Ep 181: Fishing the High Sierra Backcountry, with Derek Bargaehr
Derek Bargaehr has been fishing the Sierra Nevada backcountry for many years. In this episode, we cover how the Sierras differ from the Rockies, the species available there, alpine lakes vs. headwater streams, finding fish in lakes, hatches and fly selection, weight saving tips for long trips, and much more.
Email: Derek@vanguardaudiolabs.com
Instagram: @der_bear
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Katie
You're listening to the Fish Untamed Podcast, your home for fly fishing the backcountry. this is episode 181 with Derek Bargaehr on fishing the high Sierra backcountry. cool well I started every episode by getting a background on my guests and how they got introduced to fly fishing so I'd love to hear how you got introduced to the sport
Derek
yeah I grew up like a lot of people getting taken to bait cast and fish for stocked trout and stuff and we'd go up to the high sierra either the June lake loop or the mammoth lakes or sometimes even on the west side some of the lakes over there and we do that like two or three times a year and so I loved fishing and I loved the mountains and kind of got accidentally roped into fly fishing I don't remember who introduced me to it, but I was like, I'll get one of those $30 kits. And I took it up with me when we went to the Sierra one year on the east side and was just having so much fun. And it just it rings my bell with somebody who doesn't just like to sit there and do nothing. I like to explore. I like to be casting. I like to be trying different things. So I just immediately got hooked on it, pun very much intended. from there, like many things, when I get into a hobby, I just dive in head first and, started getting more and more into it. And that was probably, gosh, that's probably coming up on close to 20 years ago. And I've been stuck on it ever since and still consider myself at best in intermediate fly fisher. So.
Katie
You know, anyone who considers themselves beyond intermediate, it I start to get a little skeptical of. I feel like there's, you know, there's no real way to master it. So when someone's like really gung ho on how good they are, I'm like, I don't know about that. The people who are humble, I'm like, you probably know more than you think you do.
Derek
If you're Joe Humphries or Lefty Kreh, you can be an expert. The rest of us will stick with the middle difficulty setting.
Katie
Where did you grow up? Was it close to the Sierras or were you traveling there?
Derek
I grew up near Los Angeles, about an hour east of Los Angeles. So it was definitely a travel. You can get to the southern side of the Sierra, like Lake Isabella, which is I consider kind of where the Sierra starts. That's where the Kern River dubs out. And you can get there in like three and odd hours, but we would typically get up a little further into the Mammoth Lakes area on the east side or into the Yosemite and Sequoia area on the west side, which was about six hours driving, which it seems like a lot in California. That's not that much because the Sierra Nevada is such a, I think it's something like 480 miles from north to south, the range, if I remember right. Somebody can correct me if I'm wrong, but it's just this massive, massive mountain range. And because of that, I could spend 10 lifetimes up there and not explore at all. And going up so much and having so many memories from my youth of it. Just every time I go back, it's like a pilgrimage. It's my mecca in a way.
Katie
I saw in one of your presentations that you kind of focused on the Yosemite area. Do you have a lot of experience specifically in Yosemite or has your experience kind of spanned the entirety of the Sierra Range?
Derek
More from Bridgeport, which is probably another two or three hours north of that on the east side south. I haven't done a lot of the stuff. I've done a couple trips up near Tahoe in like the McAulomne wilderness, which is south of Tahoe. But most of what I did was in the southern region of the Sierra. And I've actually never fished, fly fished in the typical area we think of, like Yosemite Valley with Half Dome and all that. I've Now, Yosemite National Park is much, much bigger than just that little valley. And I've done a couple trips in there. But I try and stay away from really well-traveled areas because I enjoy the solitude of it all. So I've done some stuff on the eastern side of Yosemite and on the western side of Yosemite, the actual national park. But, I mean, there's so much to explore. I won't call myself an expert on the area or anything. I try and go a different place every year because there's always something new to see.
Katie
Sure. That's a hard balance to strike for me, at least, you know, going back to places I love versus seeing new places. Because I'm like, in some ways, going back to a place I love feels like I'm wasting a trip because I'm like, I could, you know, I'll never see everywhere I want to go in the world. Like, I'm just wasting this trip going back somewhere. But then it's also so fun to go back and kind of relive places you enjoyed before and see how they've changed. It's like, it's a dance that I don't know if I'll ever quite settle on where I fall there.
Derek
And the nice thing is you have different experiences in the same place. Like we always grew up going to the June Lake loops or to the Mammoth Lake basin and to Yosemite national park. And it's always a little different every time you go, there's one I want to revisit because we went in the summer of, I believe it was the year 2023. And that was when the Sierra got like a silly record snow year. Like it was the, in the Southern Sierra region, it was the record snow year. It was something like 300% of normal or something like that, 300% of average. And when we were up in late July, pretty much everything above 10,000 feet was still frozen, which is super unusual. So this trip actually didn't have that much fishing because most of it was spent navigating all the trail challenges we ran into. Because one, it was the burn area in the Creek Fire, which was this massive fire, I believe in 2020. So part of it was that. So there was a lot of difficulty finding the trail and staying on the trail between that and the snow. And then once we got off trail, the bridge we were supposed to cross to get to the other side of the, of the San Joaquin river was out. And so we had to then backtrack and spent, I think about 10 hours going like two and a half miles as the, as the bird flies. It was more like seven or eight miles for us, but it was all really intense cross country with a dog. So it was really, really grueling. We didn't do as much fishing as we would have liked. And a lot of the places that we wanted to fish were frozen, but it was this gorgeous area. It's called Bench Canyon. And it's actually just, I believe, south and east of the Yosemite National Park border. I'm not concerned about burning that spot. It's on the Sierra High route. So you do occasionally see Sierra High routers up there. And then on top of that, it's just really hard to get to. it is cross country there's not a trail to bench canyon per se and it is stunning it is a beautiful beautiful place and when we went there were still these giant cornices on the cliffs and things like that so I I would love to go back when it's a little more melted out and the wildflowers are all in bloom and I would love to see that again but like you said it's hard to find that balance because at the same time I'm like oh there's this other basin I want to go to and this year we're going to try and catch all three subspecies of the golden trout in their native watersheds on one trip. So that's, you know, there's always cool things to do and never enough time to do it.
Katie
That almost sounds like kind of a balance between seeing a new place and going back to a place. Because it's like, when you go back, it's going to be a completely different experience. It's not like you're going back and going to repeat that trip, or hopefully not. Hopefully you get it in better conditions. So that's kind of a nice halfway point, I guess, to, you know, reliving that, but also getting a brand new and hopefully much better experience. What are the three subspecies of golden trout?
Derek
So the golden trout, some, what is it, ichthyologists, fish scientists, let's just call them fish scientists, think that the golden trout is a subspecies of the rainbow. And others consider it its own separate species. So there's some debate about that. But there's actually, when we think of the golden trout, when you think of golden trout, if you're not, some people mistakenly call those banana colored monstrosities from the Virginia hatchery golden trout. No, those are Palomino rainbows. It's this weird, odd genetic condition. And those are actually rainbows. But a golden trout that we typically think of is actually what we'd call the California golden trout. It used to be called the Volcano Creek golden trout. That's the classic golden trout, but there's two other subspecies. One is the Little Kern golden, and one is the Kern River rainbow. And they share a similar area on the southeast side of the Sierra in terms of their native range. And they do look fairly distinct from the golden trout. In fact, the Kern River Rainbow looks, I would argue, more like a red band in some ways than a golden trout. But it is considered part of that golden trout complex. So because they're all generally in the same area, we have to hike a little ways to get to the actual native range of the golden, of the California golden. But the Little Kern and the Kern River Rainbow are fairly close to each other. So we'll definitely be able to pick those up and hopefully the California golden as well. So I'm pretty excited about that.
