Winter fish porn...

Just a little more winter fish porn madness...

Krakowwww!

Round 3...

The barneys from the bay can have the Yuba. I'm tired of driving up there and finding like 30 other dudes corked-out on every stretch of fishable water, acting like they're giving me a lesson on how to catch a Yuba trout; slashing at the rising fish wondering why they aren't taking their black and tan parachute adams... They can have it... I'll wait until summer when the fly fisherman hatch turns off and the real fishing turns on...

In the mean time... I'll try to find some other way to get my fix....

Hows about a 20 inch Truckee torpedo?...

Now that's how you ring in the new year!

How can a trout get so fat eating a bug so small?

Why does the Truckee hate me?

We were deserving of a redo on the Truckee after the last showing. Spending 6 hours stuck in traffic last time for an hour and a half of fishing definitely sucked, but we did catch fish in that hour and a half, and that was enough to send us back. So, this last Sunday we went back for seconds. Again, we knew there was a storm coming in that night, but it didn't slow us down. Like the mouse to the electric cheese: we wanted it regardless of the shit we might end up going through... again, and again, and again, and again...

At least the storm held-out until we were off the water, but this time it wasn't the weather that defecated on a perfectly good day of fishing. Oh no... the weather?... no problem... roads?... totally clear... broken rod?... not that day... skunked?... nope... how about an overlooked barb on a size 18 hare's ear?... life sucks...

No explanation necessary...

Regardless of the well over-exaggerated unnecessary fine that I'll probably need a payment plan to pay-off, the day wasn't a total loss: the fishing was pretty damn good! There was so much snow covering the rocks and the banks that it was actually easier to get around in the river.

Cold water meant that the fish were holed-up in the deeper slower-moving water, but they were surprisingly willing to take a fly. I would go so far as to say that they were actually moving quite a bit to take the fly. Presentation (as always) was pretty important, but it didn't seem like you needed to put the flies right in front of the fish.

The hot fly for me was a size 18 tan hare's ear (barbless).

Fishing the Truckee this time of year lends itself to sight fishing, but we were only able spot one hole the entire day with fish in it that we could see. Granted, there were about 8 fish in the hole, and we managed to land 6 of them.

Scott with a fatty that we could see eating suspended critters in the water column.

Most of the fishing was to good-looking water, and generally that would produce fish. Scott's hot fly was a midge larva/pupa that you can see in the corner of this fish's mouth.

Because of the lower flows, the fish were congregated in deeper water, which meant that where one fish was there were likely others. Most of the time we'd fish to the same hole even after two or three fish had already been pulled to hand from it, and still catch fish.

The fish were healthy and had plenty of energy even in the cold Truckee water. Several times a hooked fish would actually run up and down and in and out of the pool it was hooked in. Not the same lethargic fish from the last trip.

I don't know what the water temps were, but the water felt cold enough when you put your hand in it. The air temps were probably in the 40's with a fairly stiff wind. Skies were partly cloudy, and in the sun it felt like 70 degrees.

The Truckee proved, once again, to be a great winter fishery... Just remember to pinch your barbs...

Louise waving goodbye to the Truckee after a citation and a hook in the finger.

Storm?... What storm?...

We should've heeded the signs before we even got into the car... but... as any other 'junkie' fisherman knows, once you get into that glassy-eyed, inviolable, mode of fishing... ain't nothin' gonna' stop you; not even mother nature.

It's easy to explain WHY we picked the Truckee, after a banner winter season last year from the town of Truckee to the state line, but it's a little harder to explain why we picked this last Saturday to test the waters this season. Every weather report was saying that the storm wasn't even going to hit the VALLEY until 7 pm... we could totally get up there before the clouds even move-in, slap the water for a few hours, pull a couple nice fish in, and then cut-out before a single flake even falls...

...what the hell were we thinking?

The first sign was a pretty obvious one: Louise calls about 7:50 and says that the Folsom Auburn road is closed and she'll be late for our 8:00 am meeting... no problem... The next sign: I meet Scott in Auburn. We look up at the clouds, and they're barreling-in eastward at probably 40 knots... I kept saying that it was probably just a marine layer that was moving-in before the low pressure front... wrong... The next sign: Louise calls again and says that the entire north-south thoroughfare is closed from El Dorado Hills to Watt Ave. and that she won't even be able to get through until 8:30... getting worse... Probably the most obvious sign: after getting on the road, we hit Yuba Gap and the outside temps are in the mid teens... what the hell were we thinking?

Oh well... we made it... The water through town and above Boca was ffffffffrozen solid, but the water below Boca looked delicious. Temp was about 14 degrees at Boca.


All smiles while we were rigging up, but (again) we Should've Seen the Signs Sooner...the four esses of bad fortune....

The first snowflakes started falling just as we were looping our indicators on.

Notice the shadows on the glove... oh ya, the sun was still poking through at this point.

