Where to fly-fish and offroad in the West Sierras???

My son and I are taking off for the week after Father's day. We're hoping to do some fly-fishing and hit some trails. We're looking for some dispersed camping in the Eldorado, Amador, Placer areas of the Sierras. Any ideas? Thanks Tacomaworld!

 

Where are you coming from?

Not much into the fly fishing thing, but it's pretty hard to swing a dead cat and not hit some trails in those areas. Keep in mind you might still still hit some snow up there!

Black Springs Route
Baltic Ridge
Corral Hollow OHV
Pinecrest Peak
Mattley Ridge
Rubicon
etc...

You could also just get some FS MVUMs (motor vehicle use maps) and just go out and explore:

https://www.fs.usda.gov/detail/eldorado/maps-pubs/?cid=fseprd637014
https://www.fs.usda.gov/main/tahoe/maps-pubs

If you have something like the Avenza app on your phone, you can download georeferenced MVUMs to your phone. The Backcountry Navigator app running with the "USFS - Forest Service (newer)" map source (incl with the app) is pretty good, too.

 

Could check here for fly-fishing opportunities in that area.

https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/fly-fishing-bs-thread.246222/

 

When I was in the Sequoia National Forest a couple months ago, we stopped by the visitor center on the way to Kings Canyon and they had a lot of useful maps you can take for free...showing where the dispersed camping spots are, developed camping, off highway roads, fishing areas, etc.

Of course its best to learn as much as you can before the trip, but my experience with those visitor's centers in the area has always been very helpful.

 

There is definitely something very attractive about just heading out with minimal planning, heading to the visitor center/ranger station and chatting up the locals and grabbing some maps. Then just going for the adventure and see where it leads.

 

That's pretty much how we did it lol. The only downside to that though is there's no guarantees you'll be able to find a spot to camp if it's during the busy season, so depending on when you go it might be wise to reserve a spot in a developed campground just in case. We didn't do that and got really lucky to find the one unreserved spot at one of the 2 open campgrounds in the area when we went.
But the next day when we drove further to where the dispersed camping was, there were quite a few areas open. Never really know with that stuff until you go

 

That's another reason to try and avoid traveling during peak season - that and I hate people...

I'm about to leave on a 2.5 week trip out to Yellowstone, up through Idaho, Washington, OR, and back to Cali - 2600+ miles. We made reservations the whole way. Difference there is we're pulling the RV camper trailer so it's nice to know you'll have a spot to pull in to. It's not like that trailer is off-road worthy, lol, so there's not a lot of boondocking with it.

Last summer we went to Great Basin NP, and they don't reserve their campsites (and according to the website they "never fill up, even on weekends") so you have to just roll the dice. We got there on a Thursday and everything that would fit our trailer was full so we have to go back down and camp at a lame RV park. I went up the next morning and waited for people to leave and then got a good spot, threw some chairs and my wife in a spot, and ran back down and got the trailer.

 

Yeah we went at the tail end of the off season (end of April), when a couple developed campsites opened up but most were still closed until May/June. And the Kings Canyon Highway had just been opened up the day we arrived. But apparently a lot of other people had the same idea as us lol. Just no real escaping it here in CA, unless you really go deep in the offseason...which I'm not opposed to but this year we got so much snow that it probably would'nt have been possible even if we wanted to

 

Thanks guys! Jbrandt I'll check out that Avenza. We're going to roll the dice. Heading out by Jackson for some low elevation dispersed camping. We were looking up around the Silver Fork of the American River but called ahead and the Ranger said there's still 4' of snow up there. There's plenty of creeks and a couple of reservoirs close to some dispersed camping areas around Pine Grove.