South Fork Merced River Brown, Rainbow Trout

 

We began fishing early Thursday morning by gaining access to Big Creek at the Highway 41 bridge in Fish Camp, California. Why the tiny settlement is named that, I haven't discovered, but 18-inch browns are rumored to be hiding in the creek within walking distance of the three-bedroom house we stayed in. I had forgotten to pack my waders, but not my wading boots, so wet-wading would have to suffice. I figured that would be no problem.

Well, the water of Big Creek is so cold my calves numbed painfully, and I wasn't about to wade up to my waist while attempting to move upstream along the brush-covered banks. I managed to fish four or five closely bunched runs while my son, Matt, fished downstream of the bridge. We saw no trout and got no hits. He tried a Wooly Bugger. I tried a pheasant tail nymph.

Matt asked me where next, and I suggested the South Fork of the Merced River in Wawona about 12 or 15 miles distant. Working out the directions--I left that to him, and as always he did an excellent job. We entered Yosemite National Park for the second time, since the previous day we did a lot of hiking and taking it easy beneath enormous pieces of granite about three times as tall as the Empire State Building. 

One of those hunks is El Capitan, rising 3600 feet above the sand where we ate lunch along the Merced River main stem. A bridge crosses, and from it Matt spotted five or six rainbow trout eight to 12 inches long busily rising where no caster could get to them. The river is wide and the depths there of about 20 feet accommodated a fallen pine laid out a distance of about 80 feet in the upstream direction. I had a look on the other side of the bridge, spotting a rainbow of 15 or 16 inches steadily rising to bugs but immediately at the edge of additional stuff in the water. Again, not accessible to a cast. Our rods remained in the SUV we had rented, anyway.

Matt had me hang a right onto a roadway no wider than a one-lane passage, but we never encountered any vehicle coming at us. The SUV my wife and I had rented is a huge, seven-passenger Chevrolet Traverse, and throughout the nine days I drove it, I never really got over the comparison to my Honda Civic. The Civic is a lot easier to drive. Regardless, to have driven a big SUV many hundreds of miles for more than a week was an experience perhaps worth the added gas cost. It certainly was easy to stow all our stuff. 

We might have stayed on that road 10 minutes until we came to its end in a large lot. Matt had told me swimmers go there and use a swinging bridge. He would be proven right on both counts, but I won't go into details just yet.

There was one car in the lot, besides our pet polar bear, the Traverse. We geared up, Trish bringing along a book and carrying water bottles and snacks in a backpack. Just as we got on the trail, the owner of that vehicle and apparently her young daughter approached us. We exchanged greetings, and the three of us walked on, soon coming to a large pool that looked plenty deep, though I underestimated that depth. The gin-clear water made 10 feet seem half that. At the head of the pool--Swinging Bridge.

"Dad, why don't you fish this one? I'll go downstream." 

That made things relatively easy. Even so, I didn't want to traverse rounded boulders the size of living room furniture with my camera hanging from my neck. I averted serious injury when tumbling from the Lake Aeroflex dam in June, so I sort of figured I could do the same again. But getting away with it-- without damage to the camera--seemed like pushing my luck.

I set the pheasant tail about four feet below a little strike indicator. Having stripped line for an initial rollout, that indicator got about 12 feet out into a pool that must be 80 feet wide. Immediately, a rainbow about nine inches long came at the fly, but it turned back. Maybe it saw me, though I froze. I got more distance from my second roll cast. Evidently, the thing to do was to just let that fly hang. Its bead head got it down underneath relatively fast. The surface was calm, current was all but nonexistent, and though I thought slight wave action would impart tempting action to that fly, it didn't take very long for a rainbow about the same size to appear in my view and hit. I set the hook and saw the mouth open quickly, the line limp. 

I decided to increase the distance between fly and indicator, got the arrangement even further out to where I could see a big boulder down eight to 10 feet deep, and reared back when that indicator shot down towards bottom. Nothing on. On one of the casts that followed, the float went down about halfway its centimeter width and then no more action came. Finally, after I got it out as far as I could on a roll cast--halfway across the pool--it jiggled twice before I set the hook and a silvery rainbow was on. I used a nine-foot five weight, and as a fly rod and a little 11-inch trout go together, the fight is not as exciting as it is on a microlight spinning rod. 

No camera. No way was I going to carry the trout over to my wife where I had left that camera. I got the hook out, lifted the fish for her to see, and quickly released it. Rainbows are native in the park and all must be released. Browns and brookies are amply allotted for meals, and by what Matt told me, the fisheries people want you to take them home, since they compete against the native fish. 

