Truckee Fly Fishing...Betwixt & Between...

...rain, sleet and snow. Or as Kenny Rogers' song intones "...know when to hold'em...fold'em and when to walk away". Well, yesterday (11/28) after a brief one trout session on the LT; I decided to walk away....I haven't put-on my studded tires yet. I have to start thinking about winter fly fishing gear, garb and being comfortable.

wet, cold, sleet-snow

Prior to I experienced three nice sessions and fine weather...betwixt and between

 

The day after Thanksgiving Pancho and I ventured into the Grand Canyon of the Truckee. We timed the outing hoping to find some surface feeders eating BWO's...never happened. The bugs appeared at 1 PM but no fish ate on top, So we adapted; going down. The two brought to hand, a 15" brown and 13" RB ate a #14 Flesh Juan, under an indicator with two BB-shot.

CyberFly!!...studying a long deep riffle 

Pancho taking a break at a placid pool 

 

On Monday me and El Presidente (Tahoe-Truckee Fly Fishers current chief) crossed the border into Nevada and  fished the BT east of Reno in the "Mustang" area.

 

El Presidente worked a long run and hooked-up on some RainBows using a new #12 WhiteFish Egg Pattern he was field-testing. Then Gilligan (aka...da Sheriff of da Canyon) showed-up with  some anglers.

They disembarked and preceded to fish a very nice pool; a quick in-flow at the top with a very nice seam on one edge and a distinct foam-line trailing; a place for some nice Rainbows and big Browns in the quieter water in the gut or tail-out of the pool.

 

a decent RB was netted and a couple of other hook-ups were LDR'd 

Knowing some weather was approaching I fished the "lower-upper" beat  of the LT on Tuesday, 11/27. It was productive. The cfs was just ramped-up from its near 2+-months of 47 cfs to 87 and then 123..."worm-time"! Yes a #14 Flesh Juan got attention resulting in a quick-action, 2-hour,  7 hook-up/5 land  session of both RB's and Browns from 12"-18". Two browns fell for a trailing #20 BH Olive Midge.

a worm eater

...a slabby RainBow

da midge

da worm

 

  

 

"General" Season Over...Party Season Starts

Fly fishing continues in the Truckee area, as weather permits. There are windows of opportunity in-between the rain,sleet and snow. ...Please see next report at end of the week. But the party season has begun earlier than normal.

 

Prior to Thanksgiving we had snow falling,  This year was the first Thanksgiving we stayed on the mountain; merely driving 2 miles to our cousin's place. There we feasted with guests from Ireland, New Zealand, Oregon and the Bay Area. Generally this is the first gathering of friends and families. This year, the mountain party season started at da Artiste and Sakura's wedding party at the former's work studio. Normally we play poker Texas-Hold'em there, but for this occassion it was cleared-out and festively decorated for fun by iconoclist gathering of Truckee folks, Sakura's relatives from Japan and da Artiste's family from Clevland Ohio. Images below reflect the hazy, frolicking time had by all.

  

Trinity Report

da Consigliere laying on the pressure

 

"Cutting to the chase"...as is said; we hooked 16 and netted 5; loosing 2 at the net, during three days of floating on the Trinity. Four were hooked/2 landed while "swinging". My noble contribution to the numbers was 5 hooked...ZERO in the net.Four were played for extended amounts of time...aerials, long runs, rolls at the surface etc. Lost one in a willow root, one on an aerial and two merely uncorked. We heard reports of severe numbers such as 32 and 16 hook-ups in one day; but otherwise, overall, our numbers were typical of all the people we spoke with. There was a ton of spawning , dead and dying salmon.We drifted the Sky Ranch to Lime Point area.  We did catch about a dozen "Tiny-Tims" (8"-10" steelhead smolts).

Productive flies were an elognated, #8, 3XL, rubber-legged, dark streamer while swinging a 15' sink-tip via a single-handed rod. For indicator fishing the effective flies were #8 Peach or Pink egg patterns, Prince Nymphs and a #10 Yellow Copper John.

Al Go Fish...going into his backing...on the swing

(click-on image for a clearer image of the line)

The weather was nice with fog in the AM's and clearing in the afternoons. At one time Al Go Fish and da Consigliere were fishing shirtless! I left Weaverville CA at mid-morning and headed home on Thursday (11/8); just ahead of the snow we received here in Truckee during Friday-Saturday.

A rare,wild (intact adipose fin), tagged (blue wire at dorsal) Steelhead

"The moment of truth"...at the net

A hatchery fish...clipped adipose 

Da Tug is da Drug!

Well I'm off to to the Trinity River in Northern California; staying in Weaverville for some exciting steelhead fishing. For 3-4 days I'll be floating the river with  two good fishing buddies; Da Consiglier and Al Go Fish; both have ventured to Chilean Patagonia with me in the past. From reports we're receiving it may be a re-run (pun intended) of the incredible 2007 season...lots of fish in the river. We'll see. Eventually, I'll post a report with images.