Katie
So if you had to classify yourself as a lump or a splitter in terms of species, would you be a splitter then if you're considering these all separate, even though there might be some gray area there?
Derek
I'm definitely a splitter.
Katie
I'm a splitter too. It gives me more to fish for.
Derek
That's exactly it. I have a sort of a Pokemon approach when it comes to fish species, like got to catch them all, right? So I don't care if it's a six inch trout. I'm more excited to catch a native or wild, interesting new species than fish for like a 20 inch stalker. And that's, I'm not trying to yuck anybody's yum. There are people that love that and enjoy it. And if that's what makes you enjoy fly fishing, power to you. That's just not what I get out of it. So I'm definitely a splitter. And I've always weirded out that the brown trout doesn't have more distinct subspeciation.
Katie
You know, I was just talking about that with somebody, how different species have different levels of what people talk about, like cutthroats. I feel like people rarely talk about cutthroats without mentioning what subspecies it was. They're almost treated like different species. Meanwhile, I feel like you get to rainbows. There are some subspecies of rainbows people talk about, but it starts to become more just like rainbow trout. And then by the time you get to brown trout or brook trout, it's like, it's a brown trout. it's a brook trout. There's not a lot of discussion of the specific named subspecies.
Derek
I don't know. And I don't really know why. I have to assume, and if I were to just guess, I am not a scientist, but you think about the West and all these big mountain ranges and the glaciation that split up a lot of these areas and allowed these subspecies to become what they are. And these fish barriers and out East, there's just not as much in the way of fish barriers to keep fish from moving into places and then becoming their own distinct subspecies. And even with the browns, obviously browns aren't native to the US or to North America, but with the browns, they would go into areas like Sweden and Scotland and Germany and all that, but then they'd be sea run. And I assume there was some intermixing in where a brown trout would end up in a different river or something like that. So I'm sure there's some level of genetic diversity there that maybe just hasn't been studied. But I find it really interesting, just like you do, that there are less subspecies classifications of brooks and browns.
Katie
That's a really good point. I think you might be right about that. I wonder if also browns, I typically don't find browns at like high elevation. They, they're much more in like the lower, slower, bigger rivers, just compared to things like cutthroats. So I wonder if they just like the types of habitats they're in are less prone to having a barrier, you know, a big cascade. You know, if they're in, if they're in kind of like closer to warm water, larger rivers, they can kind of go everywhere and mix up with each other. So I don't know. I know we're both just spitballing here, but that, that strikes me as a good guess.
Derek
Yeah. Your next guess should be somebody who completely obliterates everything I just said. and they if they're right they're right you know but browns I have found browns at high elevation occasionally because they stocked the sierra just any any body of water at some point probably got stocked with all sorts of species and if they could hang on and establish they did so there's so many bodies of water most of those those areas were fishless before we started you know, mule training and milk can stocking all these places. And when I say we, I mean human beings in general. But there are places with browns that are high elevation in the Sierra, but you are right. I don't run into them as often up in like the 10,000 foot range.
Katie
Yeah. I feel like that's the cutthroat in brook trout water. And then you get a little lower and you get some rainbows and a little lower and you get some browns. That's at least what I typically experience.
Derek
And where do you tend to fish these high elevations? I didn't ever ask you where you're located.
Katie
Oh, I'm in Colorado.
Derek
Oh, okay. So you got the Rockies right there. That's, I'm jealous.
Katie
Well, I'm jealous of your experience in California because like Colorado has, it does have variety, but the Rockies are a very different range from the Sierras. Like they, it's, it's not just like a mountain, a mountain range is a mountain range. It's a very different kind of feel. And, I've been to the Sierras, I've been to Yosemite, but I haven't done a ton of fishing out there. And, I think that's on my list. Hopefully the next couple of years, I'd really like to get out and do like a golden trout trip because it just, it's the same style of fishing I like, but in a completely different feeling environment.
Derek
It is. The Rockies definitely are a bit older of a mountain range as compared to the Sierra. The Sierra geologically are quite young. And it's because of that, particularly the Southeast side of the Sierra where Mount Whitney is, which is the tallest point in the lower 48. And there's a bunch of other like 13ers in that area, but it's just incredibly jagged and rugged. In fact, we were there this last year. We're in a basin there that has a lot of golden trout. And it's just, it's a very different experience than the West Side. And it's probably an extremely different experience than the Rockies. But I have to assume the Rockies also have a fair bit of species diversity with the stocking efforts that took place in the West in the 19th and 20th centuries.
Katie
Oh yeah, we've got, I mean, we've got all four main species of trout, grayling. We do have some golden trout, not a lot of them, but a couple. But yeah, I mean, the majority of our high alpine stuff is brookies and cutthroats, handful of grayling lakes. And then the lower rivers are like rainbows and browns.
Derek
I'm jealous of the graylings. There was a grayling spot until like the either early 90s or late 80s that was a reservoir, but they didn't end up having an ability to sustain the population.
Katie
That's how I feel like golden trout are in Colorado. They've been stocked a bunch of times in a bunch of different places. And there's a handful of holdouts. But it's not, there's not like a lot of reliable places you can go and just like pull golden after golden out. Like it's kind of a rarity around here because they just haven't done super well. Gotcha. Which is kind of interesting to me because they've done really well in the Wind Rivers and I'm not sure what's different about that area.
Derek
I would have no idea. I just know they like really cold water. They tend to prefer, like they can get big in lakes, but they tend to prefer the moving water. And they like to be way, way up in elevation, Like above 10,000 is typically where you see them.
Katie
So transitioning over, I guess, into the kind of the backpacking, backcountry fishing itself. I just want to start off by hearing what you like about it. Because I know that's like the main thing you do. And it's the same with me. That's like what I spend most of my time doing. But I'd love to hear, you know, what draws you to backcountry fishing specifically?
Derek
Oh, man. I mean, that's probably a really long list in no particular order. You get the solitude, right? Like I'm very much a public lands advocate right up until I get on them. And then I'm like, this should, nobody else should be here.
Katie
This should be mine.
Derek
Which is a bit of a paradox, I understand. But I love fishing solitude. I love being out in nature and not having, having as little human influence inside as possible, whether it be a trail or another tent or another person. I really, really enjoy that. There is something very healthy about being in the wilderness. The Japanese practice what's called Shinrin-yoku, which is literally translated as forest bathing. And the Japanese government actually realized that, oh, it's really good for people physically and mentally to be outside and to have nature. Because Japan has such a relatively small landmass, and we are blessed with this huge landmass in the U.S. Japan specifically set aside areas to keep wild because they realized how important that was for people. And I find that very true. You walk out there, you come back in a week, and it's just like all the dross and gunk of modern living have been washed off the soul. And you can kind of breathe again. And you don't realize how much of that builds up until you get away from that. And you don't have cell service and you don't have to worry about work and your paycheck and whatever repairs your house might need or your car might need. And you just go out there and live and wander. And there's something about that that is really, really, I find almost necessary for my soul and my brain as a human being. And on top of that, just, you know, adventure, right? Like there's, you're, you're going out and seeing new places. You're fishing for species as you talked, as we've talked about that, aren't really easily accessible in a lot of places. Um, it's really, it, it's always an adventure. And I don't know if you have this experience, but I always find on every trip I have, no matter whether it's a day or a week, there's like high points and low points that, are somehow magnified by just the general experience of backpacking. And, yeah, there's, there's something truly delightful about all of that, that I can't ever get enough of. Every time I come back, I'm like, okay, I'm ready to just like quickly resupply and go back up into the mountains for another week. I know that, you know, modern living won't necessarily allow me to do that. Also, I have like a wife and a dog that I want to see, but at the same time, Yeah, there's such a laundry list of things that I enjoy about it. It's really, I don't think I've ever written them all down in one place. That might be a good exercise for me. And the fishing's just, the other part is, I don't know about you, but I always feel like such an expert fly fisher when I go up there because the fish are dumb as bricks.
