Greetings! Hope you all have been getting out and enjoying some of our areas awesome trout streams this summer. I have been fishing here and got in a bit of fishing on a family trip out West. This summer we headed out to Yosemite and Sequoia/Kings Canyon National Parks. First off, I will not be planning a summer trip out West in advance anymore. Nowadays for popular national parks, reservations to stay in the park must be made a year in advance. Our Yosemite reservations were cancelled the two previous years due to Covid and were almost cancelled this year due to fire. A week before we left, they opened the park entrance that we needed. Too stressful! From now on, a week before heading out, we will get out a map, see what areas of the West are not burning, under 100 degrees for day- time highs, and what rivers still have water in them.
I’ve often said, I fish out West not for the fishing (hard to beat up to 8000 fish per mile around here), but for the change in scenery. On my hike to the Merced River one morning a bear sauntered past not 25 yards away. A few minutes later a couple of mule deer and I played a game of “chicken” on the trail. I won when they ceded the trail when we got within five yards of each other. While casting I missed a few strikes when distracted by the sunlight lighting up Half Dome and Yosemite Falls. Focusing on task at hand, I did manage to catch a few nice fish. Midges were on only thing on the menu and only in the slow water. Luckily, if you can catch fish in our neck of the woods, you can catch them anywhere, and lessons learned on midging trout in the Kinni, applied to the Merced as well. BTW, if you go out to this area for fishing in August, I would concentrate on the Kings River, the other streams and lakes were getting pretty low and warm.
There have been lots of things going on this summer. Read about the proposed biodigester in Roberts, racetrack in River Falls, the possibility of the Junction Falls dam coming out much sooner than we thought, and about our September meeting /gear swap! Hope to see you there and we can catch up and swap fish tales!
