Ep 165: Fishing for Golden Trout, with Frank Burr
Frank Burr is known as the Golden Trout Dude for good reason: he is a golden-trout-specific guide in the high Sierras of California. In this episode, we talk about how he uses tenkara and western techniques for high alpine golden trout, where to find them, how to get to both accessible and remote golden trout populations, the different subspecies, and much more.
Website: https://www.goldentroutdude.com
Instagram: @goldentroutdude
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Katie
You're listening to the Fish Untamed Podcast, your home for Fly Fishing the Backcountry. This is episode 165 with Frank Burr on Fishing for Golden Trout. Well, I'd love to start by just getting a background on my guests and how they got into the outdoors and specifically into fly fishing. And I read a little bit of your bio online ahead of time, and it sounds like you have a pretty interesting kind of introduction to fly fishing. So I'd love to hear how you were introduced to the sport.
Frank
Sure. I learned how to tenkara fish back in 1970, so 55 years ago now. And my mom took me for vacation for three months in Japan, and my cousins taught me how to fish with tenkara. So the easiest of all fly fishing. And then we went back in 1975 for two months, and they introduced me to two tenkara masters at the time. So at age 11, basically, I became a Tenkara Master. And in 1971, actually, the year after I learned Tenkara, I learned how to fly fish in summer school, fly tying and fly fishing. And then it's just been a lot of fun since.
Katie
What is a Tenkara Master? What qualifies you for that title?
Frank
Well, I don't know, catching a lot of fish.
Katie
Okay. I wasn't sure if it was like a black belt system, you know, where you have to do certain things.
Frank
No, basically I got taught by two Tenkara masters, pretty much everything that they knew, and then got off on my own after that point and just improved on my own. And came up with my own techniques on the Tenkara with the newer carbon fiber and graphite rods that they've come out with since back then. And it's been an interesting learning experience. When I do my Tenkara, I have two or three different Tenkara presentations that I do for clubs and for the fly fishing show. And everybody always asks me, oh, you must like Tenkara. You've been doing it so long. And it's like, no, hate it. Can't stand it.
Katie
Oh, really?
Frank
You know, why do you do this talk? And I said, well, that's the wrong question. Somebody will eventually ask, OK, why don't you like Tenkara? And I say, well, because it's too easy. I catch too many fish and I get bored. And then they laugh and I go, no, actually the first thing that I said, I hate Tenkara , that's the joke. The second part is the truth. I literally, it's so easy. I catch too many fish and I get bored. And people go, ah, that's hard to believe. And I go, well, May 5th, 2020, 251 golden trout in seven hours. And two thirds of those were caught on Tenkara rod. So, no, it's true. Literally that day I caught so many fish, I got bored of fishing and didn't want to see another fish for a couple of weeks.
Katie
Now what makes Tenkara so effective for you in that way? What about other fishing? I guess it's harder, makes it harder.
Frank
Well, traditional fly fishing, you have a reel with line. And Tenkara doesn't. Tenkara, the line is tied to the tip of the rod and is as long as the rod. So let's say you have a 10 and a half foot tenkara rod. Your line is about 10 and a half feet plus two, three feet of tippet material. So your reach at that point is about 25, 26 feet. So that's as far as you can cast and that's as far as you can let a fish run. So it's easier because you don't have a reel and an extra line that you have to deal with. But it's also harder because if you have a big fish take a run, you're either going to break them off or you're going to go chasing them around. okay whereas well the traditional fly fishing you've got the real and extra line you have to deal with the casting is more difficult I would think because you have line that's usually longer than the rod links that you're fishing with so the cast can be more difficult um retreat uh retrieving the fish can be more difficult I think than tenkara tenkara is just literally so simple once you get used to it that you throw the fly out there, the fish takes it, you hook the fish, and most of the time I land it within two to three minutes. There's very little fight involved compared to a traditional fly fishing equipment where there's a lot more technique involved, I think, and can be a lot more difficult for most people.
Katie
Do you think that the fact that Tenkara makes it very easy is also a product of the type of water you're fishing? Do you think that the high mountain streams and stuff like that just lend themselves to Tenkara? Or do you think Tenkara, like if you went out on a bigger river, would you still think that Tenkara is like the easier way to go? Or at some point, I feel like you need that cast.
Frank
No, it depends on what I'm fishing for and how I'm fishing. If I'm Euro-nymphing, I wouldn't use anything but a Tenkara rod. My best friend, one of my best friends Luong Tam, who owns Tenkara Tanuki Company out of the San Francisco Bay Area, he makes the best Tenkara rods in the the world. And three years ago, he came out with a 13 foot long Shinobi model, Euro Nymph Tenkara rod. And it's so much more sensitive than any traditional Euro Nymph fly fishing rod that I've ever used. Once I started using that, I haven't used a fly rod since for Euro Nymphing.
Katie
So what happens when you hook like a larger trout?
Frank
You get really excited and you don't fight it. That's the first thing they teach you in Tenkara is you try not to fight a fish. You know, we're taught with fly fishing that or even traditional conventional fishing that if you hook a fish when you're fishing and a fish goes one way, you need to point the rod the other way and put the brakes on him. And most of the time what that's doing is you're restraining a fish from going where he wants to go and he's going to fight you. And if you're fishing tenkara and it's a big enough fish, you can't. You have a limited amount of line. And like I said, if you've got a ten and a half foot tenkara rod, your reach is about 26 feet maximum. So if you put the brakes on a fish and he decides he wants to fight, you're either going to go chasing after him or you're going to break off that fly.
Katie
Gotcha. You've got to be ready to run.
Frank
Right. So what we're taught early is instead of fighting the fish you're leading the fish So he goes to the right you bring the rod in front of him and you keep just enough tension on him So he doesn't spit out the barbell's hook, but you don't put enough tension on the Line that he feels he's restrained from going where he wants to go and usually within two or three feet They'll stop and start swimming back to where they you originally hooked them and to look for more food and that's the time you slowly bring him in closer to the shore and if he decides he feels restrained and takes off in another direction you just repeat over and over again until you get him close enough to land him I think the biggest fish I've ever caught on a tenkara rod was probably a 22 inch brown trout and was able to land him in about four minutes so yeah and it's usually you'll land a fish faster with tenkara than you ever would with traditional fly fishing equipment, or even conventional equipment for that matter.
