Tuolumne Meadows

Almost four million people visit California’s Yosemite National Park every year. Traffic jams, busy trails, and long lines are common at the peak of summer tourist season. Of the millions who visit, the majority spend their time in the confines of Yosemite Valley, not far from the roads and parking lots.

You can’t really blame them. The scenery in the valley is spectacular—towering waterfalls and the giant granite cliffs of Half Dome and El Capitan provide captivating views along many miles of road. But if you’ve spent much time in this iconic park, you know that it’s not hard to escape the tourist areas, because 95 percent of Yosemite’s 761,266 acres are designated wilderness.

The highlight of the northeast corner of Yosemite is Tuolumne Meadows, an area with scenery every bit as breathtaking as other areas of the park: Massive

granite domes and jagged peaks dot the horizon amid broad grassy meadows.

Although Tuolumne Meadows will never be devoid of people—except in winter, when the area’s 8,600-foot elevation brings heavy snows that completely cut off access—it’s a far cry from the chaos of Yosemite Valley. For fly fishers, it’s a godsend. Joining in the middle of Tuolumne Meadows are the two forks of the Tuolumne River, the Lyell and Dana forks. While the main stem Tuolumne has decent fishing, it runs close to the road near the visitor center and then quickly descends into an inaccessible canyon.

I prefer the forks of the Tuolumne to get away from it all and find solitude in one of America’s finest national parks. Each stream creates different opportunities for visiting fly fishers, who—having already seen the lofty sights—wish to sample the wild trout fishing in Yosemite’s Tuolumne River watershed.

Lyell Fork

The larger of the river’s two forks, the Lyell rises on the slopes of 13,144-foot Mount Lyell, Yosemite’s highest peak, which sits on the eastern boundary of the park bordering the Ansel Adams Wilderness.

Starting as a trickle, this glacially fed stream tumbles its way down canyons, losing elevation and gaining the contributions of smaller creeks including McClure, Kuna, Ireland, and Rafferty.

In heavy snow years, spring runoff turns the Lyell Fork into a raging torrent. These same snows usually close this area of the park completely until mid-May. In a good year, a thick snowpack keeps the Lyell Fork flowing strongly from July through September, the best time to visit Tuolumne Meadows.

The Lyell Fork is not big water. You’ll have no problem wading from bank to bank during normal flows. In a few spots, it fans out into a series of small braids, but when it’s all in one channel, the river averages just 20 to 30 feet in width.

What the Lyell lacks in size it makes up in character. This river has all the fishy spots you would expect to find on a much larger stream: undercut banks, swirling pools, funneled runs, and a healthy number of downed trees and snags, all forming ideal trout habitat.

The Lyell is a great place to learn how to read a river, as it packs a lot of fish-finding action into a small package. Unlike a large glacial river, good spots on the Lyell are close together and easy to identify.

The Lyell Fork holds mostly small, but lively and aggressive, brown trout. As you work your way toward the upper reaches of the river and into Lyell Canyon, brook trout become more numerous and eventually take over. Throw in the occasional heavily spotted rainbow trout—the only trout native to Yosemite—and you have an opportunity at a trout trifecta.

In 1978, the National Park Service began phasing out its legendary fish-stocking efforts and by 1991, 100 years of fish stocking in Yosemite had ended. It’s unknown exactly how many trout per mile inhabit the Lyell Fork, but the population is healthy and self-sustaining.

Although the average fish is about 7 or 8 inches, fly fishers can anticipate action-packed fishing. A 25- to 30-fish day is not uncommon, and if youreally work at it, you can catch many more. I use an 8-foot 4-weight for the Lyell Fork, as it has enough backbone to cast flies accurately but is still light enough to deliver them delicately.