Central Sierra Nevada

Yosemite

by Ed Hood June 03, 2013

Desperately in need of some time away from work, myself and two buddies made our way up to Yosemite to fish with Jimmie Morales from Sierra Fly Fisher for a couple of days. Yosemite is one of my favorite places to fish because the myriad of water within and around the park are virtually untouched by anglers; and dry flies are really all you need to bring.

I met up with one of my friends in Pleasanton and took off to the park around 6am with the expectation that we would meet up with Jimmie and our other friend at Jimmie’s shop in Oakhurst at 9am. We ended up arriving an hour late since I made the bad call to take 140 through the park to 41… not a good idea, but I needed to pick up an annual pass for the park and there was plenty of fishing to be had so no biggie.

Since the main rivers (i.e. Merced) were blown out due to snowmelt, we stuck mainly to the small streams which I really enjoy doing anyway. Jimmie showed us a few streams just outside of the park, not too far from Bass Lake. There were a lot of fish being caught: mainly brookies and rainbows and my biggest one coming in at 10-inches. I missed many strikes as I was working to get the dry fly rust out. This was definitely expected since I hadn’t fished with a dry fly since around October. It was also awesome breaking out my Superfine 9′ 4-wt. after its hibernation. I was most successful fishing this piece of water with a size 14 royal humpy and 9′ 4x monofilament leader.

Slightly larger stream requires a longer rod (9′ to 10′) and a little bit of stealth.

After fishing this stream, we moved on to a much smaller one not far down the road from this piece of water. I moved on to my shorter rod, a 6.5′ 3-wt. Superfine since there was a bit more overhead cover and it was easier to pop out shorter casts. This stream had lots of brown trout that were very easily spooked. Moving very slowly near the water, using cover, and sneaking up behind the fish was critical to success in addition to drag-free drifts. This little stream really puts your finesse skills to the test. Ant patterns and beetle patterns in the 12-14 size range really worked well here. And realistically, that’s all you really need to fish Yosemite and much of the Sierras for most of the trout season. Those patterns really work exceptionally.

Take it slow and use finesse when fishing streams like this and you will catch fish all day.

Day one was capped off with an awesome slab of prime rib at the Narrow Gauge Inn on Hwy. 41 and some good brews.

For day two, Jimmie had to drive down to Kings Canyon to fish with clients, so me and my other two buddies decided to fish within the park. Our first stop was at Wawona on the S. Fork Merced. This river was certainly much higher than it is usually but it was fishable. I had never fished it so early in the season, but we gave it a shot since it usually fishes very well around mid-June. After working the river for a couple of hours and getting completely skunked, we moved to another creek that I have fished before not far from Wawona.

Breaking out the 3-wt. again, the three of us proceeded to have a very good few hours catching psycho little rainbow trout and some browns. The biggest one I caught was around 7-inches on this creek. I really like this creek because of its seclusion and aquatic plant life. Bring ant and beetle patterns, use plenty of stealth and finesse, and have a blast.