Katie
Now, do you typically stick with kind of traditional tenkara flies? I know you talked about doing some Euro-nymphing with a tenkara rod, but do you like to use some of the traditional flies that go with the tenkara rod?
Frank
Nope. I very rarely use traditional Japanese kabari flies unless I feel like experimenting. I mean, I'll get them tied for me overseas, and I'll sell them to people who want to. I'll use them when I'm guiding. But if I'm fishing, very, very rarely will I use a Japanese kabari fly. I like using Tenkara method with traditional Western flies, whether that be wet flies or dry flies.
Katie
Okay, okay. And so I know you said you hate Tenkara because it's so boring. But do you still use Tenkara a lot? Or have you tried to kind of make it harder for yourself by doing some Western rods?
Frank
Most of the time I try to fish Western. but like you said tenkara lives itself very well to high altitude mountains small mountain streams and such and in those situations most of the time if you're fishing in an open meadow once the sun gets high enough 11 o'clock 11 30 in the morning the fish are really easily spooked and even a most of the time even a one-way line landing on the water will spook fish at that point so unless you switch to tenkara you limit yourself to the amount of fish you're going to catch in midday when the rest of my friends are fishing traditional tenkara I mean traditional fly rods and may catch five or six fish in the three-hour period midday i'm still catching fish pretty much on every cast using a tenkara rod with dry flies most of the time and using a dry fly dapping method that lends itself to not spooking fish the method really makes the flies look realistic in the presentation and I found nine out of ten fish look at it like it's a real live insect instead of a artificial fly that you're presenting to them and I've even had golden trout brook trout and other other smaller fish literally jumping out of the water trying to get my fly midair and twice in the last six years that's happened with golden trout where I've had him jump out of the water grab my fly midair hook himself on the way down and literally they don't even hit the water I just pull them up out of the water and take a couple pictures and then release them real quick so like I said if that isn't the easiest hook set i've ever gotten I don't know what is that's why I say tenkara can be too easy uh and it gets boring I mean you catch over 100 fish in it in three or four hours on a tenkara rod and you get bored anybody does sure yeah where's the mystery at that point if you know
Katie
you're going to catch one every single cast.
Frank
Right. You know, like I was guiding last weekend and a father and son, and the father had fish tenkara before, but he wasn't as knowledgeable about some of the techniques he used and stuff like that. Once he got him and his sons got used to it, you know, the second day that we were out, they caught over 30 fish apiece in four hours. And, you know, that's a slow day for me, but that's the most fish they've ever caught in that small amount of time. And we were done for the day, and they said, what else can you show us? And I said, okay, you want me to show off? I can do that too. And I was literally facing away from the stream, facing them, talking, and cast the rod behind me, the fly behind me. And when it hit the water, literally yank-yank, and I'm pulling fish out of the water without even facing the water. And it's like, how easy do you want it? It's like that's how literally how easy it can be with the good presentation you can give with a tenkara rod that I'm pulling fish out without even seeing them take the fly or anything, you know. So, yeah, it's pretty amazing. But at the same time, for me, it's a lot less challenge. So one of my new talks for last year was a fly fisher's view on tenkara , which I'm actually presenting in San Diego next Tuesday. And a lot of people that come to that presentation, I'll ask them at the beginning of it, you know, why did you come to this presentation? You know, somebody will say, oh, I want to learn more about Tenkara. It's like, good, we'll touch upon that. You know, another person will say, well, I know I've used Tenkara. I want to learn more about it. It's like, we'll touch upon that as well. The third person or somebody will eventually say, I will never fish Tenkara. I just came to the talk because the title standard and the description sounded like you were going to downplay tenkara and and uh and not use it you know and I said that's the you're the person that I want in this talk and inevitably by the end of the talk people go I think I need to buy a tenkara rod it's like yeah if you really want to get good at fly fishing you need to use every tool at your disposal and for me tenkara is an additional tool for me to help catch more fish I prefer to use a one or two weight traditional fly rod in most situations versus a tenkara rod I only use a tenkara if I absolutely have to and that's some days up in those high altitude streams even a fly landing on the water will spook fish and that's when you do the dry fly dapping technique that just literally drives them crazy it makes the the fly look so realistic on and above the water that it fools the fish into thinking that it's a real live insect and they start jumping out of the water trying to get your fly you know if you don't drop it to the water so it imparts a rear real more realistic look to the fly than any method you can do with traditional fly fishing other than maybe your own imping your own thing uh you can still do pretty good using a traditional uh a 10 and 10 foot 11 foot traditional euro nymph tenkara…a traditional Euro nymph fly rod but there I found every single model that i've ever used including the Snowbee rods that uh the company that I work with um they're too stiff the 13 foot euro nymph tenkara rod that long developed three is so sensitive a rod that you feel almost every inhalation strike and if you're not familiar with what an inhalation strike is it's when the fish comes up to you opens his mouth flares his gills and suck the water it sucks the water in a whistler fly and it's such a small hesitation in the drift that most people miss if you're using a indicator an indicator fishing your nymphs you'll probably miss it almost every single time that a fish does that With a traditional fly rod, I think there's many, there's been a lot of times that I have never felt that type of a strike. Whereas with the very sensitive, like I said, long Euro Nymph Tenkara rod that I use, you feel a hesitation as you're going along. The drift is going along. If it brushes up against a weed or, you know, or a fish takes it, any hesitation in the drift, you set the hook. And if you know enough about nymphing, which last year's presentation I put together is called Vertical Presentation and Sync Rates for Nymphing. It's using knowing about the different weights and differences in between beads of brass beads and tungsten beads and how much smaller tungsten beads are for the same weight. and knowing what where to get those nymphs weighted nymphs down to the proper level depth in the water which is called the strike zone or the drift zone for the fish to be able to AC them and want to take your your nymphs okay and so if you're in the drift zone unless there's a lot of weeds in the area and the moving water or in the still water that you're fishing usually the only time you're going to feel any hesitation in a drift is when a fish either strikes your fly or inhales your fly and by using a more sensitive rod like the uh tenkara that i've been talking about uh you feel that hesitation and you set the hook regardless of whether you know you know it's a fish or not another thing that is very important regardless of method you're fishing in both moving in and still water is to use a good pair of uh polarized sunglasses so you can see down in the water and uh i'll take a moment to say that i'm not on the pro staff i'm not an ambassador i'm not employee of smith optics but a good friend of mine Landon Mayer who you've heard the name i'm sure uh three years ago when I walked into one of his presentations at the Edison fly fishing show I walked in he says frank you got to check these out these are some new sunglasses that smith optics has just came out with they're called the guides choice sunglass and they're