downtown between the hatches...

I'm coming to realize that many of the fishing reports I read do not always apply to the downtown reno area that I fish. I'm also finding out that if you're willing to wade into some not so nice places around reno, you can find areas that are fly-fished almost as rarely as those pristine hike-in spots up in the mountains. Just... you know, watch out for people hanging out in the bushes... and don't ask what they're doing. You don't want to know. (I regularly see condoms, booze bottles, syringes and ripped out pages of porn mags on the banks of the river). It's also good to whistle a lot-- loudly. Why? --because people are nicer when they don't think you've snuck up on them (crackheads! so paranoid...). I've had in mind to notify the police a few times about people who have been living in one spot for a long time, but haven't yet-- best not to make enemies at this point I figure. Anyways...

The point is that I've had the most sporadic/difficult fishing these last two weeks prior to labor day weekend (more on that to come). But the flows are steady, there are a few bugs about and the weather has been consistently hot during the day and chilly at night. And all the reports say fishing is good! There's definitely a high probability that it's my sub par fishing skills, but my theory is that we're sort of in between major hatches right now. There was an awesome period a few weeks ago when crawdads and stoneflies would put a guy into a bunch of big fish. But now I see only a few crawdads and get no response on the stonefly. The only bugs that are hatching with any regularity (downtown anyway) are some PUNY effing mayflies (baetis) and, of course, a few midges. So I think the fishing may be a bit slow until the baetis really start hatching or the october caddis come out (this may be happening now, I haven't checked for 4 or 5 of days). I can't wait for the october caddis-- last year was big rainbow mayhem.
But for now here's what's been happening recently:

8-22-09:
I caught the last of the major "crawdad hatch" (again, that's per my estimation of the downtown area) on saturday the 22nd and spent an awesome day with a crawdad/stonefly rig that basically acted as a big fish filter-- it kept most of the little ones off :). I landed numerous fish in the 17"-20" range and was broken off by several hogs that always seemed to find an obstacle to wrap my line around. But what a day! I stuck to fast pocket water and at the head of almost every pocket I found a nice fish (also I'm awaiting a waterproof camera I ordered but I had to use my cell phone-- sorry). Here are the highlights:

After losing two big fish right off the bat, I chased

this one downstream through fast water that almost took me down,

It was probably pretty hilarious to watch:

After hooking an absolute

beast that ran up some whitewater and charged under a rock

snapping me off, I moved to the next hole for this beautifully

colored, 19" consolation prize:

I pushed my way through some serious

brush to fish a hole that has never produced a fish for me--

reaching to the far side and awkwardly high sticking a drift

under some overhanging willows produced this:

8/24/09 - 8/29/09:

Having had such a great day on the 22nd I found myself down at the river a little more than usual the following week. I fished three consecutive days (in between classes and after work) and got the fat goose egg each time (that's a big zero if you've never heard the term). And each time the conditions were pretty much the same-- tiny baetis coming off sporadically and a few other bugs and almost nothing nymphal hanging around for me to see except a few of the baetis. I nearly tried every nymph in my boxes before, on saturday the 29th I decided to get some streamer practice. I should have done this a long time ago. I need to pursue versatility in this sport, and I know it, just like a lot of us know it-- but we have a hard time deviating from the tried and true, don't we? Anyways, I tied on a big black conehead bugger and was admiring how it pulsed in the water. I decided to cast upstream in some shallow riffles and stripped downstream, hoping to get a look at what kind of action the conehead would produce. Two strips into this I snagged a rock. But this rock pulled back hard leaving me with snapped 7lb flourocarbon. WHAT?! Turns out what I thought to be a rock was actually a BIG fish sitting in maybe 12 inches of riffly water. I immediately tied another streamer on and spent the rest of the day getting numerous taps, follows and strikes. I lost a lot of big fish with botched hook sets but I managed two fish in the next hour. Amazing action for streamers in my opinion-- an experienced streamer guy would have landed a decent number of big fish-- in the end this was my best fish, caught in a shallow seam off some pretty fast riffles (I didn't realize my lense was foggy until later):

streamers are such a blast...

Well, sorry for the recent slackage-- school has started and I've been busy having fun on the river and at the vice--e watching for some fly tutorials soon! And also be watching for a labor day update on one of greatest desert streams I know! Cheers.