TR: The King's Court -- Staying High in Northern KCNP (8/15-8/19/2020)

[Rockyroad]

Beautiful photos! I need to include Lake 11,092 on a future trip.

[Harlen]

Fantastic Fish! Looks like you know what you're doing. Thanks for another great report, Ian.

[jeremiahkim]

Great report. Fun to follow along as we battled similar conditions a bit south of you. Great fish too boot. We missed 11,092 on a trip last year but that view back up Evolution Valley looks stunning. Bravo for the in and out of Lamarck. The south side is no joke.

[frozenintime]

lovely report! we were planning to head over lamarck on a somewhat similar lollipop this past friday -- but the smoke deferred that dream for a year. nice to see it on here at least.

[cgundersen]

Wow, that shot of the setting sun beaming through the cloud (~5 from the end) is gorgeous. And, just out of curiosity, how much do those chairs weigh? They were pretty slick! Thanks for a delightful TR! Cameron

[canukyea]

Loving the dramatic lighting with storm clouds in the background, though the weather probably did dampen the fishing a little bit. Funny you should mention dismantling the wind shelter at the camp in Darwin Canyon. I had built it up a few years ago during an evening where the wind was howling unrelentingly and was a bit dismayed to see it still stood a year after that. It isn't quite the best by LNT standards so I'm glad to see that site restored a bit.

[windknot]

Thanks all! The flooded campsite at first felt a little demoralizing, as I was already soaking wet and eager to change into something warm. But in retrospect, it injected a needed bit of levity to help put things in perspective. @canukyea, sorry we dismantled part of your wind shelter!

Seems that the hopper was very effective :-)

Looks like the grasshopper slayed them. Did you notice the color of the naturals up there(as they sometimes have blue underbodies instead of the pink, yellow, green tied editions). The best commecial pattern for me has been Joe's Hopper. Of course after seeing the blue undersides I took blue paint to my foam ones, does not seem to be a big deal at times.

Looks like you were fishing with some sort of Hopper?

As much as I'd like to suggest otherwise, there's probably a bit of survivorship bias at play here. The goldens were actually pretty selective, so I suspect I only caught the dumber, smaller fish using the foam hopper (and hence that's the fly pictured). I use it mostly as an indicator/searching pattern when wind and choppy water or shade prevent me from being able to sight-fish to cruising fish. The few times there was enough calm and sunlight to actually see fish in the water, they mostly spurned my offerings, so I switched to smaller beadhead nymph patterns instead. But those times were unfortunately few and far between. The rainbows/hybrids on the other hand did freely take the hopper even on calm water -- go figure.

@HikenFish, I didn't notice the color of the naturals but that makes sense -- I tend to favor colors I can see well, especially in poor or fading light, so I usually go with bright neon colors up top just so that I don't miss a take.

Wow, that shot of the setting sun beaming through the cloud (~5 from the end) is gorgeous. And, just out of curiosity, how much do those chairs weigh? They were pretty slick!

Thanks Cameron -- post-storm lighting allows plenty of opportunities for even a middling point and shoot photographer to stumble upon a few nice shots! And these are the Flexlite Air chairs from REI, and weigh 1 lb each. For our style/format of backpacking, they're easily worth their weight because we typically spend a lot of time hanging around camp. Both chairs combined weigh less than my fishing gear. And the more comfortable my wife is while reading, the more time I get to fish.

[wsp_scott]

Nice report and excellent photos, that area just moved higher on my list
glad you both got a successful Sierra trip

[sekihiker]

I loved your report - especially the pictures. Those sure were some nice fish. One pound chairs - worth looking into.

[dbogey]

Just beautiful! I' hoping to get back out there next year. Was in Evolution a few years back and wanted to get up to that area but didn't have time. I go nowhere without my chairs anymore. At 1lb they are worth it after a long day. Your pics really capture the moment. Camera?