the East Fork.

Warnings!

     If you attempt this hike be cure to take a jacket and enough food to last 23 rugged miles. And the first thing you should do is check in at the East Fork Ranger Station to make sure someone knows you're on the trail, and what your destinations are. Also, the Ranger station-- which staffs the wilderness patrols that hike the upper East Fork regularly, will have current information on trail closures and the trail conditions.

     Do not make the mistake of thinking a cellphone is a good safety device. Unless you're able to make from the water's edge to the tip top of a 5000 foot Peak like Iron Mountain, you're not going to be able to connect to a cell network until you get in range of the towers in Wrightwood or along the Angeles Crest Highway.

     Once you've checked in , it's time to begin the first day's slog-- about 9 miles from the East Fork Ranger Station, over the Bridge to Nowhere, Past the East Fork Narrows and on to the primitive campground at Iron Fork, which makes a good first day's overnight destination and takes about six hours of trail time.

    Do take time to poke around the East Fork and Iron Fork for native rainbows.  You'll find them hiding in deep holes and along the undercut banks in their home riparian habitat. I've had a lot of success fishing this stretch of the East Fork and its tributaries using flies, salmon eggs and a variety of lures (including my two all time favorites: a red and gold Colorado spinner, and a small red and white rooster tail). This far up the river, I only use barbless hooks and unless I have a really big 'bow, I practice catch and release fishing.

     Heading up the East Fork you're next two destinations are relatively unknown primitive campgrounds: the aptly named Fish Fork and the almost never visited Prairie Forks.

     Growing up, I benefited from the in depth piscatorial knowledge of East Fork legend, the late Sedley Peck and his wife Flo. Hiking up the East Fork, I'D often encounter Sedley,  trailing up or down the canyon. In addition to an encyclopedic knowledge of gold mining in the San Gabriels, Sedley was a saint for pointing us to under fished holes way up in the canyon. He was almost always right and the contents of my creel often attested to it.

     Meanwhile, back to the East Fork and the uphill slog towards Wrightwood: Based on my observations, as well as a small handful of other regular wildlands fishermen I know, the trout population between Fish Fork and Prairie Forks may be much denser than you might suspect. I know of several fishermen who have taken 18-19-inch native rainbows between these two destinations in cold clear water. The biggest rainbow I've ever caught in this section was about 16-inches, and I took it about 1.5 miles upstream of Iron Fork.

     It's been a while since I've been up to Prairie Forks, but what I remember is seeing numerous trout jumping after bugs on the afternoon hatch, and hooking a couple of tubby one-pounders that delivered impressive tail walking displays in an effort to throw my hook.

     But amateur gold panners can have as much fun as serious fishermen in the upper reaches of the East Fork. Work a few pans of gravel and sand and you're very likely to find a little "color." It's the persistent memory of finding color above the confluence of Iron Fork and the East Fork, as well as similar waters around Fish Fork that makes me believe this section of the Angeles is definitely worth exploring on a casual basis.  Beside, there's this little glass bottle here on my desk that contains enough gold flakes to keep me interested.

     The home stretch of this hike-- up to the end of th trail in Wrightwood is a tough slog at altitude, do stock up on carbs for your final meal before hitting civilization and meeting your ride home.

     If you're afraid of an uphill hike, but want to fish wild sections of the East Fork, there's nothing wrong with making it a down-hill jaunt by starting at Wrightwood and humping down to the East Fork Ranger Station.

     Some final words of caution; check in at ranger stations before you begin and notify the rangers before you head home. Tread lightly, practice catch and release fishing and take out all your trash.

     One final tip from an old East Fork hiker. if you go up in the Spring when there's still snow on the surrounding slopes, be aware of changes in the weather. If you get caught in a warm rain, get out. Fast.    

    The East Fork can come up two or three chilly feet from snow melt in a very short time. Having said that, on one trip in the sixties my buddies and i raced down from Iron Fork in a warm rain in about 5.25 hours.  By the time we loaded into a car for the ride home to Azusa, the background noise from the river had gone from a persistent gurgle to a loud roar as the East Fork went quickly into ripping flood mode.

     Have fun, catch a couple of trout for me and maybe wash one or two pans of gravel and sand, looking for gold. And if you're up there on 11/08, I'll be the big old dude huffing up the canyon with an old red ruck with a rod and reel strapped to its side.--Jim Forbes East Fork bound later this week.