made with a the Chromopop technology in the lens that makes the colors in the water really stand out so you see way more fish and after the fly fishing show season was up I went to my local fish fly shop and got a pair of those sunglasses and it really is amazing how many more fish you see in the water and not only do you see the fish in the water but you also see the reaction of the fish to your flies in a presentation whether it's a dry fly or nymph floating along especially when you're your own nymphing if you can see down the water is clear enough that it's not murky you can see all the way down to the bottom and you're seeing the fish position in the water column you'll see their reaction to your nymphs a whether you have right nymphs or be most importantly whether they're deep enough in the drift or strike zone for them to spot your flies and by seeing your nips drifting along you can you start with the lighter rigs you know let's say one gram rig of two weighted flies and your your own nymph leader weighs a total of one gram and you know this by either weighing it after you tie them onto your rig on the water or I prefer to weigh the entire rig of the leader and the two flies my two weighted flies ahead of time and then keep store them in a what we call a silicon saucer which long uses for storing his tenkara lines on his pocket ninja rods but originally they were made for exactly storing your nymph rigs and pre-weighing them ahead of time so that I have a clear case with four different weight of the same flies in my rig so I start with a gram gram and quarter gram and a half and then two grams and i'll start with the lightest rig when i'm your own imping and if I don't see a reaction using those sunglasses to the fish to my flies then i'll figure uh i'm not deep enough because if you are even if you're using the wrong flies if you're in the strike or just a drift zone deep enough you're going to see a reaction of the fish to your flies if it's the wrong fly they'll may jerk at it and look at it and then turn away from it if it's the right fly you're gonna hit it okay so by using the right sunglasses you'll see the reaction to the fish of to your your uh to your nymphs or a dry fly and uh gives you a better indication of A) i'm either at the right wrong depth with a Euro nymph rig or i'm using the wrong dry fly for that particular day and uh area that i'm fishing you know of course that comes into a little bit of aquatic entomology before you even start your fishing day see what's available for the fish to eat then pick your flies accordingly will give you a better indication of you're going to start with the right flies to begin with and then by being at the right depth you'll see the reaction of the fish to your flies and gauge whether you're using the wrong flies or at the wrong depth or so on and so forth and be able to adjust accordingly and get in the strike zone and catch way more fish same thing with dry flies as they're floating along you'll be able to see the fish's reaction to your flies especially if they start following along after your dry fly checking it out after it's drifted past them kind of gives you an idea oh I probably have the right fly on but maybe the presentation's a little off okay so all those factors tied together I think gives you um a better situational aspect of whether you're fishing the right dries or nymphs whether you're fishing the right technique circling back around to whether I want to use a tank car rod or a traditional fly rod once again I prefer an ultralight fly fishing in general so most of the time i'm using a one or a two eight fly rod almost any situation that i'm fishing unless i'm fishing in the surf or in a northeastern northwestern's uh big river for salmon and steelhead which i'm going to be using probably a seven eight or a nine weight rod uh then most situations i'll use a one or two weight rod and i'm not worried about it being too light uh and for if I hook into a big fish you know a lot of people that aren't as knowledgeable about proper ultralight fly fishing techniques will say oh you're fishing too light of a rod for this type of water you know and i'll always play dumb and say oh well why is that oh if you hook into big fish you're gonna kill it I don't understand oh it's gonna take you way too long to bring in a you know very large fish on that light of equipment because you can't horse them in it's like okay well i'll bet you 50 bucks that I can bring in one faster than you can on your much heavier rod versus my one or two eight rod and that circles back around to how you fight or for that matter don't fight the fish if you're leading the fish after he hits your fly and you hook them most of the times like I said they're not going to fight 95 of the time and you're able to bring those fish in way faster uh using that technique regardless of the rod you're using than somebody with a heavier rod horsing that fish in which may make him fight more and tire him out even more which means you may have to revive or resuscitate him for a lot longer uh before you release him so make sure that he doesn't go belly up well if you're only fighting not fighting the fish for more than three or four minutes and literally slowly bringing them in um there's hardly any fight involved and they don't get tired uh for an example back in 2018 we're up fishing uh after the spawn had happened really large Lahontan cutthroats and rainbows were headed back down to lake Crowley in the eastern sierra uh after their spawn I hooked in this 26 inch Lahontan cutthroat on a one weight rod with seven x tippet And as soon as I hooked him, he started heading over towards the bank. I got the rod ahead of him. There was very little tension on the line, just enough so he doesn't spit out the barbless hook that he took. And within a couple of feet, he turned back and started swimming back towards the lie and the riffles that he was feeding in. And I was able to turn him sideways and slowly bring him downstream towards me to net him. And I don't think he realized whether the current was pushing him downstream or something was pulling him. So literally there was no fight involved. It was like hooking into a log and dragging a log into me. And it only took me four minutes to land that fish, about four or five minutes to land that fish and take pictures and get him back in the water. And I was expecting, you know, that big of a fish. There was going to be some resuscitation involved. Whereas, no, as soon as I put him in the water, he just took a shot out of my hands, like, you know, just really quickly. So he wasn't tired at all. There was no fight involved. And that's why I think it's all in the proper technique you're using, not necessarily the equipment. You don't need really heavy equipment to horse a fish in. You might tire them out more. You know, so I love ultralight equipment. And by the same example, most people consider most Tenkara equipment to be ultralight. And you can consider it like that. There are differences in Tenkara rods that are out available today that you can get. know a lot more uh uh scientific or uh newer materials and techniques that they use to build the rods compared to when I learned tenkara in 1970 it was a two-piece bam eight-foot bamboo tenkara rod you know with a fluorocarbon level line which is by the way the only thing I use for tenkara rods I don't use the uh floating level lines I don't use the braided lines a lot of people ask me how come you don't use the thicker lines it's easier to cast because if i'm gonna use a thicker line i'm gonna use a one or two eight rod the whole point for me to use a thin car rod at all is with that level line so you don't spook fish yeah um I wanted to ask kind of how you use
Katie
these techniques specifically for golden trout because I know you're the you're known as a golden trout dude so um i'd love to hear kind of how how you use these specifically for goldens and kind of in the environment they live because i've never fished for goldens in the high country California but I feel like I have a good idea of like what kind of terrain they live in up there. So I'd love to have you kind of walk through, you know, you're not going to hot spot anything, but just like generally where goldens are found and kind of what environment they're in and how you're using these techniques in that specific environment to catch goldens.
