I walked over to the Monterey Bay Aquarium and photographed some rainbow trout in the Monterey Bay Habitats exhibit. The aquarium trout don’t fit into the angling category but there are a few freshwater opportunities here – you’d just have to work at it.
In Monterey, there stocked hatchery trout in Lake El Estero, located near the bay off Del Monte Avenue and managed by Monterey City Parks and Recreation Department. The California Department of Fish and Wildlife mentions fish plants there and the last one , (California Fish and Wildlife Planting Map), was January 19, 2017. I used to see people fishing Lake El Estero but it’s been a while. A couple of years ago, when I inquired at the recreation center at the lake about fishing, a woman asked me, “Why would anyone want to fish here?”
When I first moved here, I found a nice, friendly fly fishing store in Carmel, Central Coast Fly Fishing. They qre the most informed about trout fishing in Monterey county.
According to the California DFW, “Most Monterey County streams have their headwaters in the Los Padres National Forest. These headwater streams provide good trout angling for hikers.”
This is a link to a very long PDF entitled “Steelhead/Rainbow Trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) Resources South of the Golden Gate, California” that will require significant wading through.
