Too nice to not go...

Well, I didn't get out with the guys this weekend due to work ( I think I almost put a 40 hour week in between Friday and Sunday), so I decided to cut my time at the office short today and take a much needed break. I headed out to Pyramid in hopes of landing a decent size cut finally.

A friend of mine mentioned he had 3 good days last week at Pelican, so I headed that way to start my afternoon. The weather was beautiful, 70 degrees, mild wind, and the water was clear. Pelican was pretty packed, so I headed to the very tip of the beach where it was a little less populated. I didn't notice anybody catching anything, but I tied on an Olive bugger and a Black tadpole to start. Within 3 casts, I lost the first stack to rocks, a weed, or some other obstacle (probably why nobody was fishing this spot). I tied on an identical stack, and waded back out when I noticed a lot of movement. Within 10 feet of where I was standing, about 6 - 8 large cuts were headed in towards the boat ramp. Surely this was a good sign, right? I fished the spot for about an hour, noticing a lot of fish movement, but no bites.

Around 4 PM the wind picked up, and it was impossible to cast because of the wind speed and direction. So, I jumped in the rig, and drove around the point towards Windless Bay, where the wind would be at my back.  As soon as I got on the water, I noticed 4 or 5 fish moving in the shallows, and one directly to the right of me feeding in about 1 foot of water. I managed to hook into a good size 24 inch pig, landing him a bit awkwardly, and falling into the water as I tried to steady myself on the slippery mud. As I picked myself back up and went for my phone to grab a pic of the fish, I noticed my phone was off and wouldn't turn back on (due to water from the fall).

Needless to say, I managed to hook into 3 more fish in a 2 hour period, landing only 1 of them, another 16 inch cut.  It definitely looks like the activity is picking up on the lake. My friend told me he had 30+ fish days the 3 days he went out last week. I noticed a few fish surfacing, and a lot of activity in the shallows. With the river up right now, Pyramid is the way to go for the next few weeks.

HipHop East Walker

April 24th, 2010

East Walker River, standing room only. Check your coat at the door.
Brandon and I showed up to the dam on Friday night at about ten mintutes to 7. The first camping area was hosting about 10 RV's / campers. We thought this was insane until we took a drive in to bridgeport that night. I think tourism from this weekend alone, could fund the town of Bridgeport for the entire year. I will post up a few of the pics from the Bridgeport Res opener on Saturday. I have never seen such human density on a body of water in my life. It was awe inspiring. As for the fishing, it was fair. The fish were biting but we didn't catch anything of size. It was all the usual stuff, small midges and BWOs, mid column and top water. Kellen had a fat little brown ambush his Zoo Cougar but Kellen failed to not fail, and failed to catch the fish, fail. We fished both the Miracle mile and down on the Rosachi side in Nevada. The Nevada part of that river looks so good but we didn't pull anything out. That is the spot where Kellen missed that good brown and also near where Brandon got in to a good brown last year as well. Flows have been steady at 125 since the 20th (as of Apr 26th @10:20).

On the topic of bugs, the baetis nymphs that were hanging around under the rocks were quite a bit darker than they have been recently. Lots and lots of caddis hangin out in their grass huts. As the waters warm the bigger guys will start to come out. The Mays were hatching but the feeding action was minimal, I dont know that we saw or heard anything much. I had fished a run up near the dam with a parachute BWO and had a number of hits but, trout aim about as well as an Iraqi citizen, so I didn't produce anything

Spring weather... for now

It looks like we're going to have some more Spring weather this weekend. It will only last until Monday, of course, so get out there and get 'er done. The Walker has been holding steady at around 130 CFS, and looks to be good this weekend. Ken's has indicated that the water is warming up and the pigs are starting to move.

Reports from the Little Truckee have been good too. The road is now open all the way to Stampede, and flows have been hanging around 160 CFS. It doesn't look like there will be too much dry fly action, so make sure to pack plenty of nymphs.

