Education Class: Chasing the Heritage Trout Challenge

Education Class: 

Chasing native California trout in the Heritage Trout Challenge

   Qualifying Trout

This session is to prepare Club members for scheduling and completing the California Heritage Trout Challenge.

To qualify for the Challenge, six different native trout must be caught within their historic range. The historic range, for the purpose of the Challenge, includes the trout’s native distribution in California, prior to human influence (pre-19th century), and all waters that feed into this watershed.

For example, catching a Lahontan Cutthroat Trout in Heenan Lake (Alpine County) qualifies for the Challenge. Although historically fishless, the lake outlet flows into the East Fork Carson River, where Lahontan Cutthroat Trout were once the only trout to inhabit this system. It is within their historic and native range.

Conversely, native species have been stocked in waters outside their native range to provide additional sport fishing opportunities. California Golden Trout can now be caught in many high-elevation streams and lakes across the Sierra Nevada; however, only those from the South Fork Kern River or Golden Trout Creek drainages qualify as a heritage species for the Challenge.

These three subspecies of Cutthroat Trout (Oncorhynchus clarkii) and eight forms of Rainbow Trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) are your targets to complete the Challenge:

• Cutthroat Trout (Oncorhynchus clarkii)
  • Coastal Cutthroat Trout
  • Lahontan Cutthroat Trout
  • Paiute Cutthroat Trout (restricted due to endangered status)
• Rainbow Trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss)
  • Coastal Rainbow Trout
  • Eagle Lake Rainbow Trout
  • McCloud River Redband Trout
  • Goose Lake Redband Trout
  • Warner Lakes Redband Trout
  • Coastal Rainbow Trout
  • Kern River Rainbow Trout
  • California Golden Trout
  • Little Kern Golden Trout

Class Curriculum:

Rob  Farris will be your instructor who has over 10 years of experience fishing for California native tour and has earned two certificates for capturing all ten eligible fish.  Over 250 hours of his preparation and research into watersheds assisted six of our qualifiers to initially succeed.  He also has qualified for the Wyoming Cutthroat Slam and Tier 1 of the Western States native trout challenge. 

Session will focus on explaining the Heritage Trout Challenge in California and its objectives and benefits for the fly fishing community. Special discussions include:

• What it takes to qualify, and State of California awards
• How to target the first six fish of the ten for qualification
• How to determine with CDFW that the watershed you are fishing is qualified
• Using the web to determine where to fish in the qualifying waters.
• How to minimize the effort and travel to accomplish the challenge on the initial six native fish.  Building a "targeted" approach toward accomplishment.
• A suggested itinerary to complete the first six qualifying fish in a year (although the program has no embedded time frames for qualification)
• Identifying each of your qualifying fish to ensure compliance and what is required for submission of your fish for the Challenge.
• Suggested tackle, flies, and approaches to be successful.
• Trip alternatives.

Registration and Costs:

Class Tuition: The cost is $51.50 for TVFF members. Non-member guests must first register as a TVFF member.  

Contacts:

Fishmeister/Instructor: Rob Farris, (925)286-5502, RFFarris@comcast.net