We weren’t moving too fast the next morning. The sun was just beginning to illuminate Mt. Whitney outside our motel room door as we headed over to the Mt. Whitney restaurant for breakfast. We’d decided that we were going to take it easy today, no long hikes & some easy fishing.

After laying in a fresh supply of water, snacks & ice, we decided to head up the road to Mt. Whitney. Twelve-miles later, at 8:45, we arrived at the parking lot at the end of the road. The sign on the Mt. Whitney store said we were at 8365 feet.

We parked the truck, got out and gawked at the awesome granite mountains surrounding us. A huge waterfall cascaded down thru the bristle-cone forest and boulders. The temperatures were pleasant and cool.

It didn’t take long before Mark spotted a large pond with a waterfall cascading into it. There were several kids & Dads fishing around the pond. Looking into the pond we could see that it was loaded with 10" to 15" Rainbows. We asked each other if it was ok for adults to fish in the pond, then spotted a couple guys fishing away, occasionally catching a fish and putting it in a cooler.

Mark & I dashed back to the truck to get out our fly rods, this was just the kind of "no-effort" fishing we were looking for today…..

Andy was first to cast a Blue-winged Olive emerger into the waterfall. As it drifted into the pool, the reaction was immediate…..Fish On! A quick release & Mark hooked up next. We caught these fun little Rainbows on about every other cast. We noticed that the Dads & Kids around the pond were now staring at us, presumably asking, "What are those guys using?"…….or maybe, "I wish they’d leave!"

Andy offered his rod to Pops who, after a couple practice casts, also started to catch fish regularly.

Fishing here is just want the Dr. ordered, a little relaxing fun without hiking 12-miles to reach it.

We fished for an hour; then went over to the store to check out the souvenirs and buy a soda. On the way, we noticed a sign that said, "Cars with food left in them will be towed!" with a "bear in a car" symbol painted above. We laughed as we imagined the ranger walking thru the parking lot with a bear on a leash checking cars with his "food-sniffing bear", similar to the DEA "drug-sniffing dogs". As the bear was ripping the door off a car, the ranger would be on his radio saying, "Bring over the tow truck Bob, we got another one!"

We left the mountain at 10:30 and headed back down to the valley. On the way Mark mentioned that he wanted to check out Lake Diaz and see if we could catch a Sacramento Perch, a species he had never caught. We arrived at the lake (11:15AM) and walked out on the dock. The reed surrounded lake appeared to be shallow and the water was very muddy. The signs by the boat launch showed a counter-clockwise pattern that ski boats were to use while on the lake.

History of Lake Diaz: The lake was named after the Diaz family who ran a cattle ranch on the land. The area of the lake was originally a wetland, but on March 26^th, 1872 a massive earthquake struck the area and changed all that.

The area of the lake dropped some 16 to 20 feet, opening a spring at the bottom of the newly formed lake!

We talked to the two park rangers who’d worked the area for some 20 years. They’d heard the rumor that Lake Diaz contained Sacramento Perch but in 20 years they’d only seen one caught. Not exactly a stellar fishing report. The "True Value Hardware" experts told us it was best to fish for the perch after dark. Mark decided we’d come back to fish later in the evening.

We returned to town for a burger at Carl JR’s and to check out the shops in Lone Pine. We were looking for a souvenir of our Golden Trout adventure, which turned out to be hard to find.

We did find one "Golden Trout Wilderness" t-shirt at a local sporting goods store, but the closest thing to recognition of the beautiful little Golden Trout in town was a t-shirt showing the four species of trout available in the region hanging on a stringer. Not exactly the way we wanted to commemorate our trip.

We did find an interesting summary of comments, at the sporting goods store, that hikers had provided the Forest Service on survey cards at the trailhead. Here are a few of the better suggestions that hikers provided:

• Too many mosquitoes & spiders…..spray them!
• Coyotes howled all night keeping us awake……can you eradicate them?
• A deer stole pickles from my camp…..who do I see for reimbursement?
• Eliminate uphill portions of trails.
• Install escalators.
• Too many rocks.
• Build a McDonalds at the trailhead.
• Trails should be wider so we can hike while holding hands.

