TR Kern River

I had planned to fish the upper Kern River three weeks ago. The river was
running about 400 CFS and clear. Unfortunately, the flu bug bit me and I had
to postpone the trip until last weekend. By the time Harry and I arrived in
Kernville last Thursday, unseasonably warm temps had caused some early
runoff and the river was running about 1000 CFS and muddy. Pretty much
unfishable unless your quarry was kayaks.

Acting on some info from the local fly shop and also from the proprietor of
the lodge where we were staying, we tried a couple of sections of the lower
Kern and a small trib of the Kern. The lower sections of the river are
divided by various dams/powerhouses. We found one section that was flowing
low and just a little off-color. No hatches available, but the rocks were
full of green rock worms, caddis pupae and mayfly nymphs. We used hare's
ears and PT's with a fair amount of success. We had to do some hiking to get
between riffles and holes as much of this section was slow and deep, but we
found a few places where the trout (and a few suckers and squawfish) were
holed up. A couple of pix are on ABPF.

We hiked about 2 miles of a trib to the upper Kern on Saturday morning. It
is a beautiful stream, but the bushwhacking, rockhopping, and lost tackle to
very small fish ratio got to us after a while, so we returned to the lower
river whereupon Harry whacked the trouts pretty good.

The weather was a little too warm, but otherwise cooperated. Beer and
company were great as usual. I'll definitely go back up on the upper Kern
when the flows go down.

BTW, while in the Kernville area, you could do a lot worse than stay at the
Riverview Lodge and trade dollars for gear with Guy at Kern River
Troutfitters.

Dan