Fly Fishing a Western Sierra Nevada Small Stream

The Western Sierra Nevada Foothills in the early Spring can provide excellent small stream fishing.

John Muir wrote: According to all accounts the Calaveras placers have been very rich -- "terrific rich," as they say here. The hills have been cut and scapled, and every gorge and gulch and valley torn to pieces and disemboweled,...Many a brave fellow has recorded a most eventful chapter of life on these Calaveras rocks. But most of the pioneer miners are sleeping now, their wild day done, which the few survivors linger languidly in the washed-out gulches or sleepy village like harried bees around the ruins of their hive.

A creeks on the west side of the Sierras with Michael Carl holding large wild rainbow trout.

Some 150 years later, I would make the case -- their wild day is far from over. Not too far from these sleepy villages of Gold Country, the streams running through the foothills still produce "color." If the colors you seek are iridescent reds and silvery blues, then you might share the good fortune of bringing a large wild, rainbow to hand.

An angler fishes a deep pool on the West Slope of the Sierra Nevada.

The small stream fishing on the west-side of the Sierras provides an option (assuming regulations permit) in the Spring when the vast majority of the High Sierras is still under snow, and the mountain passes haven't yet opened for easy access to the Eastern Sierra fisheries.

The spotting on a California wild rainbow trout.

More precious than gold? Catching a nice trout might put food on the table, but it won't pay the rent. But there's also no denying the visual allure of the colors of these fish. Sun-light illuminates the blues running between the spots of a rainbow's tail.

The Mother Lode or Gold Country of California offers small streams to fly fish.

The Sierra foothills turn green as they round the corner from winter to spring. Along with the grasses, the bugs start crawling or flying around. Most of the bugs activity at this stream was sub-surface. I can't speak for the resident insects, only the nymphs we dragged out of our fly boxes.