Clarks Fork and Middle Fork Stanislaus River

Two weeks ago Patrick and I finally made our schedules come together and we headed up Highway 108 to Clarks Fork and the middle fork of the Stanislaus river. Our local fly fishing club Stanislaus Fly Fishers had an outing on Saturday but Patrick and I wanted to head up on Friday morning to take advantage of an extra fishing day.

We arrived at Clarks Fork just after 9am and headed right down to the river. We both had a hopper dropper set up, which is running a fly that is imitating a grass hopper with a nymph tied off the bend in the hook. Patrick was the first to hook into one that was fooled by his Birds nest dropper. The fish here are not very big, but man do they put up a good fight! I was able to entice a couple of fish to hit my hopper. What a cool thing to experience when you see these aggressive trout come up and hit your top water fly. We fished Clarks fork for a few hours with just a few fish between us in the net. We decided to drive up the road and hit the Middle fork of the Stanislaus river.

What a great choice we made. Patrick and I immediately started hooking into some fish. I continued with my hopper and Patrick switched to an elk hair caddis he tied before our trip. We basically couldn't keep them off our fly. My guess is we landed over 25 fish a piece in a few hours. Most of the fish were in the 6-8" range with a few smaller ones and a few bigger ones as well. I was working this one small hole were I had numerous takes and landed about 4 small rainbows. I was working my hopper in the white water when I saw this nice 12" rainbow just EXPLODE the surface and take my hopper. WOW...what a sight!! Catching tons of small fish are really fun but when that slightly larger one hits it is such a RUSH!! Even though the fight is not very long these fish still require a little bit of finesse to keep them from darting under rocks or logs. I had to turn this one around from heading down river and burying himself under a large boulder but I finally got him in the net.

After a great dinner and a good nights rest we went back to the Stanislaus river to see if our luck would continue. We both used the same flies we used the day before but not with the same success. We had a few looks and maybe a couple takes but nothing like the day before. We decided to drop a nymph off an indicator and was able to get the fish to start biting. I interchanged between 3 different color birds nest and some copper johns to put some fish in the net. Patrick had similar luck with birds nests and some small black stone patterns. We fished until about mid day when we decided to head back to Clarks Fork to meet up with some of the guys from Stanislaus Fly fishers.

After some stream side snacks and great conversation with the guys we decided to hit the evening bite. Patrick and I along with Jim from the club headed down river were Clarks Forks runs into the middle fork of the Stan. The weather had warmed up a bit and the fish started hitting the top water flies again. I went with my trusty hopper pattern and just had a great time. The fish were all over it and even when I switched to an Adams, they still kept feeding on top. Patrick and Jim had similar luck with their chosen flies.

The sun was starting to set behind the mountains so we called it a day and headed back home.
We both had a great time fly fishing these two great rivers. Even though the fish are not very big they are plentiful. We are already planning our next excursion...not really sure where so keep checking us out...Back on the Fly!!!