TRUCKEE TRIVIA #12

Question:

What PUBLIC section of the Truckee River is FLY FISHING ONLY?

The Plane! The Plane!

The heading is intended for those readers who are "long-in-the-tooth". They'll recall the opening scenes of that '80's TV program entitled FANTASY ISLAND with Ricardo Montelban and the smaller  actor who entoned the Plane thing when the new crop of adventurers arrived at the island.

That being said, "The Drakes!...The Drakes !"...as in the 2nd Big Bugs of June (Western Green Drake)... have arrived on the upper river below town, in their usually sparse numbers.  I had reports from reliable sources for 2-3 days; yesterday I observed them first-hand...so it is confirmed.

HINT: Don't be fooled right now because we're experiencing a classic "masking hatch".

So what does that mean? Well the productive bug imitation thus far is a PMD emerger, cripple or dun because the PMD is out-numbering the Green Drakes in a ratio of ...I'm guessing here...25-1. So the surface feeders are eating the most readily available, table item. Hence the PMD (#16+-)...and fading, larger March Brown (#14+-) are  being "masked" by the bigger Drake (#8+-).  This selectivity may change in about a week after the trout have been seeing, eating and realizing the higher caloric-value of the bigger aquatic. Then a Drake becomes a really good "prospecting" surface-gambit because the trout know they are around and will key on the bigger, adult mayfly present...even though the PMD's will be present in increasing numbers.

Remember this is a short-lived event...

...and I'm not even talking about caddis...

Late Spring

This week's really pleasant spring weather was welcomed. Everything is blooming...except there has been minium, CONSISTENT surface-feeders nor intense bug emergences. Overall this past spring has afforded us some pretty decent flyangling; although I'm willing to admit that we are getting a bit burned-out sub-surface fishing. Such is what has produced 90% this spring...nothing unusual. There have been a few exceptions though; some trout on both the LT and BT being fooled into eating Winged, Black Carpenter Ants and in the case of the image below of the 21" RainBow a #16 ParaChute Adams which HawkEye was using as an indicator fly.

Suffice it to say, without getting into a long report; the inlets and small creeks and streams have been forthcoming; some of which I haven't fully "scouted" yet.

Today, it is softly raining with some heavier down-pour anticipated this afternoon (actually a very wet snow!)....perfect weather for the second of the Big Bugs of June Green Drake's mid-day,  inclement weather appearance...not the evening as generally occurrs. So, I'm heading out the door to hook-up with my long-time fishing buddy Johnnie da Jeweler. Below are some images of the decent wild trout encountered during this spring...to satisfy the prurient interest of Swill da Beers.

    Da Stick and a nice Brown taken on a #20 Black Midge

    Tom Evenson of Orvis on a busman's holiday...

   Both of the above Browns were "spotted" sub-surface with HawkEye's incredible vision