"Pursuing Gold in California’s Sierra Nevada Mountains"
by Andy Batcho
July, 2006
There has been a long history of "Gold Fever" associated with the Sierra Nevada Mountains of California and my friend Mark Taylor & I have had the affliction for years. In our case, it’s not the mineral gold, but the most spectacular of all the trout species……the Golden Trout!
Both Mark & I have been pursuing the International Game Fish Association, (keeper of the world’s fishing records), "Royal Trout Slam" that requires an angler to catch the 7-listed species of trout. The seven species of trout are; Brook Trout, Brown Trout, Bull Trout, Cutthroat Trout, Lake Trout, Rainbow Trout (mine is a Washington State record) and Golden Trout. Mark & I had caught six of the seven required species and were looking forward to catching the Golden Trout to finish the Slam. There are very few anglers that have caught and recorded all 7 species.
Beyond the seven required species, Mark & I had just caught the Tiger Trout (Brook / Brown hybrid cross) setting two new IGFA World Records in the process. Catching the Tiger trout was preceded by a year of research to find them, and several failed attempts, including a 3-mile hike to Glloyd Seeps in eastern Washington 90-degree desert heat…..in waders! See the "2006 Lake X" trip on the Yellowstone Gang website ( www.theyellowstonegang.com ) for the full story of the marathon 36-hour Tiger Trout trip.
Mark has also caught the Apache Trout that is native to a small slice of the White Mountain Apache reservation in Arizona. My latest attempt to catch an Apache Trout resulted in catching an 8 lb. Rainbow Trout on a 2-wt. Orvis fly rod with 4# tippet…..a nice "door-prize", but no Apache Trout. I will return.
I have also caught the 6 species of Salmon; King, Coho, Chum (a world record), Sockeye, Pink and Atlantic salmon to qualify for the IGFA "Royal Salmon Slam" and when added to completing the Trout Slam reduces the number of anglers who have accomplished the two slams to just a couple. Mark has yet to catch the Atlantic salmon to qualify for the Salmon Slam.
Mark & I are also working on the 7 species of Bass to complete the "Bass Slam" also. To our knowledge, no angler has recorded all three slams.
If you called us "fishing-nuts", you wouldn’t be the first….and, it would probably be an understatement.
I’d been researching the Golden Trout for some three-years, gathering information about the when, where & how to catch these fish. I’d read books, searched the internet, talked to anglers that had caught them before and amassed quite a quantity of information to help us with our Golden Trout quest. One person I had several email conversations with was Jamie Hunter, a California Trout Unlimited member, who with Tim Linehan, host of Trout Unlimited Television (TUTV), had filmed a documentary on the California Golden Trout that featured the challenges faced by the California State fish. Water quality and quantity issues, habitat degradation caused by open range grazing on leased lands in the Kern drainage, severe hybridization issues caused by hatchery planted Rainbow Trout and displacement issues caused by hatchery planted Brown Trout. The program summarized the many serious issues facing this little, finny national treasure.
A little about the history of the Kern River and the evolution of the Golden Trout:
The Kern River and its tributaries, the South Fork of the Kern & Little Kern River are the native waters of three sub-species of Rainbow Trout;
- The Kern River Rainbow (Oncorhynchus (Latinized Greek words meaning hooked-snout) Mykiss (a derivative of mikizha or mykz, the Kamchatkan word for trout) Gilberti (couldn’t find this information, but suspect it’s named for Dr. Charles H. Gilbert (1859-1928), professor of zoology, Stanford Univ.??)). This species of Rainbow Trout occupies the Kern River.
- The Little Kern River Golden Trout (O. m. Whitei) (named after naturalist, Stewart Edward White who in 1904 urged President Theodore Roosevelt to send an expedition to study the trout of the Kern River and wrote the book "The Mountains" that sounded the warning that indiscriminate stocking of hatchery fish would destroy the natural Golden Trout. (His warning was not heeded.) The Whitei only occupies the Little Kern River a tributary to the Kern River.
