By Lambe Lamis 
Fishing for Large Sierra Golden Trout
Just one of the primary variables in deciding my backpacking destinations is centered on fishing for Golden Trout. The California Golden Trout was designated the official condition fish of California in 1947. Hatchery- lifted fish extended the vary of the golden trout to several waters at superior elevation in the Sierra Nevadas and also other states.Their indigenous populations are now strained because of to the introduction of invasive species and habitat destruction and their introduction in to the large elevation lakes has strained other native plant and animal species.
The coloration of the California golden trout is spectacularly vivid. The belly and cheeks are vivid red to shiny orange, the decrease sides are shiny gold, the central lateral band is pink orange, and the back is deep olive green.
Early Sierra settlers have been as enamored with golden trout as present day anglers are right now. Natural beauty this sort of as this, they reasoned, should not be confined to such a little place.
Early 1900s Kernville resident Ardis Walker wrote
“A lot of of the pioneer guests to golden trout waters reacted with a desire that was practically compulsive they shared a typical missionary urge to distribute the golden beauty and daily life of this native habitat to the barren waters of additional elevated and extra easterly and northerly lakes and streams.”
It was frequent follow for settlers to have golden trout in buckets of h2o on the backs of mules for up to a week at a time, stocking 1000’s of fish along the way. Some stored meticulous documents others none at all.
Reports on the influence on vegetation and the Yellow Legged Frog due to stocking of trout in normally fishless high sierra lakes led to the stop of this exercise and now golden trout are found only in higher lakes (10,000+ toes). They are no for a longer time stocked and are only identified in lakes wherever they are self sustaining.
To reverse the hurt finished to the Yellow Legged Frog and other plant lifetime non native trout species have been taken out by gill netting. The best fishing has traditionally been in lakes at, or around the Kern headwaters and to the south. These include Lake South The united states, Crabtree Lakes, Wright Lakes, Wallace and Wales Lake among other folks. Recent excursions have found the fishing not as good in some of these lakes but nevertheless quite sturdy in other individuals.
I launch most of the fish I catch because it is illegal to have camp fires at the higher elevations in which the fish are found and cooking them on a stove is tough. If you like the style of fresh trout it is well worth it. On a latest excursion I spoke with a veteran backpacker and fisherman who reported that she poaches them. That is one more solution which I have not experimented with.