We’ve hiked to Rainbow Falls countless times and have been fishing the upper middle fork of the San Joaquin River for years, so we thought it was finally time we tried our hand at fishing below our favorite waterfall. The results definitely got us thinking that the falls may really be named after a different kind of “rainbow”…
Rainbow Falls is one of the must see places in Mammoth Lakes, California. The San Joaquin River plunges 101 feet over basalt columns as it heads west towards the Pacific Ocean. It’s a typical tourist trap with thousands of people visiting every summer (we’ve personally visited several times before, including last summer), but this year we decided to turn the hike into some fishing. We had always heard there was good fishing below Rainbow Falls but we wanted to check it out for ourselves.
We got up early to get past the guard shack at Minaret Summit and drove to the Rainbow Falls trail head. There were already a few cars in the parking lot and another family was gearing up for the day. We put on our wading socks and boots and walked a little over a mile down to the view point.
There was a fire about 10 miles south west of Reds Meadow which was causing some smokey days in Mammoth Lakes that week, but this morning was mostly clear. The sun was just coming up over Mammoth Pass and it was throwing some awesome light, even through the smoke, above the falls.
After snapping a few pictures at the view points, we hiked down the trail a couple hundred yards where it was easier to access the river (the lower view point trail to the bottom was still closed for construction).
We rigged up and almost immediately got some nibbles! We fished our way up towards Rainbow Falls catching quite a few natural rainbows and browns.
The river had some huge boulders that were an absolute pain to get around, but it was completely worth it when we rounded the corner and saw the falls.
It was one of the coolest experiences we’ve ever had: fishing our favorite river beneath a giant waterfall. On top of the views, the fishing was pretty darn good too! Each of the likely holding spots had a few fish ranging from 4-8 inches and we caught three different species (a surprise Brookie made an appearance).
We had fished our way all the way up to the base of the falls, when we suggested to Tyler, who was ahead and also outfishing us, try fishing the huge pool at the base. We didn’t have high expectations so boy were we surprised…
Tyler hooked up on his first three casts and we happened to capture it in one of our favorite fishing photos we’ve ever taken:
After watching Tyler slaying it, we made our way to the base to get in on the action. Every step we took the spray from the waterfall got more intense. The temperature was 15 degrees cooler than 30 yards down stream and we were getting soaked, but it was so much fun casting foam ants and pheasant’s tail nymphs to voracious rainbow trout. Nearly every cast yielded a vibrant wild rainbow and they weren’t small either! They seemed to be getting fat from all of the food that was being churned up by the waterfall.
After an hour of fast action we took a break for lunch at the lower view point. The main trail to the base of the falls was still closed, so we had it all to ourselves. We talked about how (unexpectedly) fun fishing at Rainbow Falls was, and Tyler responded, “They should call this Rainbow Trout Falls!”
