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.