Kern Valley Canyon Connection Community Forums

DFG began rainbow plants last week. Some sections will receive fish this week. Long stretch of watching the trickle of mighty Kern over for awhile...hopefully. Hot baits are Fireballs, pink Power Bait and crickets according to reports. As usual, these are the popular Kern River baits anyway. Come on up and give the Kern a try while the water is flowing again.

Has anyone been fishing the Upper Kern?
Are the plants within camp areas, only .(of course the park area is planted)

We have a trip plan for the 17 of this Mo. Plans are to stay until mid week. We like to stay at Springdale camps, though, it seems they cut we back on stocking that area. It was always one of the best in years past. I sure hope we can get into some trout action. Last year was rather slow and the crowds were bad, that was fathers day weekend, that, with the flows way down really bought in the people. I know the stocking is going to be way down this year but it is still nice just to spend some time along the river. I was just looking to WON and it looks like that is where the bulk of the trout are going.

I need to be more careful when making post. I should have said, the eastern sierra area is going to get the bulk of the plants. And, the fish are coming out of Oregon's desert springs trout farm. 586,000 lbs. for the area, some of which is going to be paid for by local chamber of commerce. Like I said in an earlier post, the Kern valley area businesses should look into funding a stocking program.

admin wrote:
> DFG began rainbow plants last week. Some sections will receive fish this
> week. Long stretch of watching the trickle of mighty Kern over for
> awhile...hopefully. Hot baits are Fireballs, pink Power Bait and crickets
> according to reports. As usual, these are the popular Kern River baits
> anyway. Come on up and give the Kern a try while the water is flowing
> again.

Dummy here; but,
when the DFG says the 'week of plant' is 4/1716( a Sunday), is the 'week' 4/17/16 thru 4/23/16?

Yes, even though specific day of week is not mentioned. As far as I know, it is only once a week, may be more later spring and Summer.

Why has the catching dropped off in some of your favorite Upper Kern spots? Several reasons.

The biggest is total pounds planted by the Kernville hatchery has been dropped dramatically over the last 8 years. In 2008 they planted +185,000 lbs now down to less than 50,000 lbs annually (All hatchery budgets are slashed and expenses have risen).

CDFW plants only sterile trout the last 3 years. Environmental reasons. Kern River Rainbows (fertile) will be reared and planted in few years but for now that isn't much consulation.

Drought has killed off a lot of fertile trout below 4,000' elevation, Upper Kern water temps have reached lethal +75 degrees daily for months below JDB the last 4 summers. Kern got just a about 60% snowpack this year. So this will be better than last year but not good either as we will see +75 degrees again in July through Sept. NorCal did much better this year.

See maps http://cdec.water.ca.gov/cdecapp/snowapp/sweq.action

Be very glad no major forest fire has occurred to really muck the river up with ash.

So smart communtites have tried to raise funds and hire private hatcheries to stock decent sized trout in spring and early summer. It is expensive to do this. Private hatcheries have to pay a lot for their water now and other expenses.

The crappie bite is great on Isabella and lake is just 12% full so fish are concentrated.
Good luck fishing

We fished the upper Kern from the 17th thru the 20th. Fishing was very slow. Flow was at 900cfs and real clear. I did get some stocking info from hatchery employees, they were stocking while we were there so I talked to them. They told me the stocking will be bi-weekly for section of the river. lower section from park up to power house #3,then,from there up to and past Fairview damn. He told me they are going to put the brood stock in, in two weeks if they stay on schd. up to six pounders.I have a tuna charter schd. for that weekend other wise I'd there. We were treated to some real nice air show thanks to the air force both low and high altitude.