Katie
Oh, yeah. I would rather work hard to get to where the fish are dumb so I don't have to work as hard for the fishing itself. Which maybe doesn't speak a lot to my fishing skill if I'm just going to like opt out of fish that are picky and difficult to catch. But I'll put my effort in physically to make the fishing easier for myself.
Derek
I live out in eastern Pennsylvania now and the browns are finicky and skittish and hatch oriented and all of the above and line shy. And so after going to the Sierra and, you know, you don't have to have good casting technique. You can slap the water usually and it doesn't really matter. And then I come back here and I've developed all these terrible habits that just do not translate to the finicky brown trout of Pennsylvania. And it takes me a couple trips to go, oh, right. I can't just hit the water like it owes me money with the fly. I've got to actually land it in such a way that the fish doesn't bolt for its nearest log.
Katie
Right. I have to think about what fly choice I put on and what size it is and all these hassles that don't matter when you're 10 miles back.
Derek
It is certainly a different type of fishing out here that I don't think I fully appreciated. The fish out west, even in the more well-traveled waters, tend to be bigger and dumber. And that's sort of a mantra I've heard among a lot of people who have either done the move either direction or fished both places often. and there is something that makes me feel like a really good fly fisher in those moments where it doesn't you know you have to find where they are and then once you find where they are it's just it's it's almost like fish in a barrel
Katie
yeah I'll have to try east coast fly fishing at some point. I actually grew up in Pennsylvania as well but I was a bass fisherman when I lived there so I didn't get into trout until I moved out west and so I've never experienced the the Pennsylvania trout scene, or at least the fly fishing scene. My first trout was caught in Pennsylvania, but on a worm. So I haven't experienced the picky Spring Creek fish that I hear about back east. I've only dealt with the fish in the barrel situation. So I've spoiled myself, I think.
Derek
But like you said, you have to work hard to get there. If you're hiking five miles and gaining several thousand feet in elevation, that's work that most people won't put in for that type of fishing. Either or they won't. It's amazing in the Mammoth Lakes area, there's just so much fishable drive up water in the Sierra and they get stocked regularly that a lot of people aren't even willing to walk the half mile to the other side of the lake or the inlet stream or even just the lake above it that dumps into it. Above the Mammoth Lakes basin, there's a couple lakes within like a mile that They're just superb fishing. And you can be the only person up there all day. And people, you know, they stock the fish in the lakes below. And that's where people know where to go. And they don't want to travel off the beaten path. And they don't want to walk to get there. And you can just walk a mile, take 30 minutes, climb 500, 600 feet, and just have a tremendous time fishing a lake or a stream that you're never going to see anybody else at. The fish are wild. They're much less cagey. It's a lot of fun. So I encourage anybody listening, if you're so used to fishing those drive up waters, but you also kind of get annoyed by like, oh, my usual spot has three or four guys in it, or I always see trash or whatever, just go walk half a mile, a quarter mile, and see how much your fishing experience changes, both the fishing itself and the surrounds and the scenery. And it's usually for the better.
Katie
I almost feel like the half mile to a mile is like my least fished distance because I'm either going to pull up with a car or I'm going to like load up a backpack and like go for it. I don't often walk like half a mile to get somewhere because it feels like I have to load up the pack the same way, but then I don't actually get like as much exercise or is it like a big outing, you know? So I feel like that's my blind spot right there is the half mile from the road spot. So maybe I need to put more time into going to those.
Derek
The nice thing about Pennsylvania in that way is that you're never more than like a few miles from the nearest road. There's just not a lot of back country out here. So when I fish central Pennsylvania with my trout unlimited chapter or whatever, when we go and do trips, I'll usually just encourage everybody, let's just walk for 10 minutes and let's get away from the parking area and let's see if there's better water, not just in terms of whether there's riffles or cover or whatever, but just less traveled water. And 90% of the time, the walk was a really good idea.
Katie
Now in the Sierras, are you usually fishing alpine lakes or high alpine streams? What is your kind of preferred water?
Derek
It depends on the trip. The nice thing is there's always both. If there's a lake, there's a stream, you know. And there's rare spots that, like in the southern Sierra, there wasn't as much glaciation along the Kern River. So you don't get a lot of the glacial lakes and there's very few of them. But for the most part, the lakes are going to hold the bigger fish. That's not always true, but that tends to be true. And then the moving water, unless you're fishing some of the bigger quote rivers, which out here they would call streams, the moving water tends to be really narrow, really skinny. And that's the kind of water I learned out of fly fish on in Southern California, because there are trout streams in the San Gabriels that not a lot of people know about. And they're, you know, at best 15 feet wide in like pools and stuff like that. And in a lot of places you can hop across them. So that sort of fishing really appeals to me that exploring and hitting a hole a couple of times, you know, a potential holding area and then just moving on. Um, but I like both, they both have their appeal there's a couple of the really memorable times I've had fishing have been during sunset and the fish are rising and you're just casting a dry out there and watching them take it off the surface and on these beautiful lakes that are just mirror flat and you've got the sunset up there and then the sunset reflected in the lake but then there's other times where I fished these tiny moving creeks in 22 I want to say we caught paiute cutthroat which are one of the rarer subspecies on earth in this creek that was probably 12 to 15 miles back of of the nearest trailhead and that was really memorable too these absolutely stunning gorgeous cutthroat that don't have a single spot on them they're really unique subspecies and they were only you know six eight inches and they were absolutely gorgeous and you're just bow and arrow casting and they do the typical cutthroat thing where they just come up in the most unhurried manner for the fly grab it and come back down and we fish for these things for just a couple hours but that's an experience I'll probably never forget either so I i tend to I tend to like to fish both people think of fly fishing and they think of moving water generally but what about you are you tending to do the moving water more the lakes more… I know that there's quite a few lakes in the Rockies as well.
Katie
If I am planning a big trip back into the backcountry, I'm probably going to a lake, but I would say I fish streams maybe more often just because they're more accessible. They don't require a full day outing to get to streams, but I'm kind of like you. I'll be on my way up to fish a lake and I'll see something in the outlet and then follow that stream down for a little bit. I don't know. I would say it's probably 50-50-ish what I fish, but I like both.
Derek
Does the bite get slower in the afternoon in the lakes for you as well?
Katie
uh sometimes yes sometimes no. I don't know if you found this but I find that in most of the lakes the fish rise and stop rising almost like together and I haven't noticed like a real pattern with it but it'll be like they're all rising right now for 15 minutes and then they all stop and I'm like I don't know how you all knew to stop at the same time but I haven't noticed a pattern with like weather or time of day I i do feel like I see most of the rises in the evening but I feel like morning and afternoon sometimes kind of even out for me I don't know if you've had the same experience or if morning is just as hot as the evening for you?
