My First Time Fly Fishing Yosemite

My travel journal and fishing adventure to Yosemite to fly fish and explore new waters

My wife and I flew out to California to experience Yosemite in the spring of 2024. Unfortunately it took until we were 50, and I’m kicking myself, after going, that I waited until youth escaped us to visit this magnificent place. Never mind the scenery. Decompressing to the sound of the river alone was enough for me.

But then you put those sounds in this incredible backdrop … it’s too much to process at first. Pictures don’t do it justice. Words don’t do it justice. You have to physically be there to let the whole environment envelope you in its massive scale. Then slowly you feel your muscles involuntarily relax as you metaphorically melt into these humbling, awe-inspiring surroundings.

The first night of our stay in a Merced River cabin was so peaceful and serene with just the sound of a rushing river literally feet outside our window. And I was giddy with anticipation of being waist deep in it the next morning for my first fly fishing experience in Yosemite.

Getting there

I reached out to Yosemite Outfitters a few months prior to my trip and talked through my trip with David Gregory. I explained who I was and what I did in the fishing industry and he was bummed he was booked for that week. But he got me setup with another guide Gregory Nespor. Greg was a long-time park ranger at Yosemite and knows the river fishing there better than most.

We flew into San Jose because the end of our trip was spent overlooking Half Moon Bay on the Pacific Coast, so we would be driving back in from there to fly home. We rented a car and then we had about a 3 1/2 hour car ride to Yosemite. We stopped on the way out at the quaint little town of Mariposa for dinner.

The drive out was very scenic for the most part and we were already enamored with our trip before even getting to the destination. Mariposa’s quiet little main street offered several options for food and a good-sized grocery store to stock up on energy bars, trail mix and waters for the week.

Going with a guide

Greg called a couple times before the trip to update me on the river and gave me a couple of options of things we could try to catch trout. Because I was traveling with my wife and had some plans later in the day to hike around in Yosemite, we opted to stay close to the cabin and receive a masterclass in Euro-nymphing from a pro. We planned to hop from spot to spot on turnouts along the river to fish small stretches. When the river is high and running hard, you have to be strategic about finding subtle flows and seams along the river.

I brought my own gear for a couple do-it-myself outings later that week, but Greg provided me with everything I needed on our first morning. I find when you are going to completely new fishing environments, especially in states you haven’t fished a whole lot or for fish you haven’t fished a lot, a guide can shortcut your learning and trial and error massively.

That was definitely my case with Greg. He was a wealth of knowledge on the fishery, the seasonal behaviors of the trout and the best and most efficient tactics to target them on the stretches we fished.

I wanted a crash course in Euro-nymphing as I had been dabbling with it on my own and the learning was slow on my fairly poor trout stream near the house. I’ll have more about mastering Euro-nymphing in a later article with Greg.

The Fishing on the Merced River

Greg had a system figured out for the day and it yielded tremendous results. I was able to land 19 trout in about 3 1/2 hours. The basic premise was to focus on short runs in strategic locations since the river was still pretty high and running pretty hard. But first I needed to get comfortable with presenting a double fly Euro-nymphing rig to the fish.

We started on a spot that he takes a lot of clients to because it’s easy to read the water and understand the drifts, distance and more. And while Euro-nymphing is a supremely effective method for catching trout feeding deeper in the water column, it’s not like traditional fly casting.

We were using a modified mono-rig as Greg is an expert in tackle and technique. He had a setup that afforded us a lot of feel in our hands. We used the Echo Shadow Euro Rod with a Sage reel. And a long section of mono to leaders and sighters that Greg custom built. I was mostly doing what I termed “lob flipping” the two tungsten bead weighted nymphs on a modified roll cast.

Since you fish the euro-nymph rig on a lot of mono leader, you aren’t really using the fly line to cast it great distances. It’s a lot of short roll casts where the weighted nymphs sort of flop forward up into the seam. Then it’s about controlling a perfect drift that balances speed with depth to go right through the strike zone of the trout. Mostly done by feel. Not the easiest of ways to fly fish for certain.

Greg gave valuable insight on not trying to get too far out there with your casts. To work really close to you just a yard or two in front of your own feet. And then progressively work out from there. You cast up current and guide your line in tune with the current. When it got just past parallel with my body, I would pick up and roll cast a lob back up in the current seam and drift again.

After about 10-12 lobs and drifts I started focusing on how deep to run my nymphs using the sighter line Greg had tied in to help me maintain and control my depth and detect strikes. I had my eye on the changing colors of lines and tags throughout the sections as well as a hand on my monofilament midsection of line. As I started to get my nymphs deeper, things started to happen.

On about the 4th drift where I felt like I was getting my flies down close to the fish, I saw my line jump, set, had a fish for a split second and the flies popped out of the water. I roll casted back up, got my drift and came back through again. Almost on the same pass, the line stopped and I set.

My first Yosemite rainbow was on the line, and I was all smiles. We both were giddy on how quickly I picked up a technique having mostly dry fly and streamer fished for trout in the past. The first rainbow was the chunky trout at the start of this article. I was absolutely elated. My only goal for this trip was to experience these new waters, take in the scenery, and learn a bit bout the fly fishing in this area. If I caught a fish and got a few pictures in this beautiful environment, well then the trip would be made for me.

