California

Golden trout country. Volcanic spring creeks. The Eastern Sierra.

California holds an unusually wide trout portfolio for a single state — volcanic spring creeks in the Shasta-Lassen country (Hat Creek, Fall River, Hot Creek), big freestone trout rivers (McCloud, Upper Sacramento, Truckee), and the high-elevation Eastern Sierra (Owens, East Walker, upper San Joaquin and Kern drainages).

The California golden trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss aguabonita) is the official state freshwater fish and is native only to the South Fork Kern River and Golden Trout Creek in the southern Sierra — the kind of single-watershed endemic that anchors California's Heritage Trout Challenge.