The West Walker is classic Eastern Sierra freestone — a snowmelt river that comes roaring down out of the high country, runs hard and cold through the spring, and then settles into a summer of bright pocket water, plunge pools and brisk runs. It holds rainbows and browns, the rainbows quick and willing in the broken water, the browns hanging back in the deeper, shadier lies where they can watch the world go by. It rewards moving — you fish upstream, pool by pool, reading the seams and foam lines until you find willing fish. Some of it runs roadside and easy; some of it makes you walk. When the runoff has dropped and the river has cleared to a tea-stained green, the West Walker gives you the kind of straightforward, satisfying mountain trout fishing that does not need dressing up.

• River
• Mixed