Derek
Um, morning can be just as good. If you get up right at sunrise, you're going to see them rising in the same way that they're going to be rising around sunset. And I think kind of those, those twilight areas are when I tend to see the most rises, but there's other times where, we were fishing a lake that didn't really have a lot of information on it. And we went up kind of expecting to see a bunch of small brookies. We knew there were brookies in there, but we expected the usual brookie lake in the Sierra, which is overpopulated, super skinny brookies. They'll all go for your fly and you'll catch a bunch of like six to eight inch brookies that look like they're starving to death. However, we ended up, the first fish I caught, I think was 12 or 13 inches and just football shaped. And I was like, oh, this is going to be a good lake. And we must've spent two hours there catching big, chunky, hard fighting brookies. And it was a lot of fun. I think the biggest one we got was 14. My brother got a really nice one hooked, but got off the line that was probably closer to 16, but, they were rising in the afternoon with no hesitation. And you also tend to see them like, it depends on the lake structure too. If there's shallows and drop-offs, if the outlet It has good movement and like weeds and log structures around it. You'll see more rises there even through the middle of the day. And up that high, I don't know if the Rockies are this way, but there's just not natural predation happening to these fish on any scale that would make them wary. In the same way, once again, moving back to eastern Pennsylvania, there's all the there's the minks and the otters and the great blue herons and the eagles and all that. So they're always scared of whatever's out of the water. Whereas in the Sierra, you'll see them cruising in this absolutely clear as glass water, just kind of cruising, grabbing something off the surface, coming back down. They might drop off the edge of the shelf for a while and then come back up. But it's so dependent. I think you're right that it's dependent on the lake and the structure. And sometimes there's no rhyme or reason. Sometimes they'll be rising in mid-afternoon and you're going, okay, there's something going on that makes them decide it's feeding time, but I can't see what it is.
Katie
Yeah, and I think you're exactly right, too, about the kind of the structure. I feel like if there's a drop-off and I could reach out over the drop-off, then I can probably catch fish midday. I might not catch them on the shelf midday. I feel like I'm going to see more rises like morning and evening in kind of that shallower water. But if I'm able to get out over the edge of the shelf, I don't feel like afternoon is necessarily much worse. But also, like, you know, at the high elevation, it's not going to get super hot during the day either. So you're not dealing with, like, warm water temperatures. They can come up to the surface and then just go right back down where the water's cool. So –
Derek
Well, and even, you know, even in the Sierra, a lot of these headwater lakes that we're fishing are just snowmelt. And I'm sure the Rockies are the same way where even in the heat of summer, that water's like 50 degrees. Yeah. They're happy all the time. The temperature profile of when they are rising and when they're not is very different from the, oh, you know, 55 to 60 is like the sweet spot for out here in Pennsylvania. And out there, It's just like, no, it's as long as there hasn't been a massive temperature swing to lower, they usually are very content to be coming up and grabbing whatever. Now, I tend to either fish those drop-offs, like you said, or move to the moving water in the afternoon, or that's when we're actually walking to the next location. I'm curious what your strategies, fly fishing strategies are for those lakes in the midday because I've been trying to develop some of my own and sometimes they work and sometimes they don't.
Katie
I don't know if I have much of a strategy apart from, like you said, fishing the drop offs. Like if I can find a place that I can reach out over the edge of the shelf or if I have a belly boat, if I'm lucky enough to have a belly boat with me, get out into the middle of the lake or I'll head to like the outlet or the inlet or somewhere that the water's moving a little bit more. I probably won't just be standing on the bank, casting onto the shelf as much as I would, in the morning or the evening. But I don't know if I have much of a strategy. Usually if I'm up there, if I'm like camped up there, I'm just up there to fish and have a good time. So like, I'm just going to fish throughout the day. And you know, if I find them, I find them. If I don't, I don't, but I'm not going to, I don't put a lot of thought, I guess, into, you know, maximizing, you know, catching fish during this time and then changing something up to catch, catch them in the middle of the day beyond just like try to find some deeper, cooler water. I guess I'm just not thinking about it that in depth, maybe as much as you are. But yeah, just fishing the deeper water, the drop-offs, things like that.
Derek
Okay, that makes sense. I've been trying to get better at those middays, especially because a few years ago, we tried to do a Sierra Grand Slam, which is four species in one day. And we had, I think, two days to attempt it. The first day, we got rained out really bad. We got stuck in our tents for like four or five hours with a hailstorm coming through. And then the second day we got skunked at the last lake, which was like a super deep bowl. There was not really a shelf. It was just more or less straight down from the shoreline. And it was this headwater lake. It was literally the first lake in the chain that had Lahontan cutthroats in it. And it was super, super deep. And I had caught one fish there in three hours the first day. And then the second day we just got completely skunked. And with cutthroats, you generally think surface oriented, right? We maybe saw two rises and we fished it for like four hours that second day. It was the last species we needed. We were super psyched. We're like, we did it. We're going to get this done. And then we got skunked at this lake. And ever since then, I've been thinking about that lake going, what would I have done differently when there's not a shelf that I can drag a streamer or like slow hand twist a couple of soft tackles right along that shelf down low at like a 45 degree angle to stay in that zone longer? And I don't know if I've come up with any great solutions. But I was curious to hear what your terminal rig tends to be in those situations, because I'm always looking for new ideas.
Katie
So I don't fish a lot. I think I heard you on another podcast and you were talking about, you know, kind of letting it drop. I don't know if you're talking about streamers or nymphing, but I'm typically fishing a dry fly and I'll often put a long dropper off the end.
Derek
How long? Like three feet? Five feet?
Katie
Yeah, maybe three, which I'm just considering long because like if I do a dry dropper in a stream, it's going to be like a foot, you know?
Derek
Yeah. At most, yeah.
Katie
Yeah, so I'll put a dropper on the bottom. And then if I'm getting more hits on the dropper, I will often switch just to a nymph and strip it. I'll put like two nymphs on, cast out, and just like slowly strip them back in. I don't do a ton of streamer fishing. I know a lot of people like streamers in Alpine Lakes. But at least here in Colorado, I don't often need to go to a dropper or a nymph. They tend to rise pretty like reliably for me. And I don't even feel like they're super picky on the surface. like beetles, ants, things like that. Like I feel like a beetle and ant or parachute atoms, one single fly is probably 80% of what I'm fishing on an alpine. Like I don't usually need to go to anything else. Like I'll start with one of those and then if they're hitting it, I don't change. And I feel like most of the time they're hitting it. But yeah, I'll do like dry, then add a dropper if that's not working, then goes to nymphs. And then after that, I might try a streamer if still nothing's working.
Derek
Okay, that makes sense. I definitely am on your side with the dry. If I can fish it dry, I'm fishing it dry. But certainly there have been a couple lakes I've been to where for whatever reason, you just don't see rises in these lakes. And it's a real oddity because one of them was a golden lake and the other one was a cutthroat lake, the two that I'm thinking of. And the golden lake has a reputation for just, they're not going to come up. You have to fish the shelves. And I'm like, that's such a strange thing for goldens, which typically are very surface oriented. This last trip that I did last year, we fished for big cruising goldens and they wanted hoppers. So we were just throwing hoppers. And most of the time they're going to take dry flies. And it was so weird to have them not do it. And the only fish I caught out of the lake were on, like you said, slow strip, soft hackles, where I'm just doing a hand twist along that drop off.
