Fly Fishing, Hiking, and Camping in California! || California Gold Pt 2 (Kern River Rainbow)

Fly Fishing California for the Kern River Rainbow Trout!

Kern River rainbow trout are native to the Kern River and it's tributaries, from Lake Isabella upstream to the headwaters. In this video Andrew and I (Jon Hardman) attempt to catch this incredible native rainbow trout. After hiking around 14 miles we reached the upper end of the Kern River and made the realization that the river was high. This made the fishing very difficult. We were able to pick off a few of the kern river rainbow trout in the main river, including a really nice one. But we were saved by a small tributary towards the end of the day that produced multiple rainbow trout, including one particularly colorful specimen.

This adventure was as much about the trout themselves as it was about the rugged wilderness of California's back country. This area is rough and unforgiving. We ended up running into 3 black bears and 2 rattlesnakes on day 2 alone. I think sometimes you downplay the situation you're in. In this case being 20 miles in the wilderness with black bears and rattlesnakes slithering through camp. Realistically one wrong step could have not only ended the trip, but ended our lives. It's something that we choose to ignore when we go on this back country type adventures, but is always a very real threat. But it's easy to ignore that when you know the legendary California golden trout is on the mountain just above camp.

I hope you enjoyed this wilderness adventure, thanks for watching.

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