I just realized a little while ago that I really didn't post anything about fishing for the whole month of february. Sad. Where did the month go?? Mostly I just didn't fish very much due to the sporadic weather, high flows and too much time in a desk chair. But I did make it out a few times and made quite a few quick stops to look at the water and to see what was happening bug-wise. Here's a quick synopsis of the month.
The beginning of February had some great BWO hatches with winter conditions still in effect and the slow water was producing BIG, healthy rainbows on small princes and bwo nymphs in gray in olive. Overcast days were epic-- these were the type of fish that could be expected regularly:

Sometime in the middle of the month I decided to get serious about this fishing thing.




By no more fooling around I mean tying up a bunch of articulated patterns with size 2 hooks (and a bunch of slumpbusters for droppers) and fishing them with a sink tip. But mostly it meant I got skunked a lot. I did catch one 20" cutthroat on a baitfish pattern but it was an ugly looking stocked fish that doesn't really count as a stream-born native being fooled into attacking my fly.
The end of February was hit and miss with the fishing. There were some serious bugs at times but finding the right conditions and fly to get at 'em was tough (at least I thought so). In fact the last day I fished the Truckee in February turned out to be an epically bad one. I started out fishing a new sculpin pattern I've been experimenting with in some water I rarely fish. I thought I got a few taps but maybe it was just the bottom... who knows. Then I met up with Justin and we hit a few spots around town. The water was muddy and nothing was rising and Justin caught one small whitefish. I slipped in the mud and fell on my fly rod. *snaapp* Damn.


But, as they say, a bad day of fishing is better than the best day in the office (or something like that) and it was cool to see some skwalas come off towards 3 or 4pm. I had to admit defeat at that point though and accept my losses. Justin stayed and caught a couple of fish (of course) on some skwala nymph patterns. However the significance of the big bugs turned out to be an important event for that guy-- the next day he stuck an absolute monster of a brown with a skwala dry fly. And it's all on video. Someday we may even figure out how to edit it. Until then you get a crappy screen capture that doesn't do the fish full justice.


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