Katie
I also find, I don't know if you've experienced this, but if I'm struggling to catch them on dries, I often feel like I'm struggling to catch them on other things too. It's not like, I feel like in rivers, you know, if they're not rising, I might put a nymph on and then suddenly it's like, okay, boom, boom, boom, I'm catching, you know, a ton of fish. Like that's what they needed. In an alpine lake, I feel like if I throw dries for an hour and don't catch anything, they're not rising. If I switch to a nymph, it doesn't immediately become like, now I'm catching a bunch of fish. Like it often tends to still be a tough day for me. It's almost like when they're not rising, they're just not eating as much.
Derek
They are certainly not. And it's definitely, that's why I tend to switch to the moving water during the, when the sun gets high. And, you know, yes, they don't spook as easily up there because the feeding season's short and there's less predation and all that. But they'll still spook if they see a shadow on the water or if you put your line right over the top of a rise form or something like that. They'll still move away a lot of the time. Although some of them are real dumb. Yeah, I tend to move to the moving waters or start walking during the afternoon because that tends to be the time when it's hardest to find fish. I've found anyways, but that's not all. I mean, once you get to moving water too, a lot of the times we'll stop for lunch at a creek and then we'll spend an hour or two fishing. And the creeks are, they're going to come up all day on the creeks.
Katie
Yeah, I was going to ask, do you find still water to be quite a bit harder or more finicky than moving water?
Derek
I mean, other than like you said, the times when they're feeding tends to change and it tends to be different at certain lakes than others. The hardest part of Stillwater that I found was reading it. It's actually kind of like when I get on a big creek out here in Pennsylvania that's relatively featureless. Like it's a big glide and there's not a lot of, you know, riffles or anything showing that there's rocks or logs or whatever laying around. I have a tough time reading that too, but I've learned through podcasts and through reading and through other people's experiences how to read Stillwater better. And the inlets and outlets, like you said, are always a safe bet. Wood is good. Finding points. And I'll do, I'll actually, I get super prepared on these trips when I know what our route's going to be. Once I do that, I actually find satellite images of all the lakes on Google Maps and I'll get a nice close up screenshot so I can see where the shelves are, where I'm going to be able to reach the shelves, where the points are. A lot of the times you can see the forms of fallen logs and you can find where the inlets and outlets are. And then you can quickly reference that on your phone when you get to the lake and go, OK, it's afternoon. This point has good access to a shelf and I'm not seeing anything at the inlets or outlets. So I'm going to move over there. But it's definitely takes a bit of time to learn to read still water, particularly, like you said, a belly boat. I've never been brave enough to carry anything like that up the hill or on a seven-day trip. But fishing from the bank, you know, you have limited reach. If you're a good caster and can get 70 feet and you have the back cast room, great. But for me, 50 is kind of where I top out. So being able to read the water close to the banks before you get there and then kind of realize where the fish are going to tend to congregate or where you think they're probably going to tend to congregate, especially in some of the lower population lakes. One of the lakes we fished this last year, the reason it had big fish is it had decent food, but not great spawning ground. So there's low population getting really fat and happy. But that meant that we had to be moving around the lake until we found them. And then the next day, we went back to the exact same spot where we caught like four or five of these bigger goldens, and they weren't there. They moved on to somewhere else. So then you got to go find them again. So it definitely is more of a challenge to fish the big water, the still water, and even just bigger water in general. But I mean, the Rockies and the Sierra are both tend to be high gradient, skinnier, moving water. So there's only so many places they can be.
Katie
Oh, yeah. I feel the same way. I feel like in a lake, you might end up walking around the entire lake looking for where they happen to be. And like you said, they might not be the same place they were last time. It's not just that they hang out on the side of the lake. It's like this afternoon they're over here and then tomorrow they're over there. Whereas in the creek coming out of a lake, it's not rocket science to figure out where they are. They're exactly where a fish would be expected to be, you know, behind or in front of this rock, you know, in this bend, under this, like, undercut bank. Yeah. it's like, you know where they're going to be. You put your fly there. They either take it or they don't and you move on. And there's not a lot of like searching for the fish. I find it's kind of like, you know where they are. It's just a matter of…
Derek
well, there's only so many holding spots in that high gradient stuff too, where, okay, this is a pool. We fished a pool this year that it was, we stopped for lunch and there was this plunge pool and you could, cause it's the high Sierra and I'm not sure. I imagine the Rockies are like this with all that snow melt water and the granite bottom. That water, you can just see straight to the bottom. And there must have been 60 or 70 fish in this little pool holding and nymphing. And you could fish this pool the entire week and never spook the fish enough to where they wouldn't take flies anymore. And they're all like six to eight inch goldens and brookies, but it was a freaking blast to watch them darting around and watch them track your fly. And I've found that being able to see fish behavior like that, how they react to your fly, how they react to movement, how they react to your line and leader really informs my fishing when I can't see what they're doing. And I don't know if you've had that experience too.
Katie
Yeah. And it's also interesting, like even at the moment of, because you can see, you know, did it, if you're in water that you can't see, it's just, I'm not catching fish. If you can see them, you're kind of like, oh, it came up and it, it almost took it, but then it, you know, something wasn't quite right. So maybe it just needs to be a little smaller, a little larger. So like you can start to play around with it and see like, okay, it got even closer to taking it that time. Like I'm moving in the right direction here. When you can't see the fish at all, it's kind of like, I don't know, I'm catching them or I'm not catching them.
Derek
Am I not deep enough? Is it not the right fly? Right. You know, yeah. Or there's just no fish here.
Katie
Do you have many beaver ponds out in the Sierras?
Derek
There can be. I think they reintroduce them in some places. they tend to be lower elevation and we don't tend to have a lot of them out there I don't know how the rockies are
Katie
oh we have tons of them yeah I mean when I'm fishing moving water moving water is often kind of a it explains half of what I'm doing when I'm on moving water because the other half is spent fishing the beaver ponds that are like along the moving water so like I guess technically still water but but not that not to the same level as an alpine lake they fish a lot differently and a lot spookier fish I wonder why that is oh why they're spookier yeah oh I would guess just they're often in like two feet of water and and you're like right up right up along the edge because it's often like there's willows everywhere so it's it's kind of hard to stand like far away and cast into the pond so you're you're often kind of like sneaking up to the edge and trying to you might get two chances at a cast and then you know if you spook everything then you got to kind of keep moving I love that kind of fishing that's like that's one of my favorite things to do. And those are typically fish well throughout the day, I find.
Derek
And the keep moving is honestly, I don't know about you, but that's my favorite part is like, during COVID, I really was able to get more local fishing done in Southern California and was exploring all these different creeks and finding places that had fish that even some of the tight knit groups that do fish those waters didn't know about because it's like, well, I got time, you know so when I was doing that and then there's always that I wonder what's at the next pool oh yeah or I remember there was one spot out there where the bottom of the of the creek kind of poured out into like a gated community and people knew about that and you'd find like worm cans and stuff down there but once you got like a half mile up it really you didn't you stop seeing trash, you stop seeing graffiti and all the nonsense. And I actually took some mountain roads up to the headwaters of the creek. And then I hiked my way down and then fished my way up. And on the way back up, I discovered I just completely missed this beautiful little spring seep that was coming down a cliff wall that just had the cliff, Southern California, you know, pretty dry in the summer. So a lot of brown. And then you get into these beautiful riparian areas, But this was just this beautiful green cliff wall and a wild grape field next to it and just an extraordinary little grotto almost where I stopped and had lunch. And I was like, never would have found it if I hadn't been wondering what was around the next corner.