Okay…….???? Obviously none of these comments were left by the Duke…(John Wayne)! Good thing there aren’t any grizzly bears in the area……because it sounds like there’d be a lot of "easy pickings" for them along these trails.

While there we struck up a conversation with Kathleen New, the Chamber director. We told her why we’d come to Lone Pine, seeking the Golden Trout, and were quite surprised that the city businesses didn’t seem to be aware of the treasure they had in their back yard.

She told us that the Chamber had been struggling to bring new business to the city and seemed interested in what we had to say about fishing, how special the Golden Trout is to fly fishers and the potential for the Chamber of Commerce to be the "focal-point" for information about this National Treasure.

We suggested that there were many "big spender" fly fishers out there that would dearly love to catch a Golden Trout, but may not be aware of how to go about it. Why not make the Chamber the subject-matter- experts to assist them in coming to town and spend their money. We suggested researching advertising in magazines, Orvis, Trout Unlimited, IGFA, State Fishing regs; that fly fishers read, might provide access to them.

We also mentioned that Wyoming had started the "Cutt-Slam" program, where State Fisheries awarded anglers a nice certificate if they could catch, and photograph, the four subspecies of Cutthroat Trout that exist in Wyoming. The underlying purpose of the Cutt-Slam was to push money-spending fly anglers to the less prosperous southwest portion of Wyoming, where two of the four species existed. The other two species exist in the greater Jackson Hole area, which doesn’t seem to suffer from the lack of big money coming to the area.

The point, why couldn’t the Lone Pine Chamber provide a classy Golden Trout certificate to anglers who brought in a photo of a Golden Trout they’d caught? Even if the Chamber charged for the certificate, we suspected that anglers would pay for a nice memento of their Golden Trout adventure.

We also mentioned Les Douglas’ beautiful Golden Trout pins or nice shirts & hats.

We left her with a finial thought; whatever she and the businesses of Lone Pine did to promote the Golden Trout, the bottom line should be; this fish is one of the most beautiful in the world and is a National Treasure that’s under their care. A very large part of the promotion efforts should be used to protect the fish and it’s habitat. We advised that she research the contentious issues surrounding the Golden Trout; water quality, habitat degradation, hybridization and open range grazing on leased lands where meadow streams were accessed and overgrazed by cattle. Our message; this little fish could do a lot for the town of Lone Pine, and the town of Lone Pine could do a lot for this little fish.

Kathleen seemed really taken by the idea and said she was going to work on the idea. We’ve had several subsequent email conversations with Kathleen as she’s developing the idea.  The following certificate is the culmination of these discussions:

We heard about a fishin’ hole near town called the "sand-trap". Since we were still taking the occasional aspirin trying to recover from the fishing trip the day before, we were interested in a place to fish that didn’t require much exertion. At 5PM we showed up at the "sand-trap", an area were a small stream, Lone Pine Creek, flowed from the mountains, thru the desert, and entered the aqua-duct system. A large (200’ l x 50’ w x 10’ d) hole had been dug in the streambed for the purpose of catching sand before it could enter the aqua-duct system. The hole would be dug out occasionally as the sand from the stream filled it.

The fishin’ hole had been planted with hatchery rainbows and there were several kids & Dad’s fishing in the area. Power bait & worms seemed to be working well. Andy hiked up the stream looking for a spot to fish, but found the stream to be fast boulder-filled white-water and very brushy. A couple small access points looked fishy but didn’t produce fish to a dry fly. I suspected there were fish there, but they were lying low in the 100-degree late afternoon temperatures.

