Backpacking for Goldens in Kings Canyon

After our snow-shortened trip last year where we only visited 2 of the 4 lakes I had hoped to fish, I called for a re-do. Let’s head over the same pass again but try to get back into the lakes we missed last year. The winter in the Sierra was pretty dismal again, which made the hiking a bit easier but the fishing not quite as hot. We still managed some nice ones though… 🙂

Saturday, July 14, 2018

We had reserved a permit for Sunday, but a Saturday start would give us more fishing time for a Friday exit. We called the ranger station on Friday afternoon and confirmed that there were still permits available for our pass, so we woke up at 3 AM in hit the road to get in line before 8AM. We ended up snagging the Saturday permit without issue and headed up the mountain ready to get into the backcountry.

The goal was to get to the tarn just below the pass the first day, then hop over and fish for the majority of the second day. It was a slog going up the hill with little to no sleep, but I kept it slow and steady. The views of the mountains and thoughts of big Goldens kept me going. After the long day we cooked dinner and got in the tent before the sun had even gone down. I was hoping for a good nights sleep, but like usual I slept like crap.

Sunday, July 15, 2018

I had been waiting for this day for an entire year. We would get to fish one of my favorite back country lakes for an entire day – I had visions of 18″ Golden’s jumping through my mind. After breakfast we negotiated the small snowfield at the top of the pass and made our way down to the lakes in the canyon below. When we got our first view I noticed right away just how much less snow there was this year. It’s amazing how much had changed in just 1 year.

Two hours later we had camp set up and hit the water, but something was different this year. The lake was still that tremendous aqua color, but it was murky and the fish weren’t close the shore feeding. My hypothesis was that the incredible amount of rain this area saw just the week before dumped a lot of sediment into the lake which made it murkier than usual.I tied on my trusty simi seal leech with sinking line and went right to my sweet spot from last year, but got absolutely nothing.

Eventually my brother worked his way over to the outlet and caught a few in the shallow slowly moving water. The fish were in post spawn mode, still near the outlet but not actively reproducing. It seemed like they were seeking out the clear oxygenated moving water.

We eventually moved down to the lowest lake in the canyon wanting some faster action, and had a blast on a dry/dropped setup. Little guys need love too.

That evening just before dinner, I headed back up to the lake with larger fish in an attempt at redemption. It turned out OK.

Sunset that night was vintage.

Monday July 16th, 2018

This was going to be our longest day of hiking, 8 miles with 1300 ft of elevation gain. 4 miles on trail, 4 miles off trail. We headed out onto the bench and then dropped down to a well used trail and followed it up into another high elevation basin. I was really looking forward to this part of the hike because I had heard so much about the beauty of this part of the Sierra.

It seemed like there was a crystal clear lake framed by a jagged looking peak in a granite wonderland after nearly every twist of the trail. I can see why this area is so heavily visited, it’s heavenly.

We ate lunch in one of the grassy areas along the trail before going off trail into the land of many boulders. I had read that this area was famous for the amount of boulder hopping, but it exceeded my wildest expectations. It was a moonscape with lakes filling in the cracks – Golden Trout heaven in other words.

It took 1.5 hours to hop around the upper lake and find a campsite on peninsula. It was hot that day and would be for the next three days, so we jumped in the lake to wash up and cool down. That feeling of a warm summer Sierra breeze blowing the cold water off your body is indescribable.

We eventually got down to the business at hand, would this lake hold some nice fish? I started stripping a black leech in the area of the inlet, but only got a few nibbles. I switched to an olive one and nailed a 13″ chunky golden trout. Nice.

The fishing wasn’t the fast, in fact I would only manage one more fish that evening on an olive scud pattern but that one fish would make all the boulder hopping worth it. I hooked into my largest Golden to date an 18.5″ male with some battle scars from a osprey or eagle encounter.

Tuesday, July 17th, 2018

The plan was to move camp again to an even more remote lake, but my brother and I opted to day hike instead while my dad rested at camp. It was 4 miles of off trail hiking over some rather large rolling hills that looked flat on the topo map. 80 ft lines just don’t do 200 ft hills justice. It was tougher than I thought it would be, so I was glad we did it with light packs. The scenery was pretty decent.

We finally crested the last hill and got our first glimpse of the lake. It was big in it’s own little cirque. Half surrounded by granite and half by alpine meadows. I loved it.

We started near the outlet and didn’t get much further, there were quite a few fish circling around looking for food. They were post-spawn at this lake too and it was awesome. I tied on a dry dropper rig and they kept hitting the copper john. It was a fun couple of hours that I shared with my brother.

My personal favorite from the trip.

The hike back seemed to go by a bit faster than the hike there because I knew what to expect. We made a pit stop at the outlet of the lake we were camped at but got skunked. Oh well.

Back at camp we jumped into the lake again to cool off, made dinner and enjoyed the warm Sierra evening.

Wednesday, July 18th, 2018

It was time to turn around and head back to the car, but not before I had a chance to fish the inlet by our campsite one more time. Maybe there would be another monster?

My brother and I fished for four hours that morning but only landed 3 fish. I had north of 20 hits, and at least 10 fish on but none landed. Lots of long distance releases. It was just one of those days.

We at lunch, packed up and headed back the way we came – hopping one boulder at a time back to the trail. Once on the trail we ran downhill to the lowest lake in the basin away from the chasing thunderstorm. That afternoon marked a change in weather, it went from being scorching hot to threats of thunderstorms. We snagged a campsite and avoided the worst of the storms which hit the basin just to our west. The storm blew threw early enough to do some fishing for the tiniest of Goldenfs. They would hammer the dry fly at every opportunity.

The evening was warm, windless and had some left over clouds from the afternoon showers – it was one of the best sunsets I’ve ever experienced in the Sierra. There was all kinds of wildlife out including grouse, deer, birds, marmots and the endless rings on the lake. I wish I was a better photographer so I could have done that evening justice.

Thursday, July 19th, 2018

The plan was to retrace our steps back to the east side of the pass to setup an easy exit for the next day, but we got such an early start and hiked pretty quickly back up into the canyon that we made the decision to head out a day early.

That didn’t stop me from busting out my fly rod during a snack break to get some last minute fishing in though. It was a fun hour of fishing landing 4 fish on dries.

The first one was especially memorable because it took me for a ride – by far the hardest fighting fish of the trip.

These were fun fish to catch on a dry fly.

I packed up my rod around 12 and we made a beeline to the car. Clouds were starting to build and we wanted to get down the mountain as fast as possible to avoid any potential storms.

Well, we didn’t.

Once on the other side of the pass it started to rain lightly, then hail lightly, then hail the size of marbles, then hail the size of gumballs, then finally hail the size of QUARTERS. It was ridiculous.

It hailed for 2 hours straight and left 3″ of ice on the ground. The trail was completely flooded and we were soaked. We took shelter underneath some trees twice as the size of the hail increased and as the lightning became more active. There was one strike that was so close the light and noise were instantaneous. Scary.

Eventually the storm rolled by, but the trail was a giant flooded mess. There was nothing we could do but keep walking and that’s what we did. We reached the car by 3:30pm that day and were thankful to have a warm change of clothes waiting for us. Quite the ending to the trip.

Overall, I was pretty happy with the trip. The fishing was a little slow at times, but we got to hit 3 lakes the all held big Golden’s and I caught my largest Golden to date –  that’s definitely bucket list worthy.