Frank
Okay. So goldens are not found much below about 7,800 feet. All the way up to maybe 14,000 feet is where you're going to find goldens. So you have to get into high altitude streams and lakes and stuff to be able to even find goldens and catch them unless they're hybrids. Hybrids, if there's a rainbow hybrid mix, they're able to handle slightly lower altitudes and slightly warmer temperatures than a true pure string golden of all three species are able to. So they're found in many different conditions. I mean, brush and tree ridden high altitude streams, lakes at very high altitude. One of my favorite areas that I take a lot of people to catch golden trout is above the Lone Pine, California in the eastern Sierras. It's about 10 miles south of Mount Whitney. And it's in golden trout wilderness and it's called the Cottonwood Lakes and Cottonwood Creek area. And the one main place that I take most beginners is the unnamed tributary to Horseshoe Meadow. And I'm saying that because a lot of people know about it. It's not a secret. But the more you get into the summer months and the higher temperatures, the water gets lower. It's harder and harder to catch them. You know, so early in the season, like May, right after the snow melt, the water's high. it's harder for the fish to see us. I always say, tell my clients and my students that if you can see the fish, they can see you. So you need to stay hidden as much as possible. If the water's moving fast for early season, it's more rippled on the surface. It's harder for both us to see the fish and them to see us. So you can get closer to them. Traditional fly fishing equipment, even with three and four weight rods, will work. You can get away with that. But as the summer progresses and the water gets lower and it's moving slower, So fish get very stealthy, very easily spooked. And that's when ultralight comes into play if you want to catch any numbers of fish. And then in the mid-afternoons, like I said, sometimes late summer, July, August is very tough for us. The water's low and moving slow. And like I said, even sometimes your fly landing on the water, let alone a one or two-way line landing on the water, spooks fish. And that's when dry gapping technique with dry flies and tenkara comes into play, really imparts a realistic action into the flies so that the fish don't get spooked. They think in their small brains that it's a live insect and they're readily willing to take those flies. So a lot of easiest places to fish early in the morning, late evening, of course, is going to be the open meadows where these smaller streams run through. it's a lot easier to fish because you can openly cast with a traditional fly rod you can back cast easily with a your longer tin car rods as well without having to worry about hooking into a bush or a tree or something like that however in the open meadows mid-afternoon mid-summer it's going to be very difficult fishing so then you might want to get up maybe a 500 and 1,000 feet higher in altitude where the streams get into uh more drop pools a lot of bushes a lot of trees which makes the casting harder for a traditional fly rod not necessarily tenkara but there's a lot more cover for you to hide behind um so less chance of the fish seeing you closer where it's easier for you to cast uh accuracy and casting is way more important in these situations than distance and you know up these small streams and even the small lakes up at altitude early morning late evening you don't have to cast much more than 10 15 feet at the most accuracy is way more important late in the afternoon or mid-afternoon you may have to cast further which may require you to use a traditional one or two-way fly rod if you're at the high altitude lakes where the bigger golden trout are going to be found like in the cottonwood lakes which i'll mention because the only time you can fish for them is in the month of September they recently passed regulations two years ago where all the cottonwood lakes are close to fishing all year except for the month of September including the streams that run in between the lakes as well so only in September can you go up and fish those lakes and unless you're backpacking and staying overnight you're probably going to reach midday there which means you're going to have to cast long distances out into the middle of the lakes where those fish are going to be holding to avoid predators in midday or use a float tube to get out there far enough to be able to cast shorter distances to be able to reach those fish unless you know some of the lakes have a structure close enough to the shore that the fish can some of the larger fish can hide under to not get seen by the predators and if you know those areas then a tenkara rod works really well there because it's very short casting distance, but accuracy is way more important to be able to get underneath the ledges in the rocks and boulders close to shore where those bigger fish are going to be able to be holding in midday.
Katie
What is a big golden trout in the lake versus a typical stream-sized golden trout? How many inches are we talking about?
Frank
Stream-sized golden trout that you're going to be able to hook her about inch and a half to maybe on a good year with good water flow and a lot of food like this year and last year, a 14-incher.
Katie
Okay. It's bigger than I thought, honestly.
