Hiking through the backcountry of the Sierra Nevada can be both humbling and exhilarating. We spent 6 days hiking up and down mountains in an attempt to catch some trophy fish. The fishing was similarly up and down, including a complete skunk and a personal best golden trout.
When I started planning the 2021 edition of the annual Sierra backpack, I was tempted to loop in some of the lakes that produced the skunk of 2020, but I resisted and instead targeted 3 brand new lakes to me. Two had goldens and the other rainbows. After 14 trips into the Sierra backcountry, you’d think I would have seen it all from a fishing perspective, but that’s just not the case – a testament to the number of lakes that can produce big fish in a mountain range that is typically not renown for producing them.
As the trip inched closer and the desert heat ratcheted up in Arizona, the skunky feelings from the prior year started to return, especially after seeing some early reports of lakes completely thawed by Memorial Day. Repeat? God I hope not.
Well, as you can probably tell from the banner image, the skunk did not return. In fact, I ended up catching my personal best Golden and was lucky enough to share it with the same crew from the previous year – my dad, brother and best friend Jeffrey.
Day 1 – July 3, 2021
We got an early start hoping to carve out plenty of fishing time at our destination for the first night. The trail started quite mellow before kicking in to gear with some nice switchbacks.
I had been over this pass once before in early July of 2011 – a huge snow year – and was scarred by having to hop across 2 foot wide and 3 foot deep suncups for nearly two miles. I knew we wouldn’t have any issues this year with a mediocre snow pack and warm spring, but there was still a little relief when we entered the canyon that had previously been filled to the brim with snow and saw a nice trail.
We stopped at the top of the pass to fuel up on Uncrustables (gdamn they were delicious – getting nostalgia writing this) and trail mix. After walking just a bit further down the other side of the pass our target came into sight.
I was expecting to cross country most of the way around the lake with some rock hopping, but there was a solid use trail that stayed high above the lake and then dropped down to the outlet where there were a couple perfect campsites.
It would probably be a good time to mention that the weather forecast predicted a chance of thunderstorms for that afternoon. Just look at those clouds in the picture above! Do they look suspicious?! Definitely a little sus for 11AM.
With our eyes on the clouds we setup tents and hit the lake searching for those elusive golden trout. The good news was there were many signs of life with a ton of cruisers swimming past us. They didn’t seem super interested in the stuff we were presenting, but still encouraged us to keep at it.
After a couple hours Jeffrey and I had each landed a fish, both about 10″ and interestingly not very golden in color.
At this point the clouds went from “side-eye” to !!! as the pass we had just climbed over disappeared in the rain. The rest of the afternoon we got in and out of the tent between each wave of rain clouds. We didn’t wander too far from the outlet because the waves came often. The longest we were in the tent was around an hour, but it was quite pleasant with the cooler temperature. I even managed a little nap at one point.
After the longest wave of rain the sun peaked out for a little bit so I jumped at the opportunity to keep fishing. I grabbed my pole rigged up with a leech, crossed the outlet, hopped out on a rock and started casting. I should also note that I forgot my backpack and camera – well maybe not forgot but consciously left them back at the tent – because I didn’t think I’d be out there very long.
Well, guess what happens when you forget your backpack full of fishing gear and your 1.5lb camera that you just schlepped over that 12,000 ft pass?
First, you snap your leech off on your fifth backcast (idiot).
Second, you graciously accept your friends offer to use his spinning rod because you can’t tie on a new fly to your own rod.
Third, you hook into massive golden on your second cast with no proper camera to photograph it (idiot).
Luckily, Jeffrey had his iPhone, so I was able to document the biggest fish we caught from this lake.
After a few more waves of the storm and eating dinner, I set off to take some pictures of golden hour and fish until it was too dark (don’t worry I actually grabbed my camera and fishing gear this time). I managed to catch one more 8″ fish on a leech.
Day 2 – July 4th, 2021
The theme of this trip was the up and down nature of both the hiking and the fishing. The hike for day 2 involved 1700 feet of elevation loss and then an equal amount of elevation gain spread out over roughly 7 miles.
The first half of the hike was a breeze. It was a pleasure walking in the cool morning air, down hill through some gorgeous terrain. We took a short break at the trail junction before heading up into the valley that would be our home for the night.