My suspicions were confirmed when a Dad and two sons drove up and I chatted with them; recommending that they try the hole that I’d just fished. The youngest boy immediately caught two 12" rainbows using Power bait. He was ecstatic!

We fished for a while but finally decided it was too hot to catch these trout with dry flies….they were on the bottom of the pond and couldn’t be coerced to the surface.

There are several small desert streams to the west of Lone Pine; Shepherd Creek, Hogback Creek, Tuttle Creek & Lone Pine Creek to name a few. Based on the photos in the sporting goods store, there are apparently lots of large hatchery Rainbows and Browns in these streams. The streams are fast, small and very brushy, and the trick is to find the little pools that hold these big fish.

At 7:30PM we headed out for Lake Diaz to pursue the elusive Sacramento Perch, armed with the suggested, "lure d’ jure"……..nightcrawlers.

We’d been told the best time to fish for these perch was a night by hanging a light from the pier and waiting for the perch to come to us. Mark fished with worms, while Andy tossed spinners….no luck. Then, Mark’s "Wally-the-Whale" bobber started to swim away! Could this be it? The elusive, caught once in 20-years, Sacramento Perch? Mark’s rod bent sharply and the battle was on. The fish came to the dock, Andy ready with his net, then it ripped away again with Mark’s drag screaming! Hummm….these perch are feisty. When the fish finally came to the net, we quickly identified it as a Largemouth Bass!! A nice 2-pounder; but not the fabled Sacramento Perch. We fished until 11PM without luck….but, we did hear from a fellow angler that Crowley Lake, about 100 miles north, near the town of Bishop was crawling with Sacramento Perch. We decided that we’d have to give it a try the next time we came to the area.

Up at 6:30AM we were off to the Totem Café for breakfast. After gassing up and restocking our provisions, we left Lone Pine at 7:55AM, headed south on Hwy. 395. Between the towns of Little Lake and Pearsonville, we turned west on Nine Mile Canyon Road (8:45AM), then northwest on Kennedy Meadows Road. At 9:30AM and twenty-five miles of jackrabbit strewn mountain roads later we arrived at the Kennedy Meadows Campground with the South Fork of the Kern River flowing nearby. At 9000’ the high rolling hills of the area were covered with Juniper trees, may of which had experienced a recent fire. The campground was very busy, lots of campers, kids and dogs. We moved downstream to see if we could find a quiet place to fish. We drove down a small dirt road to the river. Mark went downstream, Andy upstream. Mark quickly hooked up with a really chunky Rainbow and Andy had missed a couple good strikes while catching one nice Rainbow.

I tossed a tiny blue-winged olive parachute emerger upstream of a large rock in the river and let it drift down the far side of the rock. I couldn’t see the fly, but I heard the slurp. I set the hook and a nice little Brown trout came racing out into the strong current.

He put up a respectable tussle taking me into bushes and under rocks. I brought him to the grass-lined bank, took his picture and used my Ketchum Release tool to quickly release him. I heard a voice behind me say; "Nice job!" I looked up…..it was the Game Warden! I never heard him walk up behind me. We chatted for a while about where I was from, what we were fishing for, golden trout and lots of fish stuff. He wished us luck and drove on.

We didn’t catch any Golden Trout in this area and as I’d read, this area of the Kern River had been relegated to hatchery rainbows and brown trout that had essentially displaced any native goldens long ago.

We left Kennedy Meadows at 10:30AM, headed for the Black Rock Ranger Station and the 4-WD road to Monache Meadows. On the way we passed by Troy Meadows with the small (4’-5’) wide, brushy Fish Creek flowing nearby. We’d heard that there were Golden Trout in the stream, but didn’t stop to give it a try.

At 11:11AM we passed the Black Rock Ranger Station and continued north on FS road 21S03 to Monache Road reaching the turnoff at 11:20. We’d heard that the Monache 4WD road to Monache Meadows was a bad road, but nothing really prepared us for how bad it was. Two inches of flour-like dust covered the road, big ruts and boulders were commonplace. Some sections of the road went steeply down over smooth granite slab boulders and the road wound thru closely spaced trees that carried the scars of vehicles that hadn’t quite turned quickly enough.