Frank
Yeah. And up until probably last year, you're looking at probably about 10 inches is the average biggest fish you're going to catch in the streams. But this year already, we've seen some 12, 14-inches caught in those same streams. So there's a lot more food, water and food available for them. And the fish are getting bigger. Now, the differences between that and once you get into the lakes, you're looking at probably 18 to up to maybe 26, 27 inch fish in the lakes, in larger lakes. So a lot bigger fish, which I'm not particularly crazy about. I like my goldens to be 17 or 18 inches or smaller. Because when they get above 18 inches, especially in the lakes, they lose their par marks. They lose a lot of their coloration, the spots and everything. So they basically look like a brightly pasteled colored rainbow. It doesn't really look like, you know, the golden trout that we're thinking of and looking at that is, you know, found in California. And the current river drainage is what their native territory is, or for that matter, outside of California. I don't know what state you live in, but if you're in Colorado, Montana, several states outside of California still have a breeding program for original California, the Oncorhynchus mykiss aguabonita. The most widely known of the three golden trout species is the California golden trout. And those are found outside of California, like I said, in high altitude streams and lakes in Colorado, Montana, Utah, and several other states. and even a couple of countries outside of the United States as well, where they were allowed to be transplanted outside of California before 1960 when they outlawed the exportation of eggs and fingerlings outside of California because it became the state fish. And the California gold is the most brightly colored of all three golden trout species that you'll find. And the only one that you'll find outside is its actual native drainage. And so when you say golden trout and most people see a picture of golden trout, it's probably going to be a California golden trout. The other two species are the current river rainbow, which is actually a golden trout species. It has the same 21 identical genetic markers as the other two species of golden trout. coincidentally uh the same genetic markers as the Mcleod river red band trout of northern California which is i'm actually working on a book called golden child of California treasure and uh in my research and a lot of the information that i've gotten from department of fish and wildlife here in California a lot of times when I was catching the California golden the red lateral line on those fish were so more brilliantly pronounced than even the red band trout of northern California that I caught and I always wondered why that was so and then uh once I came upon uh Behnke’s information that they did genetic research on it and found that they had the same identical 21 identical genetic markers as the red band trout of the Mcleod river drainage in northern California I hypothesize that before the last mini ice age froze everything up and before man, of course, ever came to California, they migrated down from the five streams in the McLeod River drainage into the McLeod River, down into the Sacramento River, into the Delta, up to San Joaquin, and then eventually up into the Kern River, and then went up into the headwaters and were landlocked with the last mini ice age about 10,000 years ago and evolved into the three species of golden trout that we find nowadays. The California golden was in the tributaries and the main fork of the southern, the south fork of the Kern River. The Kern River Rainbow is found in the north fork and its tributaries. And they call it the Kern River Rainbow. It is actually technically the third species of golden trout. It has the same identical 21 genetic markers as the California golden trout and the little Kern golden trout. little current golden trout being the third species of golden trout. So the current rainbow had the largest of its, uh, of the three, as far as territory where it was native to. So it was all the way from Lake Isabella all the way up to the headwaters of the North Fork of the current river is where the original territory for the current rainbow was found. Uh, technically, if you need to catch it for the, uh, Western heritage trout challenge or the California heritage trout challenge, it must be caught above the forks of the Kern River where the North Fork of the Kern River and the Little Kern River split at that point and upstream of that is where the heritage trout counts for the Kern River rainbow trout and then of course four miles above the forks of the Kern in the Little Kern River is where you're gonna find Pierce Train little Kern golden trout and that's where it counts if you catch it above four miles above the fork is where it's going to above impassable waterfall barriers is where it's going to count for the heritage trout award as well the little kern golden trout the third of the species very similar coloration to the California golden trout not quite as brightly colored I've never found as one as brightly colored as the California golden trout has been and it's the smallest of the territory that it's native to and unfortunately they're not bred anywhere else the California golden trout is still they still collect the eggs and the fingerlings out of Mulkey Creek and a volcano Creek which is not easy to get to you they have to horse pack it in every year fish and wildlife to be able to collect the eggs and the fingerlings to take back to the hatchery to raise those for aerial and horse pack trip drops into the high altitude lakes in California when they still plant the California Goldens because that's pretty much the only thing that survives at that high of an altitude. On a side note, just like the Eagle Lake Rainbow, which is another heritage trout species in California, is only found in Eagle Lake and will survive in other waters, no other trout will survive in Eagle Lake other than that rainbow trout because it's such a high alkalinity lake. Same thing with the altitude that the Golden Trout are found in. Usually you won't find too many other species of fish that will survive and readily be able to reproduce in that high of an altitude all the way up to you know 14,000 feet where they're normally found. So the little Kern golden trout the smallest of the area that of the three species that are found and unfortunately in 21 and 22 we had wildfires that decimated pretty much all the territory of the little current golden trout in 21 the Sequoia complex fire burnt the lower two-thirds of the current little current River and its tributaries and in 22 the fire in the upper sections of the little current River all the way up to its headwaters burnt pretty much everything including the tributaries and the little current River itself and we didn't know until last year whether any little Kern Golden had survived. So, and they did, uh, fortunately. And like I said, they're larger than I've ever seen before. And in some of those tributaries that they're found in, uh, that we've caught this year and latter part of last year, but I'm hoping that fish and wildlife decides that they're going to do a breeding program in some hatchery of the little Kern, uh, river Golden as well, because if we ever have that, uh, big of a fire, you know, happen again, it could wipe out the third species of golden before anybody's ever able to catch them.
Katie
Now, would these three species of goldens be kind of like cutthroat subspecies, like the difference between a greenback cutthroat and a Yellowstone cutthroat and a west slope cutthroat? Or are they like, is subspecies the right word for the difference between them? Or is there kind of a different distinction? Is it like a phenotypic distinction, like a strain?
Frank
Well, they're all Oncorhynchus mykiss. They are a subspecies of rainbow. okay uh and like I said they they most likely came from the uh Mcleod river red band trout not to be confused with the Mcleod river rainbow which is the rainbow trout found all over the world originally came from the Mcleod river strain the Mcleod river rainbow a red band trout however are found uh originally in five streams that originally flowed into the Mcleod river and that's how they got in to the Mcleod river originally uh and were able to come down and then uh like I said with the migration all the way up into the headwaters of the three forks of the Kern River and got isolated there and then landlocked because of the last mini ice age evolved into what we see now. So just like the greenback cutthroat and such are subspecies of cutthroat, yes, all three species of golden are subspecies of rainbow trout and technically a offshoot of the McLeod River red band trout.
Katie
Now, are there any golden trout native to Alpine lakes or are all the lake goldens stocked?
