I spent early September hiking in Sequoia and King's Canyon National Parks. I was out for 9 nights and we were hiking mostly on the Pacific Crest Trail. We started at Onion Valley which is north of Mount Whitney and we exited at Cottonwood lakes to the south. My friends don't fish but I was still able to fish every day except two, one day it looked like a thunderstorm was going to hit and then on the last day we hiked 22 miles to get back to the car so I never had a chance to string up the rod. But to say that the fishing was great would be an understatement. I caught most every fish on dry flies and while it took me four days to find them, on day four I found the fish I came for, Golden Trout. These fish are the most beautiful fish I have ever caught and they live in crystal clear water surrounded by mountains, I was constantly stunned by how gorgeous everything was.
Highlights of the trip:
*Catching a brook trout on my second or third cast of the trip
*Catching the majority of my fish (99%) on dry flies
*Catching my first Golden Trout on a fly I tied myself
*Getting a Sierra Grand Slam: Brook Trout, Golden Trout, Brown Trout, Rainbow Trout.
*Climbing to the top of Mount Whitney, and then catching a Golden in Whitney Creek a few hours later.
*Fishing/hiking up Wright Creek on Big Horn Plateau until I got to one of the lakes. It was a very John Gierach moment for me.
Here are some photos: https://goo.gl/photos/fwLtF9JvSnivtQbk9
Couple of notes of gear: I carried my 3wt Redington Butterstick, which was just perfect. I ditched the rod tube and instead bought a lightweight plastic tube used to protect fluorescent light bulbs. I cut this down to size and while not as protective as a rod tube, provided just enough protection and saved me about 13oz. For the most part the fish wanted dry flies, size 16-18, and my most used patterns were an ant I tied and stimulators.
I did most of my fishing in crocs, which worked surprisingly well. As for an early discussion about hiking boots, I hiked in Scarpa Cruxes. While these are technically an approach shoe for rock climbers, they were amazing on this hike as we were often on exposed rock and they had great grip. They also were great when i only had a bit of time to fish during a lunch break as I could scramble around the creeks easily.
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