Tuolumne Meadows

Fly selection is beautifully simple. At this high elevation, the feeding season is short. Living conditions for these Sierra trout can be harsh, as the river does not offer much in the way of consistent hatches or prolific food sources. If there were heavy hatches, the trout would be large and difficult to catch. Instead, the trout are small and eager.

My favorite fly combination for prospecting Tuolumne Meadows is a #16 Purple Haze, tied with a thick deer-hair tail. From that, I suspend an #18 Zebra Midge on a short piece of 5X tippet. This has proven to be an effective combination for catching many fish, and it’s easy to see. As long as the presentation is reasonable, any standard parachute-style attractor drys produce trout.

One “hatch” that is consistent on both forks of the Tuolumne is the big black terrestrial ants that carpet all of Yosemite—especially along the rivers. Tuolumne trout recognize these ants and are quick to snap them up.

My Tuolumne Ant (#14-16) has a high-riding foam body, and its small rubber legs create a lifelike silhouette that fish find irresistible. Beetle imitations are also good terrestrial patterns to carry in Yosemite.

Since these small and eager fish sometimes swallow the fly deeply, use barbless hooks. This makes it much easier to unhook these trout without damaging their mouths.

While most of the fish are small, the Lyell Fork does hold some larger browns. I’ve caught numerous 12- to 14-inch fish that raced out from an undercut bank and took a fly aggressively, and there are some 18-inch and larger pigs hiding in the deeper pools. If you want to chase them, stick to the dawn and dusk hours, as the largest fish are predominantly nocturnal. Big, dark-colored streamers are your best bet.

Though catch numbers on the Lyell Fork can be high for experienced anglers with good casting skills, this doesn’t mean that the fishing is easy. Precision casts to high-probability areas give you consistent hook-ups, but if you can’t hit the spots, you won’t find the fish. Sloppy casts and noisy wading will send Lyell Fork trout scurrying.

When casting, stand back a few feet from the river’s edge to prevent the fish from seeing you. When approaching a prime spot, crouch low or drop to one knee and make as few false casts as possible.

Use roll, steeple, or bow-and-arrow casts to avoid lodgepole pines and other obstructions and to get your fly to the right spot. If you don’t like tight fishing conditions, just walk around the next bend. There is also plenty of open water to cast freely, as both forks of the Tuolumne offer vast stretches of river flowing through broad meadows.

My favorite tactic is to stand midcurrent and make a long cast upstream to prime holding water. From the middle of the river, my cast is often unobstructed and I am downstream of the fish so they cannot see me.

Be ready for a strike as soon as your fly hits the water. You can miss strikes if you don’t get the line under your finger and strip in slack quickly after each cast.

In this clear mountain water, you can often see the fish coming at your fly from across a pool. If a fish swims up slowly and warily to inspect your fly, it’s been my experience that it will usually not bite. In this situation, it’s best to move on rather than waste your time changing flies and repeatedly casting at an unwilling trout. Instead, find other fish that are more eager to eat.

On the Tuolumne forks, it’s rare to catch more than one fish from a single pool, as the thrashing of the first hooked fish usually sends the others fleeing. You can either rest the pool for 15 minutes or move on, and I usually prefer the latter.

There are two ways to access the Lyell Fork. Roadside parking is plentiful at the only bridge in Tuolumne Meadows, near the Lembert Dome parking area. Leave your car here and follow the river to the back of the campground where you will find an established trail. This path joins the popular John Muir Trail, named after America’s most influential naturalist, who was instrumental in the creation of Yosemite National Park. The John Muir Trail parallels the Lyell Fork throughout its length. Don’t start fishing until you are about a mile away from the campground. At times the flotilla of swimmers on this lower section of river makes it nearly impossible to fish.

A second option is to drive about a mile past the bridge on Tioga Road and park at the Wilderness Permit Center. Follow the signs to the John Muir Trail, cross the Dana Fork on a small wooden bridge, and after about 25 minutes of level hiking you’ll come to another footbridge that spans the Lyell Fork. From here you can walk upstream and find prime fishing everywhere. Start wherever you see something you like. You’ll often have the stream to yourself, as most people don’t stray far from the road and campground.

Dana Fork

As you drive toward the park boundary from the center of Tuolumne Meadows, 13,053-foot Mount Dana dominates the horizon to the east. The headwaters of the Dana Fork start high on the slopes of this reddish-gray peak. The Dana Fork drains a smaller watershed than the Lyell, and therefore has lower flows. Though this is relatively small water, the Dana Fork still features the same wonderful trout habitat as the Lyell Fork: small cascades, clear pools, and gravel runs.

In his 1912 book The Yosemite, Muir wrote, “Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul alike.”