Katie
Right. And it's so crazy because like in the grand scheme of things, you know, the next pool or the next beaver pond is not going to be that different from this one. Like if, you know, of all the different types of fishing you can do, like it's still pretty similar. but I can never give up the idea of like, what is going to be at that next one? It could be something incredible. And it feels that way when you get there and you're like, wow, how this is set up or how the water has seeped up into these crevices in the meadow and things like that. It just, it feels like a whole different universe. Like you're kind of looking at an aquarium, which I really enjoy.
Derek
As do I. I think that the being in nature part of it, even when the fishing isn't great, which is very, very rare, fortunately, when you're backpacking, Um, just the, the being out there, seeing it as it is and getting to take a small part in it without, you know, doing what humans often do, trampling it and ruining it and turning it to our own devices. Um, it's a really wonderful experience and I, I just can't imagine trading it out for, for anything else. It certainly means that when I do just take day trips for fishing, I'm always like, oh man, it would be really nice to hike up this Creek and a couple miles and just stay.
Katie
stay there. Yeah. Well, I have to ask you the obligatory, gear question and we don't have to go through every single thing you take. You know, everyone's going to be taking a headlamp and stuff on these overnight trips, but, fishing gear wise, I always like to ask what people take with them because there's, there's all kinds of different strategies about, you know, what do you shave weight on? What do you take extra of that kind of stuff? So I'd love to hear kind of, your, your fishing gear setup. And if you have any kind of like hacks or tips for, for weight saving and doing backcountry.
Derek
I assume you know about the fluorescent T12 light guard as a rod case.
Katie
I have not changed my rod case at all. And I just like, I've never even really like thought about changing it. That's not somewhere that I've like attempted to save weight
Derek
Do you have like one of those fabric wrapped rod cases that weigh like a pound?
Katie
I have some of those and I have some like non-fabric wrapped, I don't know what they're like, maybe just carbon fiber rod tubes.
Derek
Oh, that's nice. That's probably quite light. The ones I have, and I show you, but they're back there. And this is obviously an audio podcast. But if you go to Home Depot and you look for fluorescent light guards, so those big fluorescent tube lights, they have these plastic guards that you can buy for them. And it's a super lightweight plastic. And then there's caps at each end. And I just grabbed a Home Depot gift card off the rack, didn't fill it up or anything, just cut it and glued those in to where the terminals come out of the guard. guard, the little oval-shaped slot. And then I used the caps on each end to cut out a piece of foam to kind of support the rod and keep it from rattling around as much, cut the guard to the exact size that I needed because they come in like a four-foot length. And I just cut it down to what my four-piece rod breaks down to. And it weighs like an ounce and a half. And it doesn't, it's not going to protect the rod if like you fall on your side and fall on the rod, it's probably going to break the rod. But if you're going under a tree, it's not going to catch the tip and snap it like carrying a bear rod would. So it's really a nice compromise between something weighty like PVC and something not weighty like air. And I take two rods in those. I take a three-weight rod and a five-weight rod. And the reason I take two is the obvious reason, which is there's no fly shops at 10,000 feet. And if you break one rod, you're kind of in real trouble. So I always take a three weight for the streams. It's like an eight foot four, three weight. And then a five weight for the lakes because you get more casting power. You can cast when there's wind, things like that. And usually the three weight gets more because a lot of times I'll just take the three weight out on a lake. If I know it's going to be small fish and I'm fishing the outlet and it's, it's in the evening and there's not a lot of wind or anything, I'll just take out the three weeks. It's more fun. And I like I like the way that feels casting. But I always take two rods, which seems like, oh, that's a weight problem. But, you know, rods weigh what, like three or four ounces? It's not a huge problem. And I'd rather have that than I know the one time I decide to take one rod on a one-week trip is when I'm going to break it like the first day.
Katie
Yeah. Yeah. And I think I'm playing with fire there because, yeah, my weight savings is I only take one rod. Knock on wood, I have not broken one on a backcountry trip. Although I'm not usually doing like a, I'm not traveling across the country and doing a week-long trip. I'm going out for like a weekend from home to get to the mountains. So like if I broke a rod halfway through the trip, it's like, eh, you know, I'll come home. I'll try again next weekend. So I think I might take that same strategy if I were doing the same kind of trips you are. But because I'm not, I just I take the one rod and I guess I just risk it. I'm often going with other people who would have rods as well. So if we needed to like take turns and trade off, it's like not the end of the world.
Derek
Yeah, I tend to go with my brother and my best friend on these once a year Sierra trips that I do now that I live back east or that I live out east. And usually there's five rods between us. So we could in theory break two and still all be able to fish. I do only take one reel actually though. And it's a five weight reel because that three weight is going to cast fine with the five weight and you're never casting long distance on those small waters, right? A lot of the times you've got like maybe a rod length of fly line out for the creeks at most, the vast, vast majority of the time. And then even on the lakes, you know, it's going to cast slower, but it's going to cast fine. And so I take the one reel and it's just got to be a reliable reel with a sealed drag because if you drop it in the sand or whatever something you can easily take apart and clean out if it gets goofy I had one reel that I dropped while we were we were fishing I dropped it and it hit a rock and the aluminum on the not the arbor the actual reel itself actually split in one section so I had to bend it back with pliers on my multi-tool and then cover it with a little bit of aqua seal. And I still use that reel. It works just fine. You know, so.
Katie
That's a hot tip. I had never thought of taking just one reel with two rods and then just making it the larger of the line sizes. Cause you're right. It does not matter what line size you use on those small streams. You're like roll casting or dapping.
Derek
And in fact, the overlining can help you in the instances where you do have to get a little bit of distance because you don't have enough rod or line out to load the rod. Yeah. So having that extra weight can help a ton. That was a tip I got from Tom Rosenbauer, actually, when I called into his show one time and was asking about it when I was struggling with small creeks when I was first doing that exploring in Southern California. And he said, overline your rod. It's going to make your life a lot easier. And as soon as I did that, I started having a much easier time getting my fly where I wanted it to go.
Katie
Huh. That is a really good tip. And it's interesting to hear that you take a three weight and a five weight with your two rods because I take one rod and I take a four weight. So it sounds like we have kind of the same mindset, but I'm just trying to do it with one fewer rod than you are but yeah it's reassuring to hear that I'm like splitting the difference with my one rod
Derek
do you have trouble punching it into the wind ever?
Katie
yeah sometimes if I'm going to a place that I know is going to be windy and require long casts and I'm going to be able to have a like a long back cast I would potentially take a five or six weight and especially if there's big fish but if I'm trying to kind of have a do-it-all rod I take my four weight and I also this four weight is like it's not a very nice rod it's always been my backcountry ride because I've always told myself that if it breaks, I don't care. Yes. But now I've told a bunch of people that because it's gone on so many fun adventures with me, I now care about it. And so now I wouldn't be upset if I broke it.
Derek
It has sentimental value.
Katie
Right.
Derek
Which is a different but arguably more important value than monetary.
Katie
Absolutely. I still tell myself that I wouldn't care if I broke it, but I know that it's been on all my best adventures with me. And so now it's probably my favorite ride just because it's been there for me the whole time.