Little did I know that was a small appetizer for this outing.

I landed 4 or 5 more trout and missed a couple on the first run. We decided to pull up and hit a section further down stream. This time we were on an inside turn fishing where a shallow run turned and washed into a deeper hole. I started with the nymphing rig again and was quickly reward with several small to medium rainbows. We were using a hares ear and a frenchie for our two flies with pretty good sized tungsten beads on small 12-14 hooks. These were all flies Greg had handed tied for our day. He really likes the small flies early in the season.

The next run we hit was a bit deeper with a complicated flow with some back current and a slower seam and then a much faster outside current. The water was quite a bit deeper and we opted for an indicator rig with split shot and heavy flies. The indicator rig was nice because it gave me some more experience and confidence fishing an indicator rig on a deeper run with a good bit of weight on there.

I got dialed in quick to the strikes and was detecting them before Greg as I’m pretty well versed on detecting subtle vibrations and movements on float rigs from my time conventional fishing for trout and gills with micro baits. I thoroughly enjoyed landing several nice trout and small rainbows with this rig as well.

Because I had a full day of hiking with the wife ahead. We called it just after noon. I can not tout Greg’s ability, knowledge and fun stories on our day enough. His brother is a professional surfer and he comes from that world as well, but he’s a super laid back guy that really knows the ins and outs of trout on the Merced River. He’s an excellent and patient teacher as well. All you can ask for in a memorable experience in a memorable place.

He actually helped Echo Fishing R&D some of their euro-nymphing rods, so he has an intimate knowledge of the gear, and he’s a master rigger and fly tier to boot when it comes to putting together the ultimate setups for euro-nymphing and indicator fishing. We used feruled leaders he tied up himself on the indicator rods, and I hooked everything that even jiggled the float. It was a wealth of information packed into a half day trip, and I couldn’t have spent my money better.

The stay

My wife, Becky, is a vacation planner at heart. She loves to go try new things and see new places and she put the whole trip together short of the hiring my guide. She found us an AirBNB cabin along the Merced River and we slept and woke up to the sounds of the river every morning. Since it was May, the snow runoff was still at pretty good clip making the water high and swift albeit down from peak runs earlier in the month.

It did make for great scenery and wonderful sounds to sleep to though.

The cabin itself catered to fly fishing and trout lovers as everything in the cabin conveyed some type of fishing theme. There were hand-drawn maps of promising areas on the river. The Cabin sat nestled into the hillside quietly secluded from the traffic across the river. I loved the location she choose for us for the week.

Exploring on my own

The next morning, I decided to try some fishing on my own to put some of what Greg had shown me to practice. I learned a very hard lesson on not having split shot in my fly bag (an entire story coming on the importance of that affordable weight system as a result). So I was unable to get my flies deep enough in the currents I had.

Thus I was forced to conventional fish, which I inevitability had accounted for and brought my BFS trout setup. My Megabass Great Hunting Huntsman BFS baitcasting rod and my Shimano Conquest BFS reel along with a box of trout baits would work well to adventure on my own the next two mornings. I cycled through some jigs and minnow hard baits fairly quickly before opting for a gold and colored Mukai Clown spoon from Bait Finesse Empire. That proved to be the hot ticket in these flows.

I was able to shoot the spoon up current, let it sink to depth and then work it slowly at a deeper strike zone which proved key this time of year. I would love to go back when the water wasn’t running so hard and the trout were higher and more active in the water column. I think catching them on small JDM cranks and minnow baits would be a lot of fun on the Hunting Huntsman.

But, I managed 9 trout by myself with the BFS gear. I had some really cool strikes where I saw the fish hunt my baits down in shallow water.

Hiking, sight seeing and other activities

Of course you can’t go to Yosemite and not tour the park. We spent a couple days going through the park, hiking to waterfalls, overlooks up on Glacier Point and more. If you get out west, you need to get out to Yosemite.

There are few places like it in the world. And the views can’t be explained in a photo. You need to stand on the edge and look down. You need to stand in the valley and look up. Only then, will you have a sense of how minute we are in this place we get to enjoy.

Places like this are few and far between but have a way of connecting you to a world of history that is sometimes forgotten by people caught up in the minutia of their daily lives.

The Experience of a Bucket List Trip

This was a top 5 fishing trip for me. I’ve caught fish in 42 states and 3 countries. I don’t measure trips on the amount or size of fish. In my youth, those were certainly a standards of measure. These days it’s about the experiences, the scenery, the people and of course the fishing. Pulling an iridescent, rainbow-reflecting trout over the lip of the wooden hoop on a dripping net with gentle crystalline waters flowing over my boots while mountains tower over me on all sides is something I will see forever when I lay down and close my eyes at night.

To me, that’s what makes a trip a bucket list trip. Amazing places where fish are caught, amazing experiences in those places, with the people I love being with. Greg gets added to that list now but my wife being with me made this such an enjoyable “fishcation” in such a beautiful place.