The fly fishing experience this year has been… different… to put it simply. We’d been exercising patience more than casting a fly toward unfishable high waters, but this also created opportunities to appreciate the side effects: snowcapped peaks, lots of water, more flowers, and happy trails. With that in mind, we accepted a volunteer conservation effort with the Inyo National Forest Service, in collaboration with the Southwest Council of FFI, in the Golden Trout Wilderness. Here is the original enticing informational flyer for more context, but basically, years ago a fence was put in place to keep livestock out, allowing the willows to recover around the stream (helping the golden trout habitat), and the time had come to clear it out. As Conservation Co-chairs, putting in some work on a stretch of the south fork of the Kern felt a fitting way to represent the club.

And work it was. We arrived Saturday evening to hand off gear and supplies to the pack mules, not to mention acclimate to the 10,000 ft elevation. Sunday morning came early, and we hiked/trudged approximately 11 miles through creeks, crushed granite, sun-exposed boggy meadows, and fatigue to our camp at the north end of Ramshaw Meadow where the pack team so kindly dropped our things. Believe it or not, we all slept much better that night than the previous.

Then the real work began. The crew was divided into two groups, one each side of the river. The day’s goal was to detach and spool the 3 lines of barbed wire and use a t-post fence puller to remove posts from the ground. Easy enough, right? Well… the fences had been deteriorating for over 20 years, and large sections of downed wire were reclaimed by the meadow, sometimes quite securely under the roots of various plants, and several posts had sunk deep into the ground, requiring a shovel to help dig them out. Not to mention horse flies and mosquitoes finding any moment to take advantage of us as we bent closer to the ground. We developed a system to pile them short term as we moved along, and that was that for the day. Well, almost that but for the cold South Fork to dip and fish in after a long, hot day. Surely, you understand.

Day 2 was a bit more of the same for the morning. A smaller group worked on detaching and pulling wooden posts in the corners of the exclosure. Post-Lunch, we all worked together on the camp side of the river to move the little piles into a single, large stockpile for a pack team to pick up at another time. Back and forth, forth and back, picking up and hauling the spools of barbed wire and posts. A time consuming and physical effort (because have you seen the size of this meadow?!), again through the crushed granite and muddy areas of the meadow and the fatigue. Did I mention the nearby Kern to jump in and catch fish to keep the spirits up? Yes, you get the picture.

The final work day had us all wade the river to work the other side. The “other side” was something else, lemme tell ya. The biting flies were relentless, by now having figured out how to fly into our hoods as we hovered our heads closer to the ground to pick up anything, between swats, that is. The grasses were higher and thicker, especially in the soggier sections, which made for a little more of a watchful eye as we stepped. We’d decided that morning it’d be wise to carry our lunches across, as to spend less energy trekking back to camp. We’d already spent a considerable amount of effort moving all of the posts and wire from one corner of the perimeter toward the end goal of another larger stash at the other end, so that was the right call. Fortunately, we’d saved up enough energy to find and collect every bit of barbed wire and lonely post in that meadow to finally complete our mission. There was sweat, there were tears, there were curses, much joy and relief, but we did it. And after it was all said and done, Spring had truly begun. With heavy snowpack and a late melt at this altitude, flowers were now blooming across the meadow more and more each day; it was especially noticeable on this one. We wandered back to camp with renewed optimism and the age old question - Who restored better: Ramshaw Meadow or us?

We sign off encouraging all anglers to act in some way, be it small or large, to help the fish, the environment, and each other.

Rebecca & Bernard

Your friendly neighborhood conservation chairs

Ramshaw Meadow Restoration