After climbing through a thick old growth forest, the trail crossed a creek and the trees began to thin into the typical subalpine landscape of the Sierra – open meadows with stunted lodgepole pines, willows and a small creek making its way to the Pacific.
Looming at the head of the valley was the peak we were going to camp under that evening, while looking back provided some nice views across to the divide. These views would only get better the higher up we climbed.
We encountered our most stunning wildflower display on this part of our hike. The Lupine were in full bloom at the higher reaches of the valley in the open meadows. Most of the other flowers we found were still getting ready to bloom. There were a lot of unopened buds, which is typical of early July even in a low snow year.
We got to the lake a little after noon pretty well exhausted, but some lunch and the potential for some huge fish reinvigorated me. So after setting up the tent on the only possible campsite within a half mile I set out with my rod and camera.
I started my usual routine of slowly walking the shoreline making blind casts while trying to spot cruisers. Usually I can get a sense pretty quickly if the lake is going to produce, and this lake worried me immediately. The only signs of life were several giant Yosemite Toads that I spooked into the lake and their equivalently large tadpoles that were swimming in the shallows.
Jeffrey eventually caught up to me and we decided to circle the entire lake and do our due diligence. Unfortunately the results stayed the same. Absolutely nothing, not a nibble and not a fish seen. Whiffs of the 2020 skunk were coming in strong.
After 5 hours of chucking metal and feathers attached to hooks into the lake, we were discouraged and annoyed, but that’s a part of seeking out lakes deep in the backcountry. You can walk for 2 days only to get there and not see a fish, like we did.
The soft evening light plus the views cross the valley eased the annoyance and also helped us decide to eliminate our planned zero day at this lake. We all agreed to keep moving in an effort to find fish and the creek at the bottom of the valley looked particularly appealing for dry fly action. Perhaps we could get Jeffrey his first fish on his own fly rod!
Day 3 – July 5, 2021
Packing up in the morning kind of sucked. I wish the fishing at the lake was good enough to spend an entire day there, but it just wasn’t worth it. Our new plan was to hike down to the creek to setup an equal length uphill hike the next day to our last target of the trip. It was an easy hiking day filled with a lot of small fish and beautiful scenery.
The first stop was the lake just below where we were camped which was full of rises the evening prior. On our short hike down the hill I came across these pink Lemmon’s Indian Paintbrush and had to stop to take a picture.
This small shallow lake was filled chunky 8″ brookies that were quite hungry until exactly 10AM, at which point they decided stopping the sun from burning their eyeballs was more important than eating. It was fun while it lasted!
The rest of the morning and early afternoon was spent retracing some of our steps from the day before and then continuing even further down the valley to the spot where we would cross the main creek and head up a new canyon.
We found a large horse packer camp at our trail junction right next to the river and used it as our camp site for that evening. The creek near our campsite was mostly pocket water with a steep grade and the fish were holding in any deeper water with slightly slower current.
In the very first hole, my brother pulled out 2 beautiful 6″ rainbows before Jeffrey jumped and caught his first fish on his own fly rod: a 3″ brookie!
We explored the creek for a couple hours and managed to stumble upon a gorgeous meadow. It reminded me of Yosemite Valley with the meadow, creek and sharp peaks in the background. Definitely one of the most picturesque spots on the trip.
We caught many rainbows, golden/rainbow hybrids and brookies that evening and it was a blast. It was perhaps this moment where Jeffrey finally understood why me, my dad and brother had all quit the spinning rod in favor of the fly rod. I think I will get him there eventually, but it will be a multi-year process.
Day 4 – July 6, 2021
In my mind, the hike for day 4 was going to be the second hardest part of our trip. It involved close to 3000 feet of elevation gain in 5 miles with only the smallest of use trails to guide us. My deepest fear was losing the use trail, making some bad decisions and ending up in a giant bushwhack on steep terrain.
Luckily, none of that fear materialized and we were able to navigate our way up the drainage without any major issues. We started with two creek crossings and found a really nice use trail that lead quite a ways up into the valley through the most scenic part of the entire trip. The creek we were following had such a nice flow and was flanked by grassy edges on either side – it just begged for a cast, but I resisted and opted to snap a few pictures instead.
It wasn’t much further than this where we hung a left and began to climb into an even higher hanging valley. This stretch was pretty brutal despite the small trail we were able to follow. We might have gained over 1000 feet in a mile, but as usual in the Sierra, when you put in the sweat equity the views usually pay off.