Derek
I am the same way as you are in that I have like two rods that are cheap, like under $100 rods that I take for the exact same reason. And I've broken the tips on multiple rods doing like the bushwhacking kind of fly fishing I was doing in Southern California because you're clambering up boulders and you're, you know, fighting your way through brush. And even when you're really careful with your rod tip, sometimes just, you know, stuff happens. And it's a bummer. And then fishing gets a lot more challenging for the rest of the day. At least I wasn't breaking it down like near the butt or in the middle sections or anything like that. But the companies were really nice and like sent me a new rod tip and I still use the same rods and it's not been a problem. So I'm with you though on the cheapo rods, not taking like a Helios out on that kind of trip is probably a good idea.
Katie
Yeah. My three weight is a very, very nice rod. And like as much as I would love to fish these like small Alpine streams with my three I tend to save that for trips where I'm like close to the car. Like, you know, even if it is still an Alpine stream, I want to be able to be close to the car because I don't want to be trying to like climb over boulders and stuff with it. It's just, it's risky. Yeah. I want to save it for my cheap rod that I could easily replace.
Derek
Exactly. So I'm curious because I know what my strategy is for the actual, like with terminal tackle, it's pretty easy. I take 3x leaders, 4x for 4x and 1x tip at 1x for streamers X for everything else. I don't really overcomplicate that, but I'm curious about your fly selection because we talked about how most of these fish are not picky and you can get away with either your favorite, like tried and true, the patterns you trust, or you can just get away with generalist patterns. I know a guy who takes like a dozen parachute Adams size 14 when he goes backpacking and that's it. That's all he takes in like a pill bottle. And he does just as well as I do every time he goes. So fly selection, 95%, I'd argue 99% of the time is not going to make or break your trip. But I'm curious if you have any other, you know, like if you, if you have any other things you take for the just in cases or because you get more enjoyment out of X or Y or Z when it comes to fly selection.
Katie
So I would say I take, so I'm, I'm very much like that guy who takes the 12 parachute Adams. I take more, but I would say, you know, 80 plus percent of the fish I catch in the country on a parachute atoms that's my the first one I try for lake specifically I do like beetles and ants I don't do this as much on the moving water but it's mostly because they're harder to see you know they're often kind of small black and they might have a little patch of red on the back or something but they don't float as well and they're harder to see so I don't tend to use them on the moving water as much but what I take is a little it's it's almost kind of like the pill bottle you described but it's like for people need to take medication every day there's there's like The travel bottles that have like every day has a little. Ah, that's smart. Yeah. And it's not the long rectangular one. It folds up into something kind of the size of, let me think of like what.
Derek
Like a three by five card, like a four by six card?
Katie
Smaller than that. It's thicker. So it's probably about an inch thick and it's probably three inches long and maybe an inch and a half wide. It's kind of like a little puck. It's a little puck. Yeah. And so it folds out with a hinge and then you've got these little compartments that snap open. and so I have you know I have a ton of parachute items and then I have probably like two to three of basically everything else like two to three beetles two to three ants two to three hares ears prince nymphs copper johns kind of your basic like I don't generalist patterns generalist patterns a couple streamers terrestrials midges basically yeah like you said all the basics stuff that you'd be able to find in literally any fly shop and I just carry that little pill thing and most of the time I don't need to go beyond a parachute Adams, but I've got a variety of things. And I'm kind of like, if something in this box doesn't work, I'm probably going to leave.
Derek
It's either me at that point or it's the fish just aren't eating.
Katie
Yeah, they're not picky enough in these Alpine places to require something. If they're not eating something in that box, they're not eating. In the lower rivers or like what you described in Pennsylvania, they might be eating one specific fly of one specific size And they will eat that, but they will not eat anything else. I don't think that the fish that I'm catching in these alpine areas are picky enough to care down to that level.
Derek
Yeah, you're not going, I need this particular shade of mayfly or whatever.
Katie
Absolutely not. You need the right profile-ish of a fly in kind of the rough size.
Derek
That's how I feel about it. Having flies that can do a lot of things and represent a lot of things or have a selection of flies. but have them do very, you know, like if you have a chunky bodied nymph, then have a thin nymph next to it.
Katie
Yes. You know, something like that.
Derek
So having the right profiles rather than, I don't worry really about color almost ever up there. Although this last trip, I had my first experience where we had two different lakes where the trout were very snooty. They were goldens too. And they were surface oriented, but they were, they would sit there and look at your fly. And I swear they were counting the legs on it sometimes. And one of them was a lake with small fish. Like everything we caught was under 10 inches. And you could see them. This lake had super duper clear water. And you could see them everywhere. You could see them cruising. And you'd throw your fly. They'd be kind of interested, swim up to it. And then they'd look at it. And then they'd leave. And you're like, what do you want from me? So we tried, you know. And even with patterns that did catch fish, they didn't reliably catch fish. And we tried sizes. I tried subsurface stuff. I tried all sorts of things. And, you know, you could watch their behavior. And it was fascinating to see. And then this other lake where we were catching the bigger gold ones I was talking about earlier, the only thing they wanted was good-sized hoppers. And I had one pattern that seemed to really work well. And I had four of them. And I lost three of them in the course of catching these larger fish. And it was so odd to have an experience like that. up there. And it does happen. I've heard of people talk about, you know, when they get on, they get something in their head and that's the profile that they want. There's a midge hatch or there's like a bunch of flying ants that fall in the water or whatever. But it was, it was such an oddity for me. And I was really glad I had, my box was a little more populated than it probably needs to be for almost any fishing you're going to do in the high Sierra. I just do the one fly box And it's one of those foam boxes where it's molded foam and then it's just the slit foam on the inside. But it's a magnetic closure. And because of that, the box itself is super lightweight. So it's just another way to shave an ounce or two off your base weight. But I definitely do overfill it for these trips because I'm like you, 90% of the time I'm using a couple different patterns and I'm very happy with that. I have been fishing more soft tackles the last few years though, and that's been a lot of fun. So I'm glad I take those.
Katie
I think, yeah, it is a good point. I have had days where they are keyed into something that I can't quite mimic, but it's very rare. And to plan for that, just, again, if I were doing like a week-long trip, I would probably take slightly more in terms of variety. Just because I'm like, if I hit this and that's what they're doing for the whole week, then, you know, I want to be ready for it. But for these like, you know, weekend-long trips I'm doing, again, it's like not that big a deal if I'm kind of struggling to catch fish. I'm not going to be stuck out there for a week of, you know, frustrating fish conditions. So yeah, it does happen, but it's rare enough that I'm not going to stress about it. And if I have the ability to, I'll take my full fly box. If I don't have a lot of other stuff to carry, if we're not staying overnight, I might throw my whole fish pack in there if I'm just hiking in for the day. But that's if we're doing anything. You're braver than me. Yeah. The last thing I wanted to just kind of tell you about, which I found funny because I listened to you, I think it was on the Orvis podcast. And at one point you had mentioned that you used to carry up like a six pack of beer with you. Yes. And what you were saying was that now your joints don't like that. And I thought what you were saying was that now you carry joints instead because they're lighter.
Derek
No, edibles.
Katie
Edibles, okay. I was like, well, he's in California. But then I realized that you were talking about your joints not handling the beer. And I was like, oh, hot tip. Just take joints because they weigh less than beer.
