A few years ago a national park ranger told me about a spot. I have fished the creek perhaps 1500' below, but up where he said to go the brush used to block access until the fire burned most of it away. Brookies on every cast, he said.

I figured I would give it a look, now that fishing regulations allow catch & release on such streams this time of year. There was still snow along the road in places. From looking at dreamflows and glancing in the general direction of the calendar I knew most of the rivers were in runoff mode, so no point in fishing them for a while. There was no trail, and lots of downed wood, most of it burned. Sure enough, brush was mostly absent, but where it was it mostly had sharp points.

I'd brought my Fenglass 3wt for dries and a stiff tenkara rod that does well with small weighted nymphs, made my way to a couple of pools and started dunking tungsten.









I made my way past huge downed trees and several falls; each had a plunge pool with brookies.





I decided to string up the Fenglass, and tossed out a purple haze, tied with a foam parachute post, CDL tail and goose biot body.



Now that was unexpected ! I'd caught rainbows and browns down lower, so this was not a complete surprise. I continued to make my way downstream.









The creek tumbled down some bigger granite, and the obstacles were becoming "interesting".



I confess I broke out the tungsten again.





As I descended further into the canyon the brush seemed to close in, and I really wasn't up for thrashing through spiky brush. I crossed the creek on a log, headed up the opposing slope and looked at whether the old fire road on the map was still there -- nope The snow in the shade was surprisingly hard, even in mid-afternoon. I expect it will be gone in another month, though.

I made my way back up to one of the falls and plunge pools, and concentrated my nymphing on the far side of the pool, now in the shade.



The next day I went to visit some spots I'd seen before, in another area of the park, and fished my Orvis Superfine Glass 3wt (the 7'6" model).



Yep, runoff



Now this is more my speed.







I made my way further upstream, crossed on a log, and found a pool where a dark shape lurked. I tossed a couple of dries, but the shape looked bored. I was nearing my turnaround time. "One last cast", I thought, and tied on a smallish Griffith's Gnat. The dark shape rose and slurped it up.

Nice fish in nice country. Thanks..

Looks like you had a fine time!

Great pics and story!

Thanks for sharing!

Well worth the hike.

With all the Brookies and the Browns have you ever taken a Tiger there. Just curious.

Thanks all.

Tiger trout, hmm. I had to go to google for that one Sounds like they are sometimes planted in certain lakes. I doubt I would have recognized it even if I had caught one.

As usual very nice write up and pics. Nice to see there’s a little snow around. That’s very cool to catch 3 species of trout looks like a lot of fun

Beautiful!

Thanks again everyone.

Another handy resource for exploring the high country in early season is Caltopo : they have satellite photos from the Sentinel constellation, updated weekly, overlaid onto topographic maps. There is a membership fee, and views can be obscured by clouds or thick forest cover, but for checking if a lake is melted out and getting a general idea of snow cover, it can be helpful.