Finally the terrain leveled off and through the trees we spotted a pretty little tarn. We opted for a packs off break here and sat in the shade on the banks watching small golden trout cruise the shallows looking for food. It was such a pretty spot, I didn’t really want to get up.
But we had to keep going up the valley to the upper lake. Side note: why are all trophy golden trout lakes at the very upper lake in the drainage?! They’re so bougie.
After climbing some granite slopes and passing a tarn, we got to the middle lake, which was Jeffrey’s favorite of the entire trip. Once again I noted small goldens swimming in the shallows and told myself we could come back here if nothing was going on at the upper lake.
We arrived at the lake around noon, ate lunch, and setup the tents. It was BLAZING hot with zero wind, so we all took the opportunity to jump in the lake and freshen up. I’ll save you from the video of me jumping in and howling like a child because the water was so cold. I will say, I made the brilliant decision to leave my shirt on and just let it air dry, which kept me cool all afternoon.
There were two unique things about this lake:
1) It had the longest and nicest beach I’ve ever seen in a Sierra alpine lake. It was probably 500 yards long of perfect beach sand. It seemed like the braided inlet creeks had deposited the sand into the lake from somewhere above.
Tyler even took off his shoes and waded out on the sand to get a little closer to drop off and it reminded me of someone fishing the salt flats in Florida.
2) the shoreline was crawling with caddis larva. There were thousands of inch-long larva encased in small pebbles clinging to the rocks and sand around the edges of the lake. We grabbed one and took it out of it’s shell and it was huge with a black front and yellowish body – October Caddis aka big fish food.
I knew then we were in for a treat; there are only 3 other lakes that I know of that have October Caddis in the Sierra and each of them produces monster fish (but I seemingly keep finding more each year from my own trips or other trip reports). I wish I had taken a picture of one, but this article has some great information about their life span and role in trophy trout fisheries.
I just happened to have an October Caddis larva pattern in my box, so I tied it on and started stripping it in very slowly. I think I had 4 hits on 25 casts, but didn’t manage to hook any of them. There was some doubt in my mind that I was maybe catching the bottom with the sinking line, so I switched to floating line and not more than 15 minutes later this happened:
My personal best golden trout: 18″ and 2.5-3lbs. This is by far the biggest golden trout I have ever landed. I caught one and lost one of similar length in 2018 but neither were as hefty as this female.
After a few pictures, I put her back in the water, nursed her back and forth and then she torpedoed back into the depths.
What a start. I had so much adrenaline pumping through me that I just sat down, hands shaking and contemplated what had just happened. This is the type of moment that every backcountry fisher person hopes to experience – catching the fish of a life time at a lake seldom visited and protected by miles of rugged wilderness.
It’s kind of weird if you think about how many miles I put in to catch this 1 stupid golden trout and harrass it for 5 minutes before ultimately letting it go to live another day, but there’s just something about these elitist fish and the crazy mountains they live in that make it worth it. I don’t know, man, maybe I’m crazy?
Spurred on by the ginormous fish I just caught, Tyler, Jeffrey and I fished hard for the next couple hours, but only managed to land a handful of fish in the 8-10″ range, which are perhaps a testament to the self sustaining nature and diversity of the population in the lake.
My dad toted his Helinox chair around the lake, sitting when we stopped to fish, gazing up at the surrounding peaks and admiring our A+ casting (sarcasm).
Around 4:30pm a bald eagle (!!) flew up the canyon and did several laps around the lake, also looking for some goldens. It couldn’t seem to find any fish shallow enough to grab so it flew over to the talus above us and perched on a rock. I attempted to photograph it, but with my wide angle lens it was pretty futile. Maybe you can play “Where’s Waldo?” and find it in the picture below.
On our way back to eat dinner, Jeffrey found a hot spot near the outlet where quite a few fish were still milling around post-spawn. He caught two quickly that I was not there to photograph before he let me jump in. First cast and I hooked into a nice one.
He stretched out around 15″ and was fantastically colored. Two goldens over 15″ in a day including a personal best was unreal.
Jeffrey and Tyler both managed another fish to cap off a memorable day of fishing.
This campsite offered the best sunset views of the trip, so like usual, I attempted to capture the golden light and alpen glow as well as I could. I thought the light playing off the jagged peaks was quite stunning.