- South Fork of the Kern River Golden Trout (O. m. aquabonita) (Spanish for "beautiful water" and named for Aqua-Bonita Falls on the So. Fork of the Kern.) Golden Trout occupy the South Fork of the Kern (but highly hybridized), Golden Trout Creek (aka: Volcano Creek) (which originally flowed into the South Fork of the Kern, but due to a lava flow (5000 years ago) changed course and now flows into the main-stem Kern River), Golden Trout were transplanted from Golden Trout Creek to Mulkey Creek in 1872, later planted into Cottonwood Creek. Cottonwood Creek (near Mt. Whitney) flows from the east side of the Sierra Nevada into the Owens Valley and a dry lakebed. Later Golden Trout from Cottonwood Creek were transplanted to Cottonwood Lakes (there are five, Cottonwood 1 thru 5) and all subsequent propagation and distribution of Golden Trout have been from Cottonwood Lakes. The original Golden Trout were hybridized and displaced to extinction by State hatchery planting of rainbows, brooks & browns and the species was only saved by the few fish moved to Mulkey Creek in a coffee pot by a rancher. Golden Trout also go by the names: Volcano Creek Golden Trout and California Golden Trout and a dozen other common names reflecting the passion so many have for this "jewel-like" fish. This fish is also the California State fish.
- The 155 mile-long Kern River and its tributaries drain the extremely high mountains of the southern Sierra Nevada, including Mt. Whitney (14,497’) the highest point in the continental U.S. The Little Kern joins the main-stem Kern in an extremely deep and rugged canyon then the Kern joins the South Fork of the Kern behind a dam that forms Lake Isabella near the towns of Lake Isabella (pop. 3315, elev. 2460) and Kernville, CA. (pop. 1860, elev: 2600’). From the dam, the river flows some 40-miles through a rugged, narrow granite canyon to Bakersfield, CA, where the California Aqueduct and the Central Valley Project, which irrigates the farms of the San Joaquin Valley, consume it. Prior to development, the Kern River flowed into the marshes near Arvin and into Lake Buena Vista. Under occasional overflow conditions, Lake Buena Vista would overflow into the San Joaquin River and onto the Pacific Ocean.
- This unique river system propagated the Golden Trout species over 70,000 years ago when the ice age caused the Kern River system and the northern Sacramento basin system (containing Red-Band Rainbows) and the ancient ancestors of the Golden Trout, to join. The trout populations were also likely influenced by occasional influxes of Coastal Rainbows thru the San Joaquin River link. As the ice age withdrew, and tectonic plate movement and earthquakes continued to uplift the Sierra Nevada Mountains, populations of Rainbow Trout were isolated in the Kern system by naturally occurring barriers of warm sections of water and waterfalls. Over thousands of years these rainbows evolved into the current day Golden Trout.
- Golden Trout in this area rarely exceed 12" and fish larger than 10" are considered big. The harsh weather conditions at the high altitudes, where the fish exist, lead to short feeding/growing windows and food supplies are limited. The all-tackle world-record Golden Trout – 11 pounds – was caught in 1948 from Cooks Lake in Wyoming where the California Golden Trout was transplanted. Fly rod & line-class World Record Golden Trout range from 2lbs. to 5lbs. They are from Wyoming’s high mountain lakes of the Wind River Range.
- Reference: "Trout & Salmon of North America" by Robert J. Behnke.
- Reference: International Game Fish Association "2006 World Record Game Fishes" book.
- In my opinion, it’s relatively easy to see how these fish evolved. They have many of the characteristics of the Red-Band Rainbow (bright red lateral line, par-marks into adulthood) and it’s easy to see that the fish would take on a golden color based on the golden color (caused by iron) of the water and rocks (and subsequently the food supply) in the Kern drainage. From my experience, it is not unusual for Salmonids to quickly adapt to the color of their surroundings as a camouflage / protective measure. Although gold was found in the Kern River drainage, should these fish be truly named "Iron Trout"? I doubt I’d get much support for that thought. These fish truly deserve the name "Golden Trout" as they’re the most beautiful and colorful of the Trout species.
- Read more about the Kern River at : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kern_River
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