LAST CAST: The Kern River Rainbow

These rainbow trout are unlike any you've seen.
Olive backs and sides that look as if they've been plated in silver.
Bright crimson lateral lines and countless black spots from the head to the tip of the tail.
And the fight, forget about it.
These silver bullets get airborne within seconds of being hooked, leaping two, sometimes three or four feet out of the water.
That's the Kern River Rainbow in a nutshell.
This wild fish is native to the Kern River and can be found on some of the remote stretches of the Nork Fork of the Kern River, located north of Johnsondale Bridge.
On my last fishing trip of the summer, I had the pleasure of hiking down to the North Fork via the Forks of the Kern River trailhead. I was lucky enough to catch a dozen of these beauties up to about 16 inches. Most of the fish we caught were near where the Little Kern met the North Fork. Spectacular fish.