Frank
It depends. If they're high altitude lakes that were devoid of any fish before stocking happened, then they probably only stocked it with the California golden trout. Okay, so many of our high altitude lakes in California, where they'll do aerial drops of the California golden, are too high of an altitude to effectively support any other species of trout that readily can reproduce at the higher altitudes shorter season and smaller amount of food available to them you know in their short season in the year after snowmelt and before the next snow season starts on the areas that we're fishing for golden trout usually it doesn't uh the lower elevations seven 7,800 to maybe 8,500 feet, the snow will melt off sometimes as early as late May, and we're able to get up there and fish them. But normally, the areas like the Cottonwood Lakes, where they originally collected the eggs and the fingerlings to raise and to be able to transplant to other high altitude lakes and streams in California usually don't unfreeze before late June so up until two years ago when they changed the regulations drastically because they they're saying they just don't have the numbers of game wardens to be able to enforce a lot of these regulations so two years ago they made all of golden trout wilderness open year long with a uh you can keep up to five fish in most of the areas which I think was a huge mistake but so far it doesn't seem to be affected too greatly um so uh they used to catch uh capture the uh eggs at the egg station and the fingerlings out of lake cottonwood lake number three which pretty much didn't melt off until late like I said late June early July so the uh um they would wait and open not open up the season until July 1st until uh November 15 when our trout season closes in California and you weren't able to fish them for them uh anywhere or in the cottonwood drainage until July 1st even though uh the last Saturday in April is when trout season opens in California two years ago when they changed the regulations now uh if you can get to the waters then you can fish them any time of the year unfortunately you know but a lot of those areas are still locked in by snowfall uh and until the roads open up probably until late may anyway so it didn't change it too much I have seen issues in a couple of areas where uh and that's why i'm not crazy about social media like facebook because people about three four years ago somebody blew up one of my streams that was a pure strain population of California golden trout where it was easy to get to about 10 years ago when I first started fishing for them I never saw another fisherman ever you know and i'd go every week now it's surprising if I don't see another fly fisherman every time I go you know and not only fly fishermen conventional bait fishermen or lure fishermen have seen that those posts on facebook gone to that stream and whereas the first time I think I ever went to that stream was probably October uh 11 years ago and uh in one bend of the stream in one pool I was able to stand there for three hours and catch over 70 fish in that one pool of course there was only probably about 18 20 fish in the pools I caught many of them over and over again and felt bad about it so every time I went after that I carry a bag of preener trout chow with me so that if I catch a bunch of fish like that and and uh and I use up a lot of their energy taking my artificial fly i'll feed them a handful of Purina trout chow so they get a lot of protein so they don't go belly up in that night because they starve to death because i've caught them several times with my you know artificial dry fly uh so the first time I went like I said 11 years ago I caught 70 over 70 fish in one little small pool in the bend of the creek we were we were there this weekend uh because the people uh the father and two sons that I took for uh up there wanted to catch all three species of golden in their native territory to count for the heritage trout award and there was still a lot of fish in that area but unfortunately nowhere near the numbers that we used to see and I attribute that and that's even early in the season like now later in the season in September and October it's very difficult to find fish in that in that creek and I think that is because so many people go up there and fish maybe a lot of them don't know proper fish handling so they're going belly up because they're fighting them they're drying them out you know not wetting their hands before they're you know handling the fish or handling it at all you know you should if possible you want to net them and take your pictures while they're never out of the water and within moments of taking them out of the water they start suffocating you know so the longer you leave them out of the water uh body is going to dry up that hurts the slime coating they start suffocating a lot of these fish may not survive because of bad fish handling techniques as well as a lot of people I think are keeping those fish even the smallest of ones which aren't even big enough to eat. They're keeping them to take home and say, hey, look what I caught, and throw them away.
Katie
Yeah, I just don't understand that. I don't understand people who take home like six-inch fish.
Frank
But you get that mentality in California. You spend $61 on a fishing license here in California, and so many people have that attitude. Like, I spent my money on my license. I'm allowed to keep five fish in the day, a trout in the day when I catch them. I'm going to do that, regardless of how small they are whatever because I paid my money I'm allowed to do that you know and it's unfortunately the wrong mentality I wish a lot more people would get into fly fishing and learn proper fish handling techniques maybe get the idea of you know we promote catch-and-release you know when I worked for Orvis back in Pasadena and 2013 to 2017 we used to really instill into the beginners that we were teaching in our Fly Fishing 101 and 201 classes that we recommend catch and release only. You know, and a lot of people say, well, I like fish. I want to catch fish to eat. Great. Go to the ocean. We have some of the best surf fishing in the country. You know, I keep fish out of the ocean when I go surf fishing, but I don't think I've kept a wild fish in California probably in the last 40 years just because we have a lot of droughts here in California, which hurts the fish population, the food sources, as well as the fish population itself. And unless you're more than five miles from where you're parking the car, a lot of our waters, we're just so overpopulated in California that we get a lot of fishing pressure. And it's really greatly reducing the population, fish population throughout California. Even in catch and release areas, I find people bait fishing, you know, and it's like a quick call to We tip, you know, Cal tip or the game warden, you know, it's like, Hey, you need to come out here. You know, these guys are bait fishing and they're keeping fish in a wild trout catch and release section only, you know, and I'm more than happy to report them because it's like you're reducing the population. Going back to one of the lessons that we were teaching at Orvis, I was teaching a lady, you know, casting in the morning and I said, okay, you retrieve the fish, strip the fish in, get them into your net, you get your picture and then you unhook them and release the fish. And she goes, what if I want to keep it? And I think half the students and both of our instructors, we looked at her and she goes, I said something wrong, didn't I? She said, yeah, kind of. We promote catch and release, especially in California with the drought situations that we have in California. Because there's just the fish population can be greatly reduced. And she goes, well, what if I only want to keep one fish? And I said, let me give you an example. Let's say you're in Hot Creek near Mammoth, California, which is a catch and release wild trout only river. You can only catch and release. I said, let's say you were able to keep fish that day. In one mile section of that creek, let's say there's 500 browns, rainbows, and you keep one fish today. 49 other anglers keep one fish today. In 10 days, there's no fish left. That's not a stocked creek or river. So you can wipe out a trout population in a river in 10 days. I said, that's why we promote catch and release. Any place that you're going to be close enough to where you're parked in the car and it gets a lot of fishing pressure, You really want to do only catch and release, you know, the exception of that, of course, is if they're stock trout, you know, California has a very avid stocking program. And most of the fish that are stocked are triploids. And if you don't know what triploids are, triploids are where they genetically modify. They remove a gene out of the DNA sequence. It doesn't harm the fish or you eating the fish. what it's doing is it's removing the ability of that fish to be able to reproduce. The energy that goes into the reproduction now goes into fish growth. So in one year in a fish hatchery where they were able to grow a fish maybe, oh, six to eight inches in length, now those fish can be up to eight, you know, 14, 16 inches in size within one year of growth in a hatchery. And they can't reproduced, so they're meant to be caught and kept anyway. So I tell people, I says, if you really want to catch a trout and eat it, go someplace where they're stocking triploids. Those fish are meant to be caught and kept anyway because they can't reproduce. So there's no reason for you not to go catch one. I said, the ones that are stocked in the Southern California Basin, the lakes they're stocking in get too warm. They're not deep enough in the summertime. They get too warm. Those fish can't survive anyway. So they're meant to be caught and kept. I says, but if you're going to be fishing anywhere where there's wild fish of any species, it's better to be more than five miles. Take a little hike. Most people that are going to keep fish are not willing to hike that far from where they parked the car to go catch the fish and take them home. So if you get more than five miles from where you parked the car, the fishing pressure is so reduced that it's not going to hurt for you to keep one or two fish a night for dinner or something like that, especially you're here backpacking, you know, so look at it as situational, you know, where you're fishing, and as much as possible, catch and release, we want our future generations to be able to catch those species of fish that may go extinct, because we're keeping them now, like the golden trout, for example, with the wildfires that we have in California, and especially the little current golden trout drainage, we almost lost a species of golden trout there, one of the three, you know, and it could never be brought back again because there was no outside populations of it anywhere. You know, unlike the Kern River Rainbow and the California Golden, the other two species of golden trout, which are in hatcheries, and if the population was wiped out in the wild, they could be restocked into those areas with pure strain of those two golden trout, unlike the little Kern Goldens. So that's why I'm hoping that they do a breeding program with that third species of golden.
