January, 1918 
FOREST AND STREAM 
13 
thrown in, one at a time, and arranged 
side by side and the bacon grease allowed 
to drip upon them. In twenty minutes 
they were done and the upper stone was 
pried off with the aid of a pole. This is 
the way to cook trout if you want the 
whole of the flavor. It is hot work get¬ 
ting them in and out of the stone oven, 
but you are well repaid for your efforts. 
I still think that meal to be the best one 
I ever ate, and I know that 1 never swal¬ 
lowed more ashes at a single sitting. 
An hour’s fishing around the big hole 
netted us four more trout, ranging in size 
from fourteen to eighteen inches, and as 
our creels were getting full and heavy we 
stopped and weighed our catch. In all we 
had eleven fish, with an aggregate weight 
of twelve pounds. Clearly it was time 
to stop. 
The start for home was accordingly 
made, but while our intentions were good 
the temptation to get just one more fish 
was too much for us. A sudden boiling 
of the water near a submerged log, a gleam 
of pearly jaws, a flash of color and a fare¬ 
well swish of a saucy tail led us both with¬ 
out a word passing between us to rid our¬ 
selves of the creels and to bait our hooks. 
For a time it seemed that we would be 
disappointed here, for there was no rush 
for the tempting bait we offered. Possibly 
we had been there three minutes when a 
little trout commenced to run at my bait 
and I was busily engaged in pulling it 
away from him when two large fish came 
rushing in from the lake and caused him 
to leave in a hurry. They then made for 
my hook and seemed to be fighting to 
secure possession of it. Almost before I 
realized it one had hooked himself and 
was tearing out toward the center of the 
lake. I stopped him as quickly as I could 
and started to reel him in, but there was 
no need of this as he returned to the pool 
of his own accord. In the meantime the 
other fish was racing around in an excited 
manner and apparently wondering where 
his partner was. Three times my fish 
made for the deep water and as many 
times returned of his own accord, and all 
the time the other fish dashed madly about, 
but ignored the bait on Katie’s line. I 
suggested that she change it and she threw 
in a plain brown hackle fly, which was 
seized the moment it touched the water. 
This fish was deeply hooked and she 
brought it to the net before I landed mine. 
Both were male fish, beautiful specimens of 
the Kern River trout (salmo gilberti), and 
measured twenty-three inches in length, 
the largest we took on the entire trip. 
Upon reaching the bridge we found that 
cleats had been nailed across the logs, and 
a guide wire put on, making it quite pass¬ 
able. Mr. Conterno gladly took such fish 
as we could not use and relieved our mind 
on that score. During our stay here we 
made several other visits to the lake, but 
never with quite so much success, although 
we took many fine fish there. 
O NE of the most interesting of the 
side trips we made from here was 
up Coyote Creek, the upper waters 
of which are rarely visited. The ascent 
from the floor of the canyon is very steep 
and the trail passes some beautiful falls, 
the highest of which, however, is only 
about sixty feet. We made this trip pri¬ 
marily to secure some of the fish of this 
stream, which are dif¬ 
ferent from the regular 
Kern River trout and 
which are known locally 
as the Stewart Edward 
White golden trout. The 
fish must have been in 
this stream before the 
falls became impassable 
and have developed into 
a sub-species, but they 
lack much of having the 
brilliant coloring of the 
real golden trout, whose 
native home we could 
see almost directly 
across the canyon. 
On the way home from 
this trip Katie clam¬ 
bered down into the 
gorge between the two 
highest falls, neither of 
which could be climbed 
by a fish, and was re¬ 
warded with one trout, which we decided 
was different from those caught further up 
the stream in that it showed red upon the 
throat and had a speckled belly, while the 
others were pure white underneath. 
Before starting on our 
trip to Mount Whitney 
we also explored the 
lower part of Golden 
Trout Creek, which is 
also known locally as 
Volcano Creek and 
Whitney Creek. This is 
one of the most inter¬ 
esting streams in the 
Sierra Nevadas, even 
aside from its being the 
native home of the cele¬ 
brated golden trout. It 
is about twelve miles in 
length and has its source 
at an elevation of more 
than ten thousand feet. 
The first half of its 
course is through a great 
meadow and over gran¬ 
ite boulders, forming an 
ideal home for trout, 
while the last half is 
through a great flow of lava. The vol¬ 
canic flow stopped just as it reached the 
Kern Canyon and the creek has worn a 
wonderful gorge through a portion of it, 
the most beautiful of the falls being hid¬ 
den in its depths and 
known to but few. 
Using the contour map 
as a guide we made our 
way up the south side of 
the stream, keeping well 
out of the gorge, and 
after a four hours’ climb 
came to the natural 
bridges. These are two 
in number and are on a 
branch of the main 
stream, but are crossed 
by the main pack trail to 
Independence and Lone 
Pine. The bridges are 
of volcanic tufa, under 
which the creek has 
made its way, the larg¬ 
est being about fifteen 
feet in height, thirty 
feet long and ten feet 
wide at its narrowest. 
in Kern Canyon 
Most of the falls are below the bridges 
and we explored all of them on the return 
trip. Twin Falls and Shields Falls each 
have a drop of twenty-five feet. Stewart 
Falls are located at the head of the gorge 
welcome at sundown 
and are seventy-five feet in height, but are 
rarely ever viewed from below. At no 
small risk we made our way into this 
miniature canyon and even proceeded to 
the brink of Agua Bonita Falls, the far- 
In the lava and granite heart of Kern Canyon 
The author “hitting the trail 
Even such a shelter is 