The Truckee looks to be a bit blown. Flows are high (around 500 CFS through town), and will probably settle down a bit, but the water looked like chocolate milk coming in to the office this morning. If you're looking to stay closer to town, Pyramid may be the way to go with temps in the 70's on Saturday and Sunday.

In case you hadn't noticed, the weather was nice and warm now we have snow falling. Local flows have been fluctuating alot every day and this is only going to draw that process out. The truckee has shot up nearly 100CFS this evening in town. The flows on the east walker have been adjusting over the past few days as well. The outlook for the weekend is good weatherwise. The gents over at Ken's in Bridgeport have provided us with another spot on report, check it out in the "Fishing Reports" section and go pay em a visit. See you out there on Saturday! Spring may start soon! I swear...

Before Class

Well, yesterday I snuck out on the Truckee between work and school. I’ve got to keep my mid-week trips in the Sparks section of river because of the short window of time that I have. I just parked at the park on Spice Island and fished those nice runs and holes next to the UNR apartments on the south side of the river in the Agriculture center. There was a pretty good hatch coming off consisting of big ol’ March Browns and some midge and BWO’s but there was not one fish sipping or rising… however, I did see one fingerling surface… I tried throwing caddis pupa, mayfly nymphs and Slump busters but couldn’t hook up with anything. Another month, I figure and the water will be much nicer and school will be out so I’ll have more time to fish the sections of the river I know a little better. Me and Brandon are going to Rock Park for lunch today and we’ll see what we can do there… More to follow.
KE

Sunday: It's Always Sunny...

COLD, COLD, COLD!!!

Ok, so I couldn’t make it out with Thomas and Bobby on Saturday so I ran out to the Miracle Mile on Sunday afternoon. The flows were at about 160fps when I left the house and it was warm at home. An hour and half later I got to the water and it reminded me of that time it was too windy… but I sucked it up, laced up the 9wt (so I could get a little bit of ass into the wind) and got right to it.

I showed up at about 1:30 in the afternoon and the hatch was just coming off but the wind was so bad that the bugs were stuck to the water surface… easy prey for the anxious and hungry predator brown trout. Hooked up with my first fish in about 20 minutes on a little size 20 BWO Nymph imitation I whipped up the night before and then I decided to break out the dries because it seemed like every fish in that hole was sipping. I tied up a Vis-a-dun in BWO size 20 and a size 20 BWO Barr’s Emerger as a dropper just in time for the wind speed to pick up about another 20mph… It was incredibly difficult to deliver a proper dry fly presentation so I gave up on dries and through on a size 10 black Mogul Stone Nymph and that little Nymph I caught one on earlier. Caught another one on the BWO and went up to the outlet.

Got to the outlet at about 3:30 and it started snowing and yes, the wind picked up another 30mph… Determined, I hooked up with one last fish on the Mogul Stone and called it a day at about 4:30pm. It was COLD but catching a couple fish in the few hours I fished made it just as good as if the sun was out all day!

…Oh, and watch out for the Swallows!! When I was casting dries I had one swoop down in the middle of a drift and pick up my vis-a-dun and damn near hooked himself!

Capitally,

KE

Fishing Reports

We're working hard to get Fishing Reports up on the site. We have our first report from the East Walker, courtesy of Ken's Sporting Goods in Bridgeport. If you're planning on making a trip to the East Walker, make sure to stop by Ken's to get updates on the conditions, and pickup those last minute items!

East Walker

Last friday, we were busy trying to decide where to head out on Saturday (while working of course). We checked the flows and weather conditions, and decided that the flows on the East Walker were steady enough to justify getting up at 4 am for a trip.

Bobby managed to get some good tips from some of the local fishing reports in Bridgeport, and I spent most of Friday evening tying up everything from #16 - #20 Disco Midges, #20 Zebra Midges, and a few #16 WD-40's. I also picked up some Blue Dun's in #18 from Sportsman's, and a couple of BWO dries in #16 - #20. We heard that there had been a good Blue Dun hatch around mid-day, so I wanted to make sure we had some dries to match.