Katie
You've mentioned long hikes a couple times now. I'm curious what the typical access for golden trout is. Are most places you're going to catch goldens at least a little bit of a hike? Or are there places you could drive to? Do most of them take maybe a multi-night trip to get to? What's the kind of typical journey?
Frank
I'm going to agree with you and say, yeah, yeah, it's a long hike or a horseback trip to get to any golden trout. But the truth is, unfortunately, when I take people out and I take a lot of older people fishing in their 80s and 90s sometimes, you know, and they the bucket list is I want to catch a golden trout, but I'm not going to be able to hike far. And I don't want to take a get on a horse for eight hours and how, you know, to be able to get to catching these things, you know. So they always ask me, you know, how far am I going to have to hike? And I says, well, I said, you may have to hike quite a ways. maybe as much as 50 yards from where we parked the car. I said, is that too far? And oh, well, no, of course not. We thought we'd have to hike miles. So I said, no, every year I try to find a new spot within 50 yards of where I parked the car to be able to catch one of the three species of goldens. And I actually, with the little current golden trout, 50 feet from where I parked the car is where the creek is. And it's a spur road of a forest service road that is difficult to find unless you know it, you know, and do a lot of research and that, and I don't tell anybody about that, of course, unless I take them guiding up there, but you do not have to hike very far to catch all three species of goldens. It can be caught fairly close in pure strain that counts for the heritage trout award. Of course, the further you hike, the more you're going to run into in most situations, you know, unless it's areas that just most people just don't know about. there's areas i'll take that I don't ever say on social media don't ever say in any of my presentation talks that I give live with the fly fishing show or in a fly fishing club presentation or anything I said i'll just tell them you know I can get you pretty close to where we parked the car you know and be happy to guide you for that otherwise here are some areas that you can catch them in but it's going to take a little bit more hiking to get to you know so um I would say at the most for most people, if you're willing to hike a mile or two, you're going to get into golden trout fairly easily of all three species.
Katie
I feel like of all of all the species, I mean, I haven't fished for goldens in California. I fished for them elsewhere. But it strikes me as the type of species I'd want to hike really far for because they just have that kind of like mystique and they're so kind of small and beautiful that I feel like they lend themselves well to like having a pristine, natural background, nobody in sight. I feel like I'd be inclined to want to hike a lot farther from the car for a I feel like I'm missing out on something by walking 50 feet from the car, I think.
Frank
I think I agree with you on that. I feel the same way. When I'm going out fishing, I'll usually try to find a new spot, you know, someplace I'm going to have to hike a little ways to just to be able to get to it. Like from Horseshoe Meadow that I mentioned earlier, one of the spots that everybody knows about, there's a, it's about a six mile hike from that meadow across a trail pass or multi pass to get to multi Creek, which is one of the origins of the California golden trout. The, uh, two origin streams that still have pure strain that the fish and wildlife still get the eggs and the fingerlings from is Mulkey Creek and volcano Creek. And you can't drive to them at all. Mulkey Creek is probably about the closest closest and is a, I think at least a minimum of a five mile hike by next month, at least six miles before you can get into fishable water. Luong, my best friend that designs a tenkara rod, he went to Mulkey Creek two weekends ago and took a bunch of pictures for me. Very beautiful, but it was a 6.81 mile hike from where he started the parking lot until he got to Mulkey Creek where he found fish. And that's a bit, and he's actually way older than me, but I'm a little lazier. I really didn't want to hike that far, you know, but now that I've seen the pictures that he sent me, it's like, okay, I might go next week just because, you know, it looks beautiful. It's a small, tiny stream. Most of it didn't look to be more than three or four feet wide in most places and no deeper than a foot. But he pulled out over 100 fish in three hours with, you know, and the only fish is tenkara . So once again, Tenkara is way easier. And, you know, it's easier to catch fish. You get bored. And for me, but so that's probably my next trip I'm going to take in the next couple of weeks is to Mulkey Creek. A lot longer of a hike, but that's how I started back, what, 37 years ago, I think, when I caught my first golden trout. It was up in the Dinkey Lakes Wilderness.
Katie
Oh, I'm familiar with the Dinkey Lakes area.
Frank
I've done a lot of work in that area. okay yeah dinky lakes wilderness western sierra uh island lake which is at the surface of the lake is at 10 000 feet and it's a seven mile hike from where you park the car at the trailhead to get up to that lake and i've seen very few people willing to hike that far you know usually they'll take a pack train to get up to it it's a second dinky lake and then hike up from that point the uh mile to get up to island lake and island lake has nothing but pure strangles and trout Now, I haven't been up there probably for a good 30 years, but I was giving a golden trout presentation at one of the clubs, the San Jose Fly Fishers Club last week, and one of the guys mentioned, he said, oh, yeah, we hiked up and backpacked up to Island Lake last year. And he says, we saw very few golden trout. We really had to search for them to be able to find anything and nothing big. And this was back in 37 years ago, first time I went up there. They didn't have flow tubes. So my friend and buddy and I, we backpacked up one-man inflatable boats. Or two-man inflatable boats up there. That weighed 10, 12 pounds. And we're able to get to the deepest sections of that lake. And the first golden trout I hooked into was a 26-inch California golden in that lake. came up out of the depths and took my caddisfly. And as soon as I hooked it, he literally towed my boat for about 10 feet before he tired out. And I was able to land that fish. And it was just amazing how big a fish that you can find in the deep lakes up in the Sierras. But from what he was saying, they saw very few fish up there. The only ones that he really saw was in the inlet stream, the single inlet stream coming into the lake. And I think another problem of the population decline is because a lot of people are keeping those fish and eating them or keeping even the smallest ones and who knows what they're doing with it. And that small inlet creek is, A, not very long and only a limited amount of trout are going to be able to make the reds and reproduce every year. You know, so I think that's another reason for the decline in population is heavier fishing pressure and people keeping the fish and the small amount of water that they are able to make their beds in and reproduce every year. So, um, it's a bummer, you know, now that he said that I'm going to have to probably take a, uh, uh, horse pack trip or, uh, a quick backpack trip up there just to see what he was talking about. Because when I went up there, I mean, there was literally thousands of fish in that lake and you can see them cruising around the shoreline. And, uh, we got up there right after a snowfall one or snowmelt one year. And where those fish were just stacked up in that small inlet Creek, you know, to go up to spawn. And I was very surprised when he told me that there are very few fish. The fish count that he saw was very, very slim. You know, and I'm thinking that a lot of areas in California, because of the droughts that we've had, they just keep getting worse and worse, that the fish populations of the Golden, regardless of where you find them in California, have greatly been reduced in probably the last 10 years, the last 15 years. So that's a bummer.