Jeffrey and Tyler attempted to fish a portion of the shore that we hadn’t been to yet, however Jeffrey lost a lure in the shallows and Tyler had to answer nature’s call, so the fishing session ended abruptly.
I thought this picture of the three stooges sitting in their chairs gazing up at the alpen glow was pretty sweet. Why these three keep following me into the backcountry – I have no idea – but I am thankful they keep doing it.
Day 5 – July 7, 2021
Our first layover day! It was great to have a lazy morning and “sleep in” until 7AM. While I was crushing my stroop waffles my mind wandered to where we had been, how far we had hiked and wondering what this day would hold.
My dad was up earlier than the rest of us, per usual, so he hit the water while I was contemplating life. He yelled that he was hooked up with a fish not long after his first cast, so I ran over to take photographic evidence.
After the first fish I hung around and chatted, which was a good idea, because just a few casts later he hooked his fish of the trip, a fully colored up 16″ male golden.
Stoked on his fish, I kicked it into gear and grabbed my daypack and fly rod and hit the water in hopes I could land another trophy.
One subplot I should mention was: I had started the day prior with 3 October caddis larva flies and through catching a few fish and poor casting I managed to damage or lose all of them. Luckily I rifled through Jeffrey’s flybox in the morning to see if he had any similar patterns and it just so happens he had 3 of the same fly, so Tyler, Jeffrey and I all tied one on. We each had 1 of the “hot” flies to last us the day!
On my first cast with Jeffrey’s october caddis larva fly, I hooked a nice 13″ male that had a vibrant red stripe along its side and red gill plate.
Tyler stepped in next and hooked up pretty quickly, but then it snapped him off!
“WHAT THE F***?!?!” echoed around the lake as he lost his only October caddis fly pattern.
Jeffrey was third in line and planned to fish with both fly and spinning rods for the day. As new fly fisherman tend to do he didn’t time one of his forward casts correctly and “SNAP!” – his line broke and fly gone forever.
So, in a matter of minutes, the three of us had gone from cheerful optimism to pitiful sadness. Oh well. Tyler tied on the fly my dad used to catch his big one, Jeffrey switched to the spinning rod and we moved on.
The plan was to circle the lake in the opposite direction as the day before so we could see the entire lake and make sure we didn’t miss any hot spots the day before. The first part was shallow for quite a ways out and didn’t seem to hold a lot of fish, but eventually we worked our way to the deepest portion of the lake and Jeffrey was able to lure a fish from the depths on a panther martin.
It was getting pretty late in the morning at this point, and the fishing had been pretty darn slow after our hot morning session. I was getting discouraged, so I went to a rock that Jeffrey had caught a fish under the day before. This rock was large and had a deep overhang into the lake providing a shady spot that seemed like a typical golden trout hideout.
I cast out and stripped my fly right under the rock and BOOM, big hit with a heavy pull. I immediately yelled to Jeffrey I was going to need him to take a picture for me. Once I got the fish up to the surface I quickly realized I wasn’t quite hooked into another monster, but rather a 12″ football. It was a shorter, fatter version of my fish the day before.
At this point it was time for a snack lunch with Tyler and Jeffrey. We sprawled out on the grassy shore near the grandest beach in the Sierra and filled up on peanut butter honey bars, beef jerky, and trail mix. This was a different lunch compared to most of our snack lunches, though. We had some great conversations about life.
Like, what would you do if you had a 1 week vacation to do anything in the world? Unlimited budget.
Our ideas included flying around the entire world, visiting each continent, renting out (if that was even possible) the entire Yosemite Valley so you could enjoy it in peace, road tripping and day hiking though the Colorado Rockies, and finally, spend a week fishing the great trout streams of western Montana.
Even after lunch we weren’t too motivated to fish, given the slower fishing and satisfaction of catching some nice fish already. Instead we jumped in the lake to cool off again and sat around in our camp chairs and enjoyed each others company with many more of those life conversations.
I should also add that our friend Mr Bald Eagle decided to come back for another try at a golden trout (and who could blame him)! Once again he circled the lake for 5 minutes, but with no fish in sight, pulled up a rock near the outlet instead of the talus like the day before. After a few hours contemplating his fate, he decided that he had had enough and took off once again. After one circle of the lake he headed towards the talus on the far side, where he dazzled us with some incredible flying skills.
