San Bernardino Mountain Adventures - Bear Creek Trout Fishing

Bear cover.jpg

My dad came out from Arizona to visit with me for a few days, so I took him up into the San Bernardino mountains to one of his old favorite fishing spots. Bear Creek. Bear creek is a fork of the Santa Ana river and it's actually the fork that drains Big Bear lake. The trout fishing is great, but not necessarily easy. Theses are some smart fish here! So you need to have a really good lure or fly and you gotta sneak up on the fish and make your first cast (or 2) a good one because once the fish know you're there... they disappear.

So we got down to the creek and headed upstream. I would sneak up on a pool and my dad would sneak up on the next one and we moved our way upstream in that fashion. I let dad lead as to give him the advantage, and he utilized it. He was hooking it up!! I caught a few as well, but not nearly as many as he did. All catch and release with barbless spinning lures. We caught some real beauties, both German Brown trout and Rainbow trout.

Bear Creek

A German Brown trout with dad in the background

Dad sneaking up on a pool

A beautiful Rainbow trout

After a long, but super fun day of fishing we hiked back downstream to where we parked. We setup our camp there and enjoyed a fun night with a nice little campfire. I was really happy to get to spend some real quality time with my pops. The next day we headed up to Big Bear and did a short, but fun little hike above the lake to wrap up our trip.

Hiking back to camp after a long day of fishing