Derek
Also that. My brother brings – he has a plastic flask for whiskey. But I used to bring up – I had some favorite breweries out there in California. I'd bring up the tall boys, you know, one for each night. And then you put them in the creek when you get to camp and they're nice and cold by the time dinner's ready. It was great, but it was just my, my joints are probably in their sixties for me being in my thirties. It's just a family trait, unfortunately. And so I've, the last few years I've really focused on, okay, I can't do like a 50, 60 pound pack anymore and just not have it bother me. Yeah. Because the first, I think I did one of three or four years ago where I was just the usual, who gives a crap. It doesn't matter if it's heavy. And my body is like, no dude, you've time has passed. This doesn't work anymore. And so I spent money on the Durston tent instead of like my five pound single person tent and a nicer pack and a quilt instead of like a, a down quilt instead of a synthetic bag. And I, I probably honestly lost like 12 to 15 pounds off my base weight. And it wasn't because I bought super expensive gears because I had such cheap old gear that it was all just mega heavy at the time. So now my base weight is probably, depending on the trip, somewhere between like 15 to 18 pounds, which is still not like ultralight by any means, but it's so much better than it was before.
Katie
Yeah, I think this might be the first episode where somebody's making their pack lighter hack is to bring edibles instead of beer. Normally, it's stuff about bringing sandals instead of waiting boots and stuff like that. But I like to have a well-rounded set of tips. So this episode's hot tip.
Derek
Edibles instead of tall boy beers. Edibles are, you know, those gummies are significantly lighter. Whether or not you're bringing them across state lines, that's your business. But, you know, it definitely helps me sleep. The first couple nights I'm out there, I'm always like I'm excited and there's the elevation change and all that. And it's just harder for me to sleep. So pop in one of those 30 minutes before I crawl into the tent. Just go lights out real easy. And then, you know, the end of the trip, if you have any left over, you dump them in the last day and the fishing is very enjoyable.
Katie
It is. Yeah. Nice way to relax before you have to go back to the real world.
Derek
Yeah, the final way to bring down the overall cortisol levels for sure.
Katie
When you're really desperate to cling to that relaxation before you have to go back to work, you're like, I'm going to power dose this relaxation on the last day.
Derek
I did have a question for you. You talked about weekend trips a lot. Are you just doing like an out and back to a single destination on these weekend trips? Are you trying to fit multiple lakes and campsites into one weekend?
Katie
It really depends. You know, sometimes it is a single location. A lot of times I'll try to find a place that has, you know, like in a two or three day weekend, we might do a 20 to 25 mile loop and just try to find one that has lakes along the way. And I know if we camp two nights, find a place that has a lake we can camp the first night and a different lake we can camp the second night. We'll, like you said, kind of use that midday to move from one spot to another. But it really depends on like the drainage, what I expect to find there. Like if we're going up, if we're going really far and want to catch big fish that we hear at this lake, we might go up and camp out there for a couple days and try to like really make that happen. If it's just more of a, I want to catch 50 brookies and, you know, have a good time, then it might be, you know, lake to lake to lake and just like, let's see what's in them. We might hit some lakes that have been winter killed. We might hit some lakes that have a ton of fish. We might find, we might find anything. So it really depends on just kind of like what, what area we're going to, what country we want to have. But yeah, it could be either one.
Derek
Do you guys have a lot of winter kill lakes out there that are that shallow?
Katie
I haven't experienced a lot of them, but I guess it's less that, like, oh, I was there last year and it winter killed, and more like I might have read in a guidebook 20 years ago that this lake had fish in it, and now I go up and that doesn't seem to be the case anymore. So, like, something obviously happened. Maybe we had a bad winter one year and it died off. But, no, I'm not finding a lot of, like, I went there last year and then they all died over the winter or anything like that. No.
Derek
There's some that are shallow enough to get winter kills, but most of those don't stay populated for other reasons in the Sierra. And also like that winter we had in 22, 23 was so crazy that I'm sure there were winter kills. Actually, I know we fished this stream. It was probably the most gorgeous looking trout water. I like top five I've ever seen. Just these lazy bins and riffles and deep undercut banks and gravel bottoms. It's like this trout paradise. And it was below this lake that has goldens in it. So I'm like, of course it has fish in it. Because they may not be able to get up to that lake, but they can definitely come down. But I think it froze all the way through during the winter. And there was, we fished this area. And I fished, it was only like a quarter mile at most of water. And I fished it, wasn't finding any fish. Okay, I'll fish a different style back up, nothing. And then I just started like stomping through holes and like sweeping sticks under banks and stuff. There were just no fish in there. And I'm like, well, that's like this water is too nice for there to just not ever be fishing here. So my only guess was that it was a winter kill. And I'm sure they're back in there by now because they're just coming down from the lake up top. But yeah, it's fun to go out there and find those things. And it is nice to occasionally get skunked and to occasionally run into the challenges. Because otherwise it's just like we talked about, 50 brookies.
Katie
Yeah.
Derek
Every cast, they're grabbing onto something and you reel it in. It's this big and you throw it back out. Next cast might be the same dang fish coming back in on your fly.
Katie
I like to have a little bit of mystery and not know what I'm going to find when I go somewhere. I like to have an idea of what might be there. But the 100th rookie in a row does start to get a little bit boring. Probably time to move on after that.
Derek
I know some of the people listening to this are like, are you crazy? And I was like, no, it does. When it's that easy, it becomes less of the challenge of fishing and the enjoyment of it. And then it's like time to go do something else.
Katie
Yeah, see something new. Well, Derek, I don't know if you have any social media you want to plug or if people want to reach out to you. You don't have to, but if you've got anywhere that you want to share, feel free to do so. Otherwise, we can get wrapped up.
Derek
Yeah, I'm part of my local Trout Unlimited chapter. I encourage anybody listening to this who wants to make a difference conservation-wise to join their Trout Unlimited chapter. We're doing a new restoration project. we're filling in this Creek that has been neglected for years and our chapter has been starting to restore it. And we're seeing a lot better fishing habitat and just better cold water that runs into the reservoir. So everybody wins. And we've got a new project that's for another, I think, half mile of Creek that's coming up probably next summer that we're trying to get funded. So if you go to PVTU, that's Perky Omen Valley Trout Unlimited PVTU332.org. and you want to donate 10 bucks or whatever, if you enjoyed the sound of my Donald Duck style voice, for whatever reason, enough to put five or 10 bucks into it, we'd appreciate it. Every little bit helps. And then if you have any questions for me, you can email me Derek, D-E-R-E-K, at VanguardAudioLabs.com. That's what I do for real life as I make studio microphones. So email me there if you have any questions.
Katie
Awesome. Well, Derek, this is a lot of fun. It's nice this time of year to pretend it's July.
Derek
Yes, refill the fly box and dream of warmer days.
Katie
Exactly, and we're not even having cold enough days to make it fun for it to be cold. And you're like, I like skiing and stuff too. But that kind of sucks this year as well. We're not getting a good winter. So if it's not gonna be winter, I'd at least prefer it to be summer instead of just fake winter. So it was nice to live vicariously through this conversation. So I just appreciate you taking the time for this.
Derek
Thanks for having me on, Katie. It was a ton of fun. Thanks for letting me ramble about backpack. It's also nice to meet another backpacking fly fisher because it's a weird intersection of hobbies that doesn't have as much of a subscription as you would hope.
Katie
Yep. Well, it was great to meet you and maybe our paths will cross one day.
Derek
Absolutely. Thanks.
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 fishuntame.com. You'll also find the contact link there if you want to reach out to me. And you can also find me on Instagram at Fish Untamed. 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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