winter fitchin.

I haven't made it out on the truckee much lately due to school, work, blah blah blah. (In fact I'm procrastinating in the computer lab as I type...) But essentially winter conditions are in place. The fish won't move much right now and I personally don't waste much time on water that doesn't look like prime stuff. I wouldn't say the fishing is spectacular (well thats a matter of perspective) but the few fish I've pulled in lately have been well worth it. These two fish are from my last two outings on the river and I keep forgetting the camera so I've resorted to the cell phone.

20" fatty taken on a #14 prince nymph--
with the awkward ninja turtle grip (I was trying to stand
the fish up to how how tall it was):

A feisty 18"er taken on a #12 red CJ--
despite the cold water this fish came airborne 3 or 4 times

Well hopefully before too long I'll be grajinated from school and then I'll be able to just fish and play my guitar for the rest of my life-- right?

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back in the saddle... the low down.

After a painful 3 week hiatus from fishing due to tests, homework, and work deadlines-- I made it back out and wet a line. And it was glorious.

The last touch of falls colors is beautiful and the river is cold and clear. It's also REALLY low-- I can't believe a river that peaked in spring at over 2,000 cfs valleyed (the opposite of peaked right?) at below 100 cfs:

Back on the river (11-6-09):
I had a few spare hours on friday afternoon and made it too the river and enjoyed the fall colors and even managed to land a few rainbows. I went to a somewhat familiar stretch of river but, as I have not seen the river this low before, it was like fishing a new river. It's like the river has given up some of it's secrets exposing holes and deep runs I didn't know existed. It was also very easy to get the flies down to the bottom to where the fish are:

Back into the fish (11-7-09):
Saturday brought an opportunity to spend almost a whole day on the water. And it ended up being one of the best days fishing I've ever had. There weren't a lot of people on the river despite the fact it was a warm, calm saturday, which didn't bother me a bit. The water is a bit frigid (and full of leaves) but that just means the fish are going to be in slow deep water, like this:

My rod was rigged from the previous day with a big size 2 black rabbit hair streamer. I carefully stepped into the water not wanting to spook any fish and thought "what the heck, I give it a few tosses." I lobbed the streamer upstream and erratically stripped it back to me and then then got ready to repeat this across the run. On the 4th or 5th cast I felt some resistance and set the hook hard. I saw the flash of a white belly and then a fat 20 inch rainbow came leaping out of the water and threw the hook. How that fish got rid of that #2 hook I'll never know, but I had a feeling it was going to be a good day. I then spent an hour or so fishing a stretch of water with that streamer with no more luck, so I re-rigged with some nymphs. I worked back through the run but I'm pretty sure I had spooked everything with my streamer. Moving on I worked some different water switching around my nymphs before settling on what turned out to be a killer combination: a #12 october caddis nymph with a #16 bh prince nymph dropper. I did some walking and settled on a nice deep hole and started searching carefully and systematically through the run. Pretty soon I had landed a couple of rainbows in the 14-16" range. Then, on a long drift right down the middle, my bobb... ..err, I mean indicator slowed and I set the hook on something heavy. The fish surged and made a lot of runs but stayed deep and gave some sporadic head shakes-- this has to be a brown trout, I thought-- I wasn't dissapointed:

The fished measured out at 21.5" or so but was a complete fatty. I didn't get the greatest photos but I got him back into the water promptly and he didn't even need much reviving. I smiled and considered it a job well done. So far the prince nymph (surprise surprise) had done all the damage and I was amazed at the strength of the davy wotton knot. I'll admit I was extremely distrustful of the simplicity of this knot at first-- but it held up fantastically even with a hard enough tug to widen my hook gape a bit:

After that fish my day would have been made, however I wasn't done yet! Over the next hour or so I landed one more brown trout at least 6 or 7 rainbows in the 17"-19" range and two over 20 inches-- here are the most notable:

20" cuttbow that didn't fight like a 20"er should:

A hard fighting fat-ass fish taped at 19":

14" brown trout that fought like a maniac:

19" cuttbow fatty:

I only got one picture before this fish flopped out of my net-- but this is actually the biggest fish of the day as well as the biggest cuttbow I've ever landed in the truckee-- a 22" rainbow that I did NOT think I would land due to his crazy antics:

After a while I figured I was just getting greedy and moved on fishing a few more slow pools without luck. I then decided to try some water I've only covered once before (without luck). It was a long walk to get there and I fished around for an hour or so before I found a few good channels in the moss that held fish. In the last 3 hours of fishing I landed a bunch more rainbows in the 16"-17" range and even landed another brown trout that has to be one of the hardest fighting fish I've landed, coming airborn numerous times and making some gnarly runs.

19" brown trout

Due to a leak in my waders my teeth were chattering (it got a bit windy after 2pm or so) and I decided to call it quits on this epic day (for me anyways). On a side note I can't believe how much trash there is in the river. The low water has uncovered all sorts of treasures. Among the things I saw on saturday are a full sized recliner, two bike frames, a couple of tires, a bunch of blankets, shirts, pants, and a sleeping bag. And that's in addition to the ever present mix of plastic bags, bottles and flip flops.

Oh, and I found some cocaine:

At least thats what I'm guessing it was (I did consult some more "educated" folks for verification). The little bag was inside the bigger bag on the bank next to a little stash of clothes, blankets, trash and what not. I threw it deep into some thick bushes where nature will destroy out of the sight of mankind.

What a crazy day.

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One fly tournament -- and post-event auction!