The trip wasn't a total bust. Between de-icing the guides on my rod and trying to thaw my fingers, I managed to hook and land two beautiful fish on a size 18 hare's ear about 200 yards below the LT and BT confluence.


About 15 minutes later, the clouds opened-up and it just started puking snow.

Scott and Louise working the water hard, regardless of the conditions.

Louise hooked-up with a nice fish just above the Hirschdale on-ramp, but it came unbuttoned before she could get it to hand... No worries. With the water at about 38 degrees, and the wind chill around -10, it's better that you didn't have to put your hands in the water like I did. My fingers still hurt.

Even though Scott got the big skunk, the shittiest day award had to go to Louise after snapping her rod in half just above the middle ferrule. We were only on the water for about an hour and a half, but I guess that's what happens when the power of bad luck is on your side. Good thing that was basically the end of the day anyway. After breaking two of the same rod (if I knew the make and model I'd potty-mouth the manufacturer right about now), hopefully this time the rod maker will send her a rod that doesn't break.

The broken rod was pretty much the straw that broke the camel's back, so we rolled-out hoping to avoid getting stuck in Truckee... nope...

Traffic was dead-stopped just west of the bug station. The freeway was shut down so crews could mop-up a nasty crash involving a sleepy truck driver and a cal-trans worker (so we were told). We sat, stopped, bumper-to-bumper with about 1,000 other motorists and watched as the roads went from clear, with some dusty snow blowing across, to socked-in with about 8 inches of snow.

After a couple hours we were really getting rummy, having gone through all of the 500 pictures on Scott's camera. Scott - it's time to put some of the pics onto a CD or something. Good thing there was a 6 foot traveling buddha to laugh at.


We fianlly pulled-off the freeway to regroup and get some carnitas in the stomach, but just as soon as we ordered the food, a guy told us that the road had just re-opened... "Check please!"

After two and a half hours of slow-going and dodging Honda Civics with chains on the wrong tires, we finally made it back.

Nice and toasty inside the car, but still a little frosty outside. Brutal wiper conditions.

That was probably the last time we fish before a storm, but it sure made for some great stories.

TU Truckee River Fish Outing

The Sac-Sierra chapter of Trout Unlimited hosted a fish outing this last Sunday on one of my favorite rivers, the Truckee River. We had 29 people join us, including Trout Unlimited members from the Sac-Sierra and Sagebrush chapters, members of the Granite Bay Flycasters, and several other guests new to Trout Unlimited. It was good to meet some folks from other chapters and spend some time doing what we all love to do, fish.


Every good fishing trip always begins with a healthy breakfast and some Joe, so I figured everyone would be ready to fish after a few maple glazed and a couple cups of house blend. We all met at 8, but I was ready when I walked out the door at 6. I just have to remember to eat the doughnuts before the three cups of coffee next time. We broke-off into groups and tried to spread-out as best we could, but I'm pretty sure we had the river corked from Trout Creek to Hirschdale.

My good friend Jason and I headed straight to Horner's Corner to drop-off the gear for lunch.


We fished for about an hour and a half before we had to head back and start grillin' for 29 hungry fly flingers. Not a whole lot of action for us in that hour and a half. Two smaller fish to hand and a lost whitefish that Dave Lass said may have broke the state record... Not the greatest fishing record, but I would've accepted it gracefully, "And the biggest whitey award goes to JJ..." Rad...

We had quite a spread ready for lunch as people came in from the river. Thank you to Nancy, Don, and Joy for helping arrange all the food and other good stuff.


Some better morning reports came in from up river. A couple of guys said they had some solid takes and several good fish to hand swinging streamers through the schoolyard. Another group had some luck on the ol' tan worm (san juan), but nobody really ran into numbers of fish (it's not like we'd been fishing for hours though). The numbers didn't start to show until the afternoon... and did they ever...

While we ate lunch, Dave Lass, the Nor-Cal Field Coordinator for TU, talked with the group about some of the conservation work that's going on around the Meiss Meeadows and Little Truckee areas.



The Little Truckee is considered one of the most fun and technical fisheries in northern California, but it's having problems with some of the unauthorized "social" OHV trails that are distributing sediment into the riverbed. TU is wanting to designate new routes and improve/remove older routes to help protect this fishery. For more information about this and other projects, visit the TU California webpage at http://www.tucalifornia.org/. It was a great talk and I think I'll be participating in that project for sure. I hope to see other familiar faces.

After lunch we headed up river for some nymph action.


Before we could even get our lines in the water, Jason proceeds to snap the tip off his rod on some sagebrush. A total bummer, but I have to admit that the face he made was pretty good when I snapped his photo.

I'll give it to him though, a broken rod didn't slow him down at all.



The first 30 minutes were slow, until around 4:00 when the fishing simply got stupid! We were hooking 4 to 10 fish in every fishy looking run, and they weren't little fish either. None of the fish we got to hand were less than about 16" with some beef on 'em. Nearly all the fish we caught were taken on my "signature" trout slayer fly. The slayer struck hard that afternoon!