I  continued casting but soon got in touch with Matt by cell phone. He had caught a little six-inch rainbow from a riffle and had seen more in the pool. He ended up going upstream, while I descended upon his pool, by then emboldened to carry the camera around my neck. Very keen on getting a trout photo too! As regular readers of this blog know, I've suffered very serious back trouble since early July, so the range of my movement is curtailed. That hasn't stopped me at all, but I do play within limitations.

Matt's pool was half as wide as mine and had substantial flow. I repeatedly cast, having set the distance between pheasant tail and float at about seven feet, covering the possibilities, becoming discouraged. I came to feel as if fishing little trout were as difficult as steelheading before I made a long cast almost against the opposite bank. The little pink ball--my indicator float--jiggled. I set the hook. The rainbow leapt two feet into clean Sierra air twice. I got it in close to the rock I stood on. The hook came free. A 10-incher that had fought harder than the bigger one I caught shot back into the depths. 

Strategically, I avoided casting back to the same spot. I wasn't thinking loudly in my mind that the spot needed to settle down, but I behaved according to a nonverbal thought. I knew what I was doing. It doesn't always have to be stated. I don't believe in "instinct" because those actions so-called are learned responses. After four or five casts and drifts I felt positive: That my next cast would be interesting to say the least. I placed it so the float would drift (slowly there) right to where the rainbow had hit. When it did get there, the float shot under the surface so hard and fast it must have gained eight inches before my rearing back set the hook. Felt like a pretty good fish and it fought hard coming back to my side of the river. Brown trout!

I got the hook out and the fish slipped out of my hand. Going for it thrashing on the rock sloping to the water, I exceeded my range of movement. I went into a sort of pirouette of a fall but caught myself. Thanks to cleats I had set into the soles of my wading boots. I could have destroyed my camera. Not to mention a bone. On the way to my wife while holding the fish tightly, I wasn't as focused on the walking as should have been. I stepped where wet moss covered granite and almost fell again! And as I had begun walking some moments before that misstep, a swimming crew of bikini-clad women arrived. After that, I never could return to the spot I had suffered for, feeling certain another trout or two might have hit.

Swimmers were in the hole above, too. I crossed Swinging Bridge--it swings--and made my way upstream on a trail 50 feet above the river. I had spoken to Matt on the phone, who said he found a dam with 15-foot depths behind it and wanted to stay up there a while. I had also got a chance to fish my pool again after sitting a while with my wife, but no fish were interested. I walked maybe half a mile upstream and never got to that dam, feeling frustrated at how difficult the access to water. I guess one should not complain. You're legally allowed to fish the river up there, so if you won't make the effort, the trout remain plentiful. 

Back where my wife sat and my brown remained in the river nearby on a stringer, I found Matt. He had come down on the other side. Skunked, besides the little rainbow from downstream. He showed me the Wooly Bugger he used on a leader that had been cut back to 12- or 15-pound test. I tied on a new leader and a tippet for him. The water is gin clear. Tippet of 6X or 7X is best. 

We traveled more than an hour to get to our next spot on the Merced River main stem. Trish had gone into a convenience store to buy water, when she asked the clerk if he fished. 

"Yes."

"Do you know where we can catch trout?"

"What kind of fishing do you do?"

(Trish later said he suspected her of using bait.)

"Fly fish."

He told her to drive 10 minutes downstream and named the motel across the street from the pullover. Matt and I cast for about an hour. Into the obvious stretch and upstream. I swear that once my indicator shot for bottom just as it had for the brown, but when I reared back, nothing was there. There was no rock there nearer the surface than others, which my pheasant tail might have got stuck on momentarily. It had a good drift, only I was a little concerned that only seven or eight feet behind the float, it rode too high off bottom. Regardless, I drifted that bead head repeatedly, the float on the leader almost where it connected to the fly line, while Matt fished a dry fly, getting some really good distance from his casting. The river was wide there, and near the opposite bank we saw a really good fish--I'd say two pounds at least--break water.    

 

I found "easy" access upstream to one little pool but didn't take it.

From the trail, 50 feet or so above the river.

Merced River inside Yosemite National Park.

Near where we pulled over and I got this shot of the Merced River downstream of Yosemite Valley proper, boulders exist the size of houses.

Matt casting at what I called the obvious stretch on the Merced.

The upstream stretch on the Merced. Again, appearances deceive. Much larger than it looks. 

My physicist son remarked that the Yosemite formation should never have happened, which struck me as odd, since the day before I said something about the evidence of the senses, and he took the opportunity to point out there's none for God. He's an atheist with a finely-tuned appreciation for spirituality, and I'm sure that after I replied about the statistical unlikelihood of the formation's coming together, I may raise the issue again to talk more about it.

Hunterdon County Trout