Southern California, especially coastal Southern California, has never been recognized as a land of rivers or even streams consistently navigable by watercraft. These waters are extremely seasonal and run very skinny most of the year.

Yet, against all odds, the endangered Southern Coastal Rainbow/Southern Steelhead calls this home. It is legal to fish for this species—provided it is not in any water that connects to the sea. And landlocked populations are not as rare as one might think.

It’s hard not to grow fond of a fish that persists despite droughts, dams, fires, and channelization. Rain events or periods of snowmelt provide rare moments of elevated flows. But higher water often means turbidity, something that one seeking trout prefers to avoid; a key conundrum for the trout angler.

Against the backdrop of yucca and arid arroyos, these fish can be far and few between. Critical habitat characteristics such as depth, temperature and oxygen, can vary immensely, even within a quarter-mile stretch. One pool can be bathtub warm while another has a hidden spring that makes your hands go numb. There are pockets where invasive species dominate. Oh, and to add to the challenge, these wily trout love to move about. You might find a hole rich in fish one day and a week later, they’ve moved elsewhere.

With a keen interest in this special fish—and a fascination for SoCal’s hidden waters—we increasingly pondered how packrafts might facilitate our explorations. It almost seems silly, but we are contrarians at heart. Like the fish, we want to be nimble in our journeys.

The more we thought about it, the more intrigued we became. But not one image in any brochure or on social media showed a packraft in the type of waters we have been exploring. The question stands: how can we integrate these tools into the quest for a special trout through water that is difficult to navigate (and rarely navigated to begin with)? With boats so light and packable, we knew we had to try and find out for ourselves.

For Packraft Expedition #1, we picked a particular stream where we could make some time going upstream via an old fire road. We stuffed rafts into backpacks and when the spirit moved us, inflated them and started our drift.

We had our first lightbulb moment almost immediately. While drifting through a canopied section of creek that was little more than 10 feet bank-to-bank, we found ourselves gliding over one of the deepest parts of the stream we had ever witnessed. It felt as if we were sliding through mangroves to a hidden tarpon hole. Yes, in Southern California!

After years of bushwhacking past this very section, one that we generally deemed worthless, we were astonished to say the least. No aerial or satellite detail could have betrayed the volume of this hole. Below us swam droves of massive carp. Although not our target species on the day, we now know where to return to for some serious battles with these golden bones.

For what it is worth, we have witnessed trout holding in the same water as carp and bass, and before we dispute predation and competition, we first need habitat. Here was our answer.

In our packrafts, long sections of fishless water and shallow riffles were swiftly drifted whereas in the past, they ate up precious time. Floating leisurely through these less-favorable zones added to the efficiency of our quest. Translation: packrafts equaled more distance, less work.

And, alas, these shallow zones and riffles invariably lead to deeper channels, bends and pools, and we like that. Now and then, we did find boulders in tight formation that forced us to navigate by foot. This might seem like work, but unlike our other non-raft assisted treks in the region, we could keep our gear-loaded packs off our backs and within the rafts. Basically, it wasn’t a great inconvenience.

Now, anyone who has explored small water seeking to find trout knows quite well that they are skittish, and barging down a creek that’s barely doing 30 cfs with a packraft is the antithesis of stealth. Our strategy was to be on a very sharp lookout for what appeared to be holding water as far in advance as possible. It is also worth adding that for this exercise, we allowed ourselves more downstream fly presentations than normal.

Parking the raft and sneaking up to a spot was always the optimal approach.

Come to think of it, no fishing occurred from the actual raft.

The stream did afford us the opportunity to be stealthy with numerous shallow areas, exposed beaches or boulders (for cover) to go quietly on foot to best approach those cherished waters that scream, “If there’s one trout in this stream, it lives HERE.”

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Guest contributors Bernard Yin and Rebecca Ramirez are passionate Los Angeles-based fly anglers and conservationists who are advocating for the protection of Southern California’s endangered Steelhead trout. They have been recognized and recruited in the field by CalTrout, Trout Unlimited, the Resource Conservation District of the Santa Monica Mountains, and the US Forestry Service. They are Patagonia Fly Fish ambassadors, NRS ambassadors and serve on California Fly Fisher’s editorial committee. Their film, Don’t Doubt the Trout, produced and directed by Isabela Zawistowska, screened at festivals including 5Point and the Wild and Scenic Film Festival. They boast having explored Chile only to have spent more time drinking wine and playing music than fly fishing. Follow them on Instagram: @fun_yins & @bernardyingram.