Sep Hendrickson had just returned from the first commercial break in his California Sportsmen's radio show when it happened. Gene and I were rounding a bend in the brush-lined road when a heavy bear sprang from the roadside vegetation and proceeded to clamber down the pavement in front of us.

The bear's silky black coat glistened in the trucks headlights. The shock waves rippling across the fat of the bear's haunches gave it a soft unconditioned look and belied the fact that it was traveling more than twenty miles per hour. As quickly as the bear appeared, it dove off the road and was swallowed up by the dark woods. What an exciting beginning to a fishing adventure!

Gene and I were traveling through El Dorado County's back county on our way to French Meadows Reservoir on Saturday September 24 when we saw the bear. French Meadows is one of my favorite trout fishing destinations not only because the lake offers top-notch fishing, but also because I often see wildlife that isn't common at my other fishing haunts due to the lake's remote setting. Regular Fish Sniffer readers will recall the story I wrote about targeting browns at French Meadows back in June when my nephew and we saw a bald eagle and an osprey fighting in mid air.

French Meadows sets at an elevation of 5,200 feet. The lake encompasses 1,900 surface acres and boasts 8 miles of shoreline.

The DFG plants the lake with nearly 11,000 catchable rainbows and browns. Many of these trout avoid anglers and this has created a strong holdover population. French Meadows provides excellent trout forage in the form of pond smelt, sculpins, and crawfish, so it's little wonder that the lake is known for producing quality trout.

We arrived at the lake at daybreak. Originally, we'd planned on fishing from my 12 foot Gregor. However the weather forecast had called for brisk winds, so we decided to leave the boat at home and fish from the bank.

Over the years I've scouted out several productive bank fishing spots scattered around the lake and we planned to hit a handful of them. We made our first stop at the north west corner of the dam near the discharge channel.

I rigged up my two rods with sliding sinker rigs while Gene did the same. I baited one rod with an inflated nightcrawler and the other with a small ball of yellow Power Bait tipped with a small chunk of cured salmon roe. Gene also baited one rod with an inflated worm and the other with a small piece of roe.

We waited about thirty minutes before my second rod shivered to life. The trout was picking at the bait very tentatively, so I opened the reel's bail and allowed several yard of line to feed off the spool before setting the hook. As soon as I started fighting the trout my line got snagged. I unsuccessfully tried giving the trout slack in hopes that the fish would swim the sinker out of the rocks.

I didn't want to break the trout off, so I climbed up the face of the dam and then down the top of it. Finally when I was about 150 down the dam, the sinker popped free. After that I climbed back down to the water line, reeled in the exhausted rainbow, and then picked my way back to where I'd started with the trout in tow. "You really worked for that trout," commented Gene as I put the fat 14 incher on the stringer.

We spent another hour fishing at the dam, but the only action we had came in the form of a small brown trout that Gene fooled tossing a spoon. We decided to drive around the lake and try our luck near the launch ramp on the north shore.

A short hike west of the ramp we located a deep area adjacent to a shallow flat. Gene tossed out inflated worms, while I went with a worm on one rod and Power Bait on the other. It didn't take long for Gene to nail a scrappy 12 inch rainbow and I followed up with a feisty 'bow of my own that also fell for a worm.

Around noon a strong wind kicked in and we decide to give it another fifteen minutes before calling it a day. I was just getting ready to clean our fish when a trout swam off with my worm and I had my third rainbow of the day. Once that trout had joined the other three in the cooler we packed up and headed back toward Auburn.