Reminiscing fall

Well, the truckee river has been blown out and muddy since sunday and is just now getting back down to a fishable level... unfortunately due to the possible 50 mph gusts of wind it's not really fishable conditions just yet.

But this leaves me time to reminisce about a unique day I had this last november. I finally an entire day on a weekend to get outdoors and do some exploring as opposed to the 1.5 or 2 hours I usually squeeze in for fishing (when I'm supposed to be doing other things). This was during a weather spell where the nights were extremely cold but the days were warm enough to get fish moving around and eating things. I waited until the sun had been on the water for a couple of hours and then I hit crystal peak park in verdi intent on exploring more of the "trophy trout section" of the *truckee. This was before christmas so I had yet to own a pair of waders (that fit anyway...) and figured I'd just do a lot of hiking and simply skip the holes that required wading to access. I left with high spirits and was hopeful for some nice water and some nice fish with the sun warming the water-- the trail:

It really felt like I was hiking in the woods for about the first 30 minutes of the hike and I was just starting to get into what looked like some decent pools for cold weather fishing when I was stopped short by a sign in the path. A blaring warning in hard printed letters read "NO TRESPASSING, private property, violators will be prosecuted." Ohhh mannn-- looking around I could spy at least half a dozen more just like it and a few more up ahead for what looked like someone elses property. Well, that was it-- but I refused to give up-- I didn't know about the "mean high water mark" rule but I did know about the fact that nobody can own the river bed itself-- so tennis shoes, jeans and all I plunged into frigid water hoping not to get shot at.

The scenery turned out to be mostly beautiful-- I say mostly because I couldn't help but be a little angry at all the fat, grandiose houses that I had no clue existed along the river. There were even several houses that had built up retaining walls that went to the waters edge-- in fact some looked like they may affect the flow characteristics of the river itself. Because I was already slogging about in wet clothes I started fishing all the decent holes that were practically in peoples' backyards-- but things were REALLY slow. I spent the next few hours just hiking along and fishing pools and pocket water with only one small fish taking a #14 october caddis sparkle pupa along the way. I then came up on a really large pool and spent over an hour plying the waters with practically everything in my arsenal-- I even changed leaders and went to a small dry fly only to watch lunker after lunker swim lazily up to it, follow it and then swim away. As a last resort I tied on a fly I had tied a couple of nights before-- a beaded fly called the gold nugget-- pattern here. (It really glows when wet!)

On the very first cast into mid paced water towards the top of the pool my indicator went under immediately and I set the hook good and hard with a downstream pull. After a nice energetic fight I landed this really uniquely colored rainbow (cutt-bow maybe?) with dark red coloring down the sides, an almost yellow-colored belly and barely a touch of white on it's fins:


I guess this fly had just the right translucence attraction and size for the day because, after running through almost every nymph in my box, this ended up being the ticket and for the next couple of hours I picked up scrappy little rainbows in mid to fast water:

Eventually I ended up at a dammed section of the truckee and was surprised to see more water in the irrigation canal leading from dam than was in the river itself! Upstream of the dam the truckee is probably twice the size-- though that will have to be explored later. Soon the sun was going down-- and so was the temperature-- I. was. freezing. After hours of hiking in 40 - 50 degree water I had chattering teeth and an ungodly pain in my feet


Frozen (fairly glad I didn't get hypothermia), but still on a high from finding the magic fly, my old van was a welcome sight... even though the heater really doesn't work :-)


* This is the trophy trout section as described by NDOW:

"The Truckee River and diversion ditches above the I-80 bridge, upstream from Crystal Peak Park in Verdi, to California state line where the limit is 2 trout and 10 mountain whitefish. minimum size for trout is 14 inches. Only artificial lures with single barbless hooks may be used."