Saturday - May 22 2010

Spring can't figure out if it wants to roll in to summer or back in to winter. Tom and I headed up in to the snow to fish the Little Truckee on Saturday while Kellen was down braving the rollers at Pyramid. The Little truckee is running nicely though the flows had just dropped to 75cfs from about 100cfs. The water was crystal clear as usual with about zero bug action. The only thing in the air was the occasional snow flake. The fishing either picked up around 2pm or we finally started keying in on the correct water. Getting nymphs down to the bottom of faster deeper holes started to produce fish. All the fish i hooked up with were good looking fish but managed to skip out or make off with my stack. Best luck came on a triple stack with a big heavy stone on top, followed by a size 16 pheasant tail ending with a size 18 red copper john. distance between flies, maybe a foot. had a split shot about a foot above first fly to really help get the stack down. I was pulling scum off my flies quite a bit. getting all the way down was the key, and when I started getting bit.

As for Pyramid, The weather was even less desirable and the fishing was about the same, slow.


Things changed for Kellen on Sunday as far as the bite was concerned. The weather remained miserable but you can stand it when you're catching fish.
The streamer bite was on and Kellen's Pyramida Lake special was the hot ticket. He'll throw a picture of it in the Flies section here before too long.





Nicer weather is on its way for this weekend. Hopefully the bugs will wakeup and bring the fish with em.

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Saturday May 15th

Saturday morning we got out on pyramid at about 6am. Sky was a little overcast but that burned off pretty quick once the sun came up. Dan pulled 2 fish off the rocks at Pelican Point between 6 and 6:30 on white and midnight buggers. after that, the bite was pretty dead for the rest of the day. We moved back to Indian head beach but it was dead there too. There were a lot of flying ants on the surface of the dead calm water all day but very very few fish rising to them. I may have seen 2 or 3 all day long. The last spot I hit was rawhide lookout since it has that good creek inlet right there. I saw a good number of fish cruising in shallow but they didn't want any of the streamers or midges I was throwin at em. Similarly our buddy Josh D had hit a few spots around the lake with limited success as well.
A few fish were missed on midges and streamers through out the day but nothing epic.

Since I was at the south end of the lake I decided to go home through Wadsworth to I-80 and check out the Truckee. Water clarity at Wadsworth wasn't bad but still a little dingy. Closer to town at USA parkway the water clarity was a bit better but the water was really moving. I stopped in on the river near mustang and nymphed for about an hour with no results. The water was relatively clear but very tough to fish as fast as it's moving. If you're going to hit the Truckee, your best bet is to hit the California side. Now the question I have, do the spring spawners spawn before, during or after the initial thaw flows?

The lesson learned, Get out there early, or likely late and if you're going to hit the Truckee, you'd probably benefit from having your California license. I'll post some pics of Dan's fish tonight.

Pyramid Saturday May 8th 2010

This morning Brandon, Dan and myself headed out to Pyramid. We got on the water about 6am at Separator beach. Brandon hooked up pretty quick with a Green midge and that was his story for the rest of the day. We moved on to Indian Head beach and after Brandon landed 3 more on that Same chartreuse (size 8) midge I took the streamers off and started doing the same. I hooked up with a nice 24ish cutt on a size 8 chartreuse copper john and Dan picked one off with a white bugger - black hackle / tail. The wind was pretty calm for pyramid lake through out the morning. We ended up taking off around 11am.

Braving the wind...

I headed out to pyramid yesterday, not expecting too much. Brandon had mentioned that the wind was supposed to be pretty rough, but I was hoping to get some time in before it got too bad.

My first stop of the day was between Windless and Pelican, which is where I hooked into a 24" cut on Monday. I was going to fish Pelican, but good lord were there bodies stacked up. I couldn't see how anyone could get a cast off. I stuck around for about an hour, and decided to move on.

I drove up to Shot Dog and took the dirt road north, to a nice little cove that was isolated and empty. The wind was starting to pick up, but it was bearable at this point. Walking down to the water, a couple of boaters yelled out to me to watch out for rocks... they were right, but I managed not to lose any flies at this beach. On my first cast I pulled out this little guy:

Given my early luck, I figured this would be a decent spot. I had a few bites, but didn't catch another fish here. I saw some guys nymphing to my right, and one of them did manage to land a good size fish. The wind started picking up, and it was nasty. I couldn't get a cast off, so I decided to head to a more sheltered beach.

Pelican was still pretty packed, so I headed down to Separator. By now it was 11, and I didn't think I would last much longer with the wind really blowing. I set up between a couple of guys who were throwing nymphs. About 2 casts in I started getting hits, on a black bugger trailing a dark olive conehead. Within 30 minutes I landed this good sized fish:

If I had to guess, I'd say about 22". Not bad, but I wasn't finished yet. The beach started filling up, and there was a large group of lead chuckers down at the opposite side who were getting some decent activity. My black bugger wasn't attracting anything now, so I switched to a light olive conehead as a trailer. I immediately hooked into another decent cutt, got him all the way to shore, and he gave me the old fisherman's release. Doh! The beach started to really fill up, and the guy next to me hooked into a nice sized fish on a Mahalo midge. While he was landing his fish, I hooked into another fish. Not thinking too much I started bringing the fish in (it didn't seem very large). As I got fish down to the real, he made a run to the shore, which I thought would surely mean I lost him. As he swam past me I noticed he was larger than he felt, and as I got him down to the reel, the fight began. It took me about 10 - 15 minutes to get this guy to shore on a 6 weight rod:

I kept throwing, and managed to land a few more decent sized fish. The last fish of the day was a greedy bugger. I managed to acquire 2 nymphs while unhooking him. He was also one of the larger