We arrived at the Dam around 7:45 am, surveyed the situation, and geared up for a great day on the Walker. The temps were right around 35°, and the water temp was probably close to 45° by my guess. Without fail, Bobby hooked into a nice 12 - 14 inch Brown about 5 minutes into our day. I moved down below him, and managed to hook into a decent fish twice. The first time he spit the hook, and the second time he broke me off. My guess is that he hit the #16 WD-40 I dropped below a #18 Disco Midge, but I'm not certain.

We continued moving downstream, and ran into 2 or 3 fisherman on our way, but it was definitely a quiet day for being so nice out. Temps reached the mid-50's by noon, and the wind remained calm until around 2 pm.

The fishing was slow until around noon when Bobby hooked into another 12 inch brown close to the road.

I started feeling lucky again, so I turned around and headed back upstream a bit, where I had noticed a nice slow bend in the river. As I got back up to the bend, I noticed a Blue Dun Hatch, and saw quite a bit of surface activity. I threw a few nymphs into the feeding frenzy without luck, so I decided to tie on a #18 Blue Dun. I hooked into a fish almost immediately, but I lost him because I was mending as he hit. Doh!

Bobby moved back upstream as well, and quickly switched to a more accurate pattern after I landed the first fish. We spent a good 1.5 hours fishing the same hole, throwing everything we had at them. In all, we must have landed 8 - 10 fish between 12 and 16 inches, all on dries.

The wind started to pickup and the aim of our targets got considerably worse... I think the fish were too full to hit their targets at that point, so we headed back to the truck. We packed up and headed up towards the dam, where the river was a lot busier at this point. One guy fishing at the spillway hooked into 2 decent sized fish in the 10 minute span that we were there watching. 

We decided to hit one more spot below the bridge, to see if we could hook into a piggy, so we headed back to the rig and drove down to the spot. The wind was getting unbearable though, and we didn't last long. 30+ MPH gusts shut us down for the day, but the trip was well worth it.

Tuesday April 6th

It's been quite a few years since I last saw any part of the Truckee river between the McCarran bridge (east) and Vista so I figured I would check it out on my way home. I pulled off Greg on to Spice Island and parked in a lot right near the river. At the time, flows were around 450cfs and the water clarity had improved some from last week - about 3ft visibility. Air temp was around 54 and there was, yet again, a pretty good Gnat hatch going on. upon closer inspection I found BWO's emerging. I turned some rocks over and found midges, some good sized caddis, a good stone and, scuds? I may have been told there were scuds in the Truckee but I didn't commit that to memory. I was pretty amazed to find little grey shrimp looking things. Proof is in the pictures.


Scuds in the Truckee? I guess so?


Match the hatch


Caddis, Midge, Goo, trout buffet


Golden Stone under water, mimic that on a size 10 2302


Here's a big one for detail.

Get to tieing.

Easter Sunday on the Truckee

I was tying up some flies after a morning hike with the dogs when I decided that it was nice enough to try my luck on the river. It was a bit chilly out, but the sun was shining, and the storm looming in the mountains looked like it was going to hold off for a bit, so I packed up my gear and headed out.

The flows were down from early last week, and the water was crystal clear, but it was awfully cold.

There's a spot I like to fish up above Mayberry Park that does well in the summer. It's only about 10 minutes from the house, making it convenient for a quick trip. There's plenty of cover, and I noticed a BWO hatch around 2 pm, but no surface action. The water must have been too cold.

Needless to say, I threw everything I had, but didn't get a single bite. I headed down the river to Crissy Caughlin park and threw a couple of flies there, but still came up empty handed. The wind started to pick up around 3:30, which was my cue to pack up and head home.

It looks like we'll have 1 - 2 decent weeks coming up before the big thaw. I'll try my luck mid-week when the temps are back in the 60's. If the weather is willing, we'll be fishing the Little Truckee this weekend, while the flows are steady.

More Updates

We've added a new resources page with links to all the Government agency sites, fishing regulations, and online licensing. Stay tuned for more updates, as we try to provide the most up-to-date information on fishing in Northern Nevada and Northern California.

We've also got some trips coming up, as soon as the river calms down and the weather warms up!