So I was going to do a big post on the one fly tournament-- alas the retard responsible for bringing camera forgot to bring it.

Oh yeah, that would be me.

The river ended up being high and off-color and thus a lot of contestants opted for streamers. I debated, but figured my streamer skills weren't up to snuff, and tied on a nymph. I had also gone out the morning before and landed a fair number of fish on October caddis and prince nymphs. I went with the October caddis. I got about 15 casts in before I snagged on an incredibly sharp rock and broke my line while filling my waders with water. $%^&. The really painful part is that, though out of the competition, I still managed to catch a bunch of fish on that same nymph later in the day. In the end I just had a blast just hanging out with other anglers (I think there were around 20 that showed up) who were all super nice dudes and even got to hang out with Mikey Wier who ended up winning the competition with two 17.5" rainbows (tough day!). Upon winning first prize-- an orvis helios rod with an orvis large arbor reel-- Mikey decided to donate his winnings right back to the organization that put the event on. Without even blinking. Which is ultimately the reason for this hasty post! These items will be auctioned off to benefit the UNR student chapter of The Wildlife Society! So BID already-- You may end up with a deal!:

(On a side note Mikey also gave me two of his DVD's which I promptly watched later that day while I should have been studying... anyways...). So Uber-Kudos to Jason Barnes (super cool guy) who put on the event and to all the great volunteers. I certainly look forward to next year!

Lastly I have to say that there probably won't be many posts for the next couple of weeks. I'm super slammed at work and with school -- like, so busy that if you see me fishing or taking pictures on the river... punch me in dong and call me bad names. (yes it's that serious)

If you're out there wetting a line - let me know how she's a-fishin'.

cheers.

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Whoah.

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Truckee River One Fly!

I hope to make this if at all possible... Here's the flyer (click to enlarge)-- hope to see y'all there!:

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Davy Wotton knot

Courtesy of Chris over at creek addict I have a recommendation for a knot that looks spectacularly simple and is supposed to be superbly strong:

The Davy Wotton Knot (original image from field and stream - here):

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Fall Truckee. The stuff of magazines.

No, really! I'm not just being facetious...

I was quite surprised to see the truckee river featured on the front page of flyfisherman magazine this month. It turned to be a big article and a decent one at that, though of course it focused only on the california side of the river. But I'm very ok with that. Enough of the link spew-- it's time for:

Overdue Fish Stories:

I finally made it back out on the river on the last day of september to see if the reports (and the recent hype) are true. The reports are that the browns are getting active and streamers and nymphs are working well. I started out with the sun pretty high in the sky still but I thought that might be a good time since the nights have been downright cold and, in my experience, truckee trout like an upward gradient in water temperature. This is, of course, an assumption that turned out to be wrong due, I think, to the fact that the bugs are hatching in the evening. But I'll get to that-- first: If I have to cut down one more trot line I'm going to throw something at someone:

first catch of the day.

After untangling myself from the 20lb test trot line I got serious trying to catch fish. I threw an arsenal of nymphs at the fish and swung streamers for an hour or so before switching back to a black aggravator nymph with an october caddis (sparkle pupa) for a dropper. Finally around 5pm I stuck my first fish swinging the caddis nymph in a fast riffle in front of a big boulder. The fish felt heavy and dove deep with pulsing head shakes that told me it might be the brown trout I had hoped for. The fish made some quick strong runs but I followed downstream and put the side pressure on and netted exactly what I had hoped for:

20" fall truckee brown trout:

You have to love these colors:

I quickly got back to chucking flies and after landing a few rainbows I replaced the aggravator nymph with a #12 copper john with some split shot above it. I threw the first cast with this rig into some pocket water and as I was high sticking it in front of me my indicator made an obvious dive under the water. I set the hook hard downstream and felt a massive weight on the other end bobbing and flailing. Then it made a downstream run that kicked my arse and had me stumbling and falling down just to keep the fish from running into my backing. I immediately started getting visions of the glory I would recieve for landing this beast as it was a solid hook set and I was using 7lb flouro on both nymphs (not good for karma). I played the fish for a few minutes marveling at its strength and wondering how I would keep it out of the quarter mile of nasty whitewater below me. That's when I made the decision to horse this fish into slow water. I did it! But no, the fish darted back into the fast stuff making me sweat. Try it again? Yeah-- I did it! I saw a wide back and a full dorsal, a little bit of tail fin and.... *boink* my fly shot back over my head and I mentally punched myself in the face for being an idiot. Repeatedly. Next time I'll jump in if I have to-- this brown probably would have pushed the 8lb mark (just a guess relative to the 20"er I had just landed) and was the trophy I've been hunting for. Ah well-- these are the fish that hook fisherman and keep us hopelessly addicted.

Once the dissapointment faded a little the night ended spectacularly and I landed around a dozen or so cuttbows all in the 10"-17" range and one bigger fish that ran me downstream and promptly shook the hook. I even hooked one rainbow on a black rabbit strip streamer after the sun went down:

Fooled fish says, "this caddis has a sharp!"

The general size for the night:

This fish ate a size 4 streamer:

Note: As it's been getting cooler the fish have been moving from fast water to mid paced holes, pocket water and some pretty slow seam water. And soon, I suspect they may even begin to move towards the tail outs when the water temps are down. It's not exactly an easy time to fish this river-- I've had a few days recently where I've had to work for even just one fish but when the magic happens it's... well it's magic... just like they make it sound in the magazines.

go get 'em.

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