Pops did a skillful job of driving the 4WD Toyota pickup thru the hazards, but commented "We’re going so slow that the misquotes are keeping up!"

Some seven hair-raising miles later at 12:25PM we arrived at the South Fork Kern River and Monache Meadows.

There were several vehicles in the area, but no one appeared to be fishing, they were riding off-road motorcycles and ATV’s. We were surprised that these vehicles and 4WD trucks were allowed to drive thru the river! The buzzing roar of these vehicles did have a tendency to detract from the otherwise beautiful meadow surrounded by nearly 10,000-foot high mountains of the Sierra Nevada, but soon the lure of catching fish in this pretty stream blocked the sounds from our mind.

Mark & Pops went upstream while Andy went downstream. We tried several flies, including a Dave’s Hopper, with some strikes but no hookups. Mark called on the radio and said that an Orange Stimulator was producing strike after strike, but only occasional hookups. Andy tied on a Stimulator and found Mark to be right, many, many strikes, but hookups were difficult. Andy switched to an Ant pattern and landed several Rainbows, then tried a bead-head Pheasant-tail in a deep pool, which produced several more fish including a Rainbow/Golden hybrid (a rainbow with a red/orange belly) and a Brown Trout.

Fishing back upstream with the Stimulator produced several more strikes and a few more rainbows.

Mark reported he’d caught several Rainbows and Pops caught a few Browns, both had missed dozens of strikes.

The sky started to darken and Pops said it looked like it was gonna rain. The last thing we needed was the thick dust on the 7-miles of road to turn to slime. We decided to get out while the getting was good. Huge raindrops began to fall as we were packing our gear into the truck. We saw two bucks in velvet on the way out. Reaching the blacktop at the end of the brutal 4WD road at 4:11PM, we checked our dental work to make sure it was still there. Fortunately the rain held off, I’m not sure if we could have made it out without a winch if the dust had turned to mud. Pops really missed his calling, based on the skills he displayed as he drove the back woods roads, he certainly would have qualified as a Baja race driver in his younger days.

Our maps showed it was 51-miles from the Black Rock Ranger Station to Kernville (pop. 1860, 2600’ elev.) where Mark had made reservations at the Kern River Golden Trout Resort. We crossed Sherman Pass (9200’) in the rain at 5PM and started down the most twisted section of switchback road I’ve ever seen. Huge rocks had fallen out onto the narrow road that the highway crew hadn’t been able to remove yet. The rocks were wrapped with orange survey tape to warn drivers of the hazard!

We arrived at the base of the mountain road and the main stem Kern River at 5:30PM, turned south on Sierra Way arriving at our motel at 6PM. The temperature was near 100 degrees.

Hummingbirds surrounded the motel, all using the myriad of sugar-water feeders hanging from the eves. (We counted over two-dozen at one time).

We asked Mick (a civil engineer & licensed contractor who, with his wife Alice, had designed and built the resort) about the fishing opportunities in the area. He produced a hand drawn map showing the points of interest in the area, including granite "slide-rocks" where kids slid down the natural water slides and the giant "Bush Tree" sequoia. He also indicated that the Fisheries Department planted large rainbows in the Kern River each week, saying that the area across the road on his property was one of the places the Fisheries truck accessed the river. We asked about Golden Trout. Mick indicated that he didn’t know much about the Golden Trout fishing in the area, but had heard that there were GT in Peppermint Creek.

We drove down to Kernville to look the place over, gas up and renew our provisions. Alice had marked our map and told us about the cell phone triangle in Kernville, a small 10 square-block area that was the only spot in the region that cell phones worked. Mark used the opportunity, while we were in the mysterious "cell-phone-triangle" to make a few calls.