Grand slamming on the San Joaquin
A brookie, rainbow, brown and golden, all in one day

May 2, 2005

By Bump Diamond
Man About Town

    David Moss, the longtime flyfisherman and guide from Mammoth, says it used to be a little easier to pull off fishing’s so-called “grand slam” along the San Joaquin River. And he ought to know.
    Moss has been taking folks out to fish the San Joaquin for 14 years, and he’s been flyfishing there since 1984.
    “I guess I’ve gotten to learn the river pretty well,” he said wryly.
    But even if you know a river, it doesn’t mean that you’ll know it forever, he said.
    In January of 1997, when the El Niño storms hit the Sierra, not only did the Walker River punch out U.S. Hwy. 395 while changing its course, but the San Joaquin also changed.
For anglers looking for the “grand slam,” that change in the river’s course made the accomplishment more difficult.
    “It moved the fish around, as well,” said Moss. “It used to be easy to catch the brookies. Now you sort of have to know where they are.”
    There are many grand slams in fishing. In Wyoming, the trick is to catch all four species of cutthroat trout that inhabit that country. In Minnesota, the deepwater lake fish—pike, muskie, lake trout, for example—comprise various iterations of slams.
    In the Mammoth high country, though, the grand slam means catching a brook trout, a rainbow, a brown trout and a golden hybrid all on the same day, and few places are as well suited to that as the San Joaquin—a freestone stream with lots of great cover for trout.
    Indeed, if an angler wants to go for an even more difficult slam, he or she will go for five fish, seeking both wild rainbow trout, usually taken in the protected wild trout waters near Devils Postpile, and the stocked rainbows, usually found near the campgrounds that line the river from Reds Meadow to Agnew Meadow and above.
    The headwaters of the San Joaquin is at Thousand Island Lake. The river courses through the Reds Meadow area, flows over Minaret Falls, past the Devils Postpile and over Rainbow Falls before clearing the Lower Falls on its way to California’s Central Valley.
    Over the years, Moss said, there have been some dramatic changes, both in terms of the fish population as well as the manner in which people fish.
    “The game was, how fast could you catch your limit,” he said.
    Now, with catch-and-release fishing having caught on, so to speak, the game is all different, except for people seeking the grand slam.
    “I think if they know about it, it’s a popular thing to do,” said Moss. “If they don’t, the river is just one of the most gorgeous places in the world, particularly if you get away from the campgrounds. It’s a great trout stream.”

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Editors Note: This story first appeared in the May/June 2004 Mammoth Monthly