He rode a thermal of some sort from lake level all the way over the nearly 14,000 foot peak without a flap of the wing. He just flew in a perpetual circular stair case until he was high enough and then took off further into the wilderness. It was easy to see why they are the kings of the sky. I wish I could just spread my arms and gain 3,000 feet in elevation!
After dinner, I once again set out in an attempt to get a few different angles of golden hour. I think these are perhaps my best golden hour images of the trip.
Day 6 – July 8, 2021
The hike on day 6 was supposed to be a short but rollercoaster of a cross country hike to some small lakes that would set up an early exit on the final day. I had even allowed for some fishing time in the morning if we were so inclined, but given that we had all sufficiently scratched the fishing itch over the last 5 days, we agreed to hike all the way back to the car. If you’ve read my trip reports before, this is typical for our group – the death march final day to get real food and a shower, likely a day earlier than planned.
We got up at 5:30AM and were hiking by 6:30AM because we knew (but not really) what was coming. We had to gain 1,000 feet, loose 500 feet, gain 2,500 feet, then loose 3,000 feet over the course of 10 miles. Most of it off trail.
The first pass was a pretty easy and enjoyable hike. Route finding was a piece of cake and there was just a couple hundred yards of dreaded boulder hopping.
We walked by a small tarn half way to the pass, and if you look closely in the image below, there is a giant mound of sand at the opposite end of the lake. It is the nearly endless supply of beach sand to the lake below. Had we not walked by it in the morning shade, it would have been a brilliant aqua due to the glacial silt.
Once we finally crested the pass, many famed high Sierra peaks came into view, but most importantly our second pass of the day. When we sat down to take packs off for a second, the daunting view and corresponding dread slowly replaced the euphoria of cresting our first goal. Man that thing was way up there and we had to go way down there first!
We went up and to the left and over the low point in the distance. 
En route to pass #2
You’ll have to forgive me for not taking very good pictures during this stretch, I was thoroughly testing the capability of my lungs and heart climbing up 2500 feet in a couple miles. I did manage to take the picture below of our crew chugging up the hill with some more famous volcanic mountains and the first pass we came over in the background, but my wide angle lens probably doesn’t do it justice.
I did manage a few pictures once we crested the pass though, because we were blessed with Sky Pilots at the top! Seeing them in 2021 marks the third year in a row where we’ve come across them in our Sierra rambles and they never seem to disappoint.
At the top the wind was absolutely whipping, which gave it a wind chill likely in the low 40s – quite different than the heat and subsequent lake jumps we had done the past couple days. Tyler, in his typical daredevil nature, climbed the rock out cropping above the low point for a better view. This was way past my comfort zone given the wind, but you do you, bro.
Tyler in his perch 
The view from said perch
The interesting part about this pass is the easiest way over is not actually the low point, but rather a high point some 150 feet higher. The terrain on the other side is much less steep or in other words, ropes are not required at that high point.
The view from the top of the ridgeline was really cool and paints the picture of how steep it is. Tyler took one from his perch with my camera and the second image is from Jeffrey’s iPhone of Tyler working his way over to some terrain that was a little less steep.
The next 2 miles were some of the hardest I have ever hiked. It was steep and we had to walk over large unstable boulders: a dangerous combination. Large stable boulders- fine. Small loose stuff – worse but fine. Big loose stuff is just the worst.
My dad, who’s 65 (almost 66) and still puts up with my crazy trips, fell 5 times and bent his hiking pole between the picture above and the picture below. Luckily none of his falls resulted in serious injury, but there was a little blood, a bruised ego, and mental fatigue.
We made it down past the seemingly endless boulder field after 2.5 hours. Yes, you read that right. 2.5 hours to go 2 miles – downhill! At the bottom there were a couple of beautiful lakes with some nice shade where we took an extended lunch to refuel for the remaining 3.5 miles. It was a glorious break and one that we desperately needed.
The good news was the last stretch was some of the flattest terrain we had covered on the entire trip and there was a nice wide trail the whole way. We turned on warp speed, or at least as high as we could go at that point, and made it back to the car in an hour and twenty minutes. It felt so good to take the boots off and dunk my head in the creek near the parking area. All told it took us nearly 10 hours to go 10 miles (including breaks) that final day, but the shower and California Burrito (should have snagged a picture, rookie mistake) certainly made it worth it.
