This is the first Sierra trout opener in a lot of years that hasn’t found me somewhere up east of Sacramento doing what I really love, catching a limit of feisty tail-walking, fly gulping rainbow trout that strain lightweight tippets and dare you to bring them to the edge of a stream before they take off fo razor edged rocks lining chilly but clear fast flowing mountain streams.
Alas, fate conspired to keep me around my little mountaintop in rural San Diego County while others experience of the joy of the trout opener up north. Boy, am I seriously bummed about this.
But I did the next best thing last Thursday: I hiked up the San Gabriel River’s East Fork, which is open for fishing year round, my 6.5 foot rod clutched tightly in my left hand, and whipped a fly that wasn’t matched to the bug hatch up stream of my favorite rill and started ripping lips.
God, I love the East Fork. It’s soul food for a one-time redheaded Azusa Boy now gone silver at the temples. I’ve never had this stream disappoint me and my last trip was no exception. Once I decided to tie a small nymph on my long tippet and managed to roll cast it softly to waters six feet upstream of a long rill three miles up from the ranger station the river came alive. In about two hours of fishing I caught and released four ten inch or less colorful native bows, as well as several small dinkers.
I did have a tight tussle with one ten-incher. He was a nice rooster with the beginnings of a hooked jaw and the territorial manners of a pissed off barracuda. It only takes one such fish a year to keep me focused on the East Fork.
As of late May, the level of this stream is still up and its flow rate makes me think it could be a good year for this ancient streambed.
I turned over a lot of rocks on my way up the stream, looking to see how many hellgrammites and other tasty trout bites were present. The one big surprise this trip was the presence of large numbers of grasshoppers in a stretch beginning about two miles upstream from the ranger station. What really alerted me to their presence was seeing a couple of colorful rainbows jump for their breakfast. And that’s all I need to see to convince that large sections of this river are not just “viable.” They appear to be thriving.
To those of you willing to make the hike up to the approach of the Bridge to Nowhere in search of native fish, I’d like to suggest hitting the downstream stretch about .75 miles from the bridge where the stream widens against the western edge of the canyon. It has the right combination of cool waters, rills and pools that trout love, and it has the food supply growing trouties need.
If there’s a stretch of water more evocative than the East Fork anywhere in California I have yet to find it. Every time I’m up there I can’t help but listen to the echoes of fishermen long gone, who know much more about these waters than I do and big trout, hiding in shaded cold clear pools cackling their fins off at another generation of kids from the San Gabriel Valley who tread lightly, cast softly and listen to the gentle wind banking off the southwestern slopes of Mount Baldy.—Jim Forbes 05/28/2007.
Comments