While growing up in Buttonwillow, catching a rainbow trout posed a bit of a problem for my best friend Larry Johnson and me. The mighty Kern River flowed through the gorge over an hour away from home by car, so without any means of transportation, other than a bicycle, we were destined to continue fishing the nearby dirt canals around town.
All that changed, though, when we got our drivers licenses. Larry’s dad, Fred, allowed us to use his big Honda motorcycle, and my dad, John, reciprocated by letting us use his International pickup to venture eastward through Bakersfield and on up into the canyon. Back then, the river swarmed with trout, and we learned to catch our 10-fish limits only a mile or two inside the entrance.