Katie
Yeah. Yeah, I feel like a lot of places are dealing with something similar to that. Maybe not to the same extent, but we have some goldens here, but our version of that is the cutthroat. I feel like it's always a struggle between low water years and other species competition. They're always just fighting some kind of battle.
Frank
Exactly. People keeping them.
Katie
The last thing I wanted to ask you about, because we already covered techniques a little bit, is flies. I don't know if golden trout are picky with what you're throwing for them or if they're just spooky and it's just a matter of, as long as you can get a fly on the water that doesn't spook them, they'll take it. Walk me through your fly selection.
Frank
They'll eat anything that's similar to their existing food source. In the middle of the summer, in the meadows, you get a lot of, up to probably about 10,000 feet, you get a lot of grasshoppers. A size 14 Schroeder's hopper kills them. Especially if you use a size 12, which is usually one size bigger than you find in the meadows, but they'll still readily take it. Only the big, really big golden trout can open their mouths big enough to be able to grab that fly. So it kind of weeds out the smaller fish. You know, if you only want to catch big fish that day, you use a big fly. My go-to fly, pretty much no matter where I fish anywhere in the country for any trout species, is going to be a size 18 or 20. And this year and last year, size 16. Like I said, for some reason, you know, you've got more water and the, even the insects, you're getting a little bit bigger. So size, let's say 16, 18 and 20, bluing olive, blue dun, mosquito, indicator atoms. Those four flies for dry flies work just about anywhere I fish in the country. Those are my go-to flies. And 90% of the time I prefer to fish a dry fly, even though I've gotten a lot better at nymphing and do a very technical nymphing talk. And Stackpole is that's one of the books that they want me working on as well is the vertical presentation think rates for nymphing talk, which has been very well received. I still find that those four dry flies that I mentioned pretty much work anywhere in the country where I fish. You know, if you give a good presentation drag see presentation of those four dry flies in the proper size, you know People ask me well, what fly should I use? Well, you know, don't I always tell students do what I say Don't do what I do. Don't get out of the car assemble your rod tie on your favorite fly and start casting Which is what I do, of course, you know And then if I don't get a bite in 20 casts or 10 minutes But I'm going to use my own advice and do a little aquatic entomology and see what's available for the fish to eat that particular given day and then choose my flies accordingly. So if I'm nymphing, I'm going to want to turn over some rocks and see what's in the water, see what's crawling around, see what nymph patterns are going to work the best that particular day. And when I'm fishing a nymph rig, I'll fish a nymph similar to the flies that I'm or nymphs that I'm finding in the water. And then I'll use an attractor fly like a perdigon or a rainbow warrior, a hotspot jig or something like that. Because there's two reasons that a fish will hit your fly, hunger and anger. Either they're hungry and you're giving them a close approximation to the food source that they have available to eat. And that's they'll hit it out of hunger or anger. If you piss a fish off, he's going to hit your fly, you know, and that's I don't recommend it, but I will mention it when we have our fish going up to spawn. And that's salmon, steelhead, trout. It doesn't matter when they're heading up to spawn. They don't eat. So the only way you're going to get them to hit and you only want to target a fish, of course, that hasn't already paired up. If they are, you don't want to cast to them because you don't want to break up a maiden pair. But if you have the occasional singleton, male or female, that is heading up and they haven't paired up yet, the only way you're going to get them to strike is out of anger. You know, you throw a nice bright white or chartreuse colored woolly bugger through their pool that they're resting in before they take their next soldier in upstream, you know, and expend a lot of energy before they go to the next resting area. Pretty much the only thing they're going to hit is something that's gaudy that's going to make them think, hey, excuse me, you just came through my living room. I beg your pardon and hit your fly out of anger. So, you know, they'll hit out of hunger and anger. So a little bit of aquatic entomology always works best if you want to maximize the number of fish you're catching in any given day. So find out what the fish have available, then choose your flies. But coming back around to it, my favorite are those four dry flies that I mentioned. and I pretty much catch fish of any species with those four flies, no matter where I fish in the country.
Katie
All right. Well, Frank, where can people find you if they want to check out your website or maybe send you an email, reach out? What's the best place to do that?
Frank
Yeah. So Frank at either goldentroutdude.com or Frank at oasisflyshop.com. It's probably the two easiest places to get ahold of me. You can also find me on social media, on Instagram and on Facebook. I am golden trout dude.
Katie
All right. Sounds easy enough. golden trout dude across the board. Well, Frank, thank you for taking the time for this. You've made me kind of like itchy to get out to California. I've only caught goldens in Colorado. So someday I'd like to come out and experience what you have.
Frank
And we'll just go fishing together.
Katie
That sounds awesome. Well, Frank, thank you again. Take care. Have a good night. And I'm sure we'll talk again soon.
Frank
Great. Thank you.
Katie
All right. That's a wrap. Thank you all for listening. If you want to find all the other episodes as well as show notes, you can find those on fishuntamed.com. You'll also find a contact link there if you want to reach out to me. And you can also find me on Instagram @fishuntamed. If you want to support the show, you can give it a follow on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcasting app. And if you'd like to leave a review, it would be greatly appreciated. But otherwise, thank you all again for listening. I'll be back here in two weeks with another episode. Take care, everybody.
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