Worth the Effort

[Calduke]

Is it worth a 3 hour drive to fish the Upper Kern?

[flyboy]

Not really, stocking has been minimal in Jan. No stocking planned for Feb on the CDFW website at this time. March likely will be better- flow/water temp dependent.

There is a USFS move to eliminate nearly all of the free dispersed camping this year on the Upper Kern to help reduce the amount of trash and human waste that has increased substantially over the last few years. Something really has to change or the Upper Kern will be unlovable soon.

[Gary C.]

I think that they normally try to sqeeze a stocking in for Wiskey Flats Days but not always.

[flyboy]

Yes , looks like the CDFW just updated their website and there will be stocking for WF days. However, stocking is always dependent on river, road conditions and etc. We will be chilly for the next week and that may drop river temps below the allowed limit?

[Calduke]

Thank you for the info. It's good to know that there are some people still visiting this website.

[Calduke]

Any hints as to when the DFG might start to stock/plant again?

BTW; does the DFG 'stock' trout or is it 'plant' ?

[flyboy]

Who knows when the next plantings will be? A lot of trout were stocked at the Kern County Fairgrounds and out a Mirror Lake at Hart Park last week so they may have used much of their monthly allocation of pounds for that? No planting scheduled on the CDFW website on the Kern through mid March so you may need to wait until April for the catching to improve.

What we really need is more rain/snow........ like 6X what we got this past week. Last year the Kern River because of low flows and high river temps was unstockable the 2nd half of June and all of July, August, September. Unless we get some significant rain/snow soon they won't be planting between Memorial Day and Oct 1. That would "Vacuum Cleaner Function"!!!

I'm planning fishing trips to the Colorado, Snake, Missouri, and Columbia Rivers drainages this summer as they have gotten plenty of snow this winter.