As for the Rubicon trail there is great fishing all over, you should get both CA and NV licenses just to be safe. There is different regulations at different spots. Your best bet for river/creek fishing in CA is to just use barbless fly's. You should check out the Tahoe rim trail and fish the Hobart reservoir.
The "greenies" are infesting NV also they fail to understand that the best conservationists are the hunters and anglers. If we didn't maintain and control the populations. Invasive species would infest our waters and there would be deer and coyotes eating there gardens and pets. Then they would hold meetings and rallies on what to do with them then spend millions of dollars to pin them up, then frrek out when they see how unhealthing the animals become when they are pinned. Just like our freaking "wild horse" situation that we have here.
Sorry I begin to rant when it comes to uneducated, self proclaimed, naturalist/hippies/greenies.