There was one wide run where I proceeded to catch 5 fish in 5 casts, plus an additional 5 more in the next 10 or so casts including a 24" bruiser on my last cast that I had to chase about 150 yards down the river before landing it.


I could barely fit the fish in my hand. It was hard enough to take pictures of fish that were like 18", with the fish in one hand and the camera in the other. Try doing it with a 24" fish. I got 'er done though. Check out the bent hook from that bad boy.

And that wasn't even the fly he took! The hook bent from the pull of the dropper fly.

Every fish fought hard! I came to the river with about 10 slayers in my box and broke-off all but 3 in some monster trout.



Jason was also nailin' fish on a big green drake pattern (the pattern that did absolutely nothing for me last Friday) broken rod tip and all.



When I caught-up with him upstream he was re-rigging after breaking off his entire setup in a fish's mouth. After setting his indicator a little higher, he hooks a fish in the same run, and (I could've guessed that this would happen) in one corner of the fish's mouth was his freshly tied-on nymph, and in the other corner was the rig he had broke off 10 minutes prior. Like I said, stupid fishing...



We had several instances where we had double hook-ups and fish hooked only about two or three feet from our legs. Check out this fish hanging out in the back eddy behind Jason's legs.


Good stuff all day long. Met some great people and had some great times fishing. Jason and I bailed before the evening hatch. To be honest, my arm was tired. The count at the end of the day for Jason and I was well over 40 fish with a couple of pigs to brag about. This fishing thing is easy... sometimes...

Thanks again to everyone that helped put the outing together, it was a great success. Thanks to Tom Smith for giving a good talk about the Sagebrush chapter, and thanks to Dave for giving a great talk about some of the now and upcoming conservation projects. Dave was very knowledgeable and enthusiastic and he opened some ears about TU's mission. We'll see everybody at the next TU function.

Still no Green Drakes.

I've been waiting for these stupid bugs to show up for months now... It doesn't sound so bad when I read it, but it sure sounds funny when I say it out loud. Every time I start talking about bugs my wife gets this weird look on her face that basically says, "I didn't think you could be any more of a huge nerd, but you've just proved me wrong." I'm sure she's getting used to it by now, but I wonder sometimes what she tells her friends: "He started talking about bugs again, so I just smiled and nodded my head and imagined I was talking to Dwayne Johnson [The Rock]." That Dwayne Johnson, what does he have that I don't? I keep telling her that it could be worse, I could be totally infatuated with a hobby that was ridiculously expensive and totally time-consuming...

Anyway... Every time I've fished the Truckee in the last couple of months I've expected some kind of a green drake hatch to happen, but it never does. In the last couple of weeks my friends kept telling me that they were seeing green drakes in the evening but I didn't see any yesterday. I thought I saw some coming off, but it was getting dark and there were a million other kinds of bugs swarming. I possibly saw one or two unconfirmed. Definitely not enough to warrant the purchase of $11 worth of green drake dry flies.

Tons of caddisflies and PMDs everywhere though. We saw PMDs all afternoon and some sulphurs and yellow sallies in the late afternoon. The caddis didn't show-up until around sundown. You know the caddis hatch is good when you can see them crawling under the bill of your hat and you start inhaling them as you breath. Not a whole lot of rising fish though. Not like I'm used to in these caddis swarms. We caught several smaller fish on PMD emerger and e/c caddis patterns as the daylight started to disappear. Louise caught a bigger fish a bit earlier on her PMD emerger, but most of the fish caught in the early afternoon (including a beauty of a whitefish) were taken on subsurface flies.


I started using this crazy-looking green drake nymph with a dangling thorax and a san juan worm dropper. I though for sure that the green drake nymph was going to be hot, but it didn't turn a single fish (again, another well-worth-it purchase). I switched the dropper to a small tan BH hare's ear and hooked a fish immediately, who promptly broke that fly off. I tied another of the same fly on as a dropper and hooked and released two fish out of the same hole (I checked their mouths, but my lost fly wasn't in there).


After breaking off my entire setup on a category 4 stick, I tied on a larger olive BH hare's ear along with the same tan BH hare's ear dropper and started catching fish left and right on both flies. I hooked a fish in a deep pocket that would've easily been my personal best trout (I'm guessing it was well over 6/7 lbs), but that fish was quick to break-off that tiny dropper fly and leave me standing motionless at the top of the pool in disbelief for about 10 minutes. After an experience like that, it takes a while to come crashing back to reality... I may have cursed a little...


I looked in the fly box for another of those small tan BH hare's ears, but my last one was stuck in the face of that submarine of a fish. Bummer... A bird's nest was all I had that was close enough, so I used that, and it was just as productive.


The fish were holding all throughout the river, in all types of water. Some guys who passed in their pontoons said they were taking fish on huge streamers in about 12 - 16" of water. Another group of floaters said they had been using dry flies all day and had done great. It sounded like the catching was good no matter how you were fishing.

All in all a good afternoon with lots of beefy fish and the one that got away.