Summer Truckee

So lately all I've been doing fish-wise is gearing up for a trip to Bridgeport CA this weekend for a fishing trip with my long time friend, Ben, who I met in Winnemucca in 1989. Which mostly means I've been sitting in the basement tying up stillwater flies-- bugger, bugger, bugger, Carey Special, bugger, damsel, bugger, midge etc. But last night, having tied so many new flies and having a virgin rod/reel combination I just rigged up, I had to get out on the river.

I got the green light from my understanding wife (you're the most beautiful in the whole land!... and I'm a kiss-ass great husband) and threw on my swim trunks and my fishing vest and hit a couple of spots on the west end of town. Bad idea. I forgot about the tuber hatch. I hit two spots I had in mind and in both places there were large pods of beer-swilling tubers covering the water... I was dissapointed but not overly offended as, given the 98 degree weather, it didn't sound like a bad idea. So back to my usual haunt-- a stretch of water between 3 or 4 decrepit parks containing more goose-dung, trash and homeless people than tubers or fisherman.

I got to the river, grabbed my rod and climbed right in the refreshing water, thankful for some relief from the stagnant heat. I flipped over a few rocks and found a smattering of various sized mayflies and a few green cased caddis worms. I rigged up a stonefly nymph for weight and dropped a pmd ice nymph off the bend of the hook. I chose the pmd nymph because I had just seen Juan Ramirez's tutorial on his blog, the hopper juan, and had tied two up that very day (with some umm, let's say improvised materials)-- I was excited to see if it would work as well for me as it does for him!

The fishing started out quite slow-- I'm guessing due to the heat-- and I covered a fair amount of pocket water and fished up a long run to the fast water at the head of a pool, changing my dropper out a few times-- mercers psycho prince, z-wing caddis nymph, then I went to 3 flies and dropped the pmd ice emerger off the caddis nymph. I got a few noncommittal taps when swinging the pmd and then at the head of the pool, as I was about to move on, my indicator darted sideways. I (finally) made a decent downstream hookset to the bank and hooked into a feisty 16" rainbow. Being the cheap bastard I am, I've been using mustad nymph hooks but have finally grown to hate them after losing many a fish. However I've found an alternative for tying cheap nymphs-- mustad dry fly hooks. I chased the fish downstream not wanting to straighten the fine wired dry fly hook-- and after several awesome runs I had my first fish of the day:

nice n' healthy:

pmd ice emerger-- a hasty and ugly tie on my part--and I didn't
have any of the prescribed materials-- but a winner nonetheless!:

I then decided it might be worth the effort to work the hole a little more and put some split shot on trying to get the fly down in the fast deep water-- which turned out well. I soon was hooked into another nice rainbow on the swing--this time on the golden stonefly nymph. This one didn't seem to fight as well but when I got it close I realized it was a much bigger fish than the first. I landed the fish after a few weak runs and a lot of head shaking and it taped out at a solid 19" -- and had a really messed up lower jaw.

I think this fish was really distressed from the heat and after about 10 minutes trying to revive this guy he just twitched spasmodically, and the second half of his tail felt like rigor mortis had already set in. I glanced around checking for any tweed-and-dry-fly-only-guys and did him in -- I'd rather have a nice fillet than send a fish off to slowly die at the bottom of the truckee.

I moved up to some really nice looking water for caddis and went back to a two-fly rig with the stonefly and an olive caddis dropper. I worked the water over quite completely before giving up. I moved back to some deeper water and put a cast right in the seam behind a big rock and was soon into another fish. The drift was sweet, the take was obvious, my hook set was solid. I knew this guy was mine. Feeling confident I chased this fish downstream as he made a blistering run across the stream and then UP into the white water. This was a brute. This fish kicked my ass. I was feeling confident that this fish was going to come in eventually and he made run after run peeling off WAY too much line every time-- but everytime I chased him down and put side pressure on, moving him back towards my side of the river. Then one more run across the river into water so shallow I saw a fin making a wake and then... nothing. Slack line. I flung my line in loops saying "no, no, no!!" In that stupid whispery-but-loud voice we use when we lose hours of work to a computer crash or some other great dissapointment. I investigated my flies to determine the reason for failure-- the cause? The fish had widened the gape of my #14 TMC 2487 considerably:


"Well, I guess he earned that one," I finally conceded and bent the hook back to its original (kind of) shape and switched the stonefly with an experimental crawdad fly I tied a couple of days ago:


I had high hopes for this fly but after about 20 fishless casts my confidence broke and I put the stonefly back on. Good decision. As the sun was setting I put the hurt on numerous fish, all in the 14-16" range all along the pool-- all taking the stonefly nymph. I tried all sorts of droppers and took a few small fish on a golden nugget nymph and a psycho prince but the stonefly nymph was HOT:

This is my version of Bob Jacklin's western march brown tied on
a #8 TMC 2487 for a lot of curvature and a wide hook gape...
and, eureka, it's all chewed up!:

Right as it was about to get dark I decided I had to try the streamer game again. I tied on a big #6 conehead woolly bugger which I had tied extra furry, extra webby and with a flashy collar (taken from a fly that's been dynamite for WFF). I made a few swings with a quick strip or two in there for good measure and, on the third cast, my fly stopped. Yeah, I didn't even feel a bite, it just felt like my fly stopped-- I set the hook and the water exploded as a nice rainbow flopped across the water. He then made an upstream run and went air born-- who doesn't love the meaty flop of a large trout hitting the water? This fish fought an incredible battle and was the fish of the day in terms of how well it fought. It took 4 or 5 long runs but I had 6lb flourocarbon on and I knew it would hold this fish. I muscled it in after it looked like it was done making runs and netted a beautifully colored, healthy proportioned 18" cutt-bow just as it got dark-- another great end to an awesome evening on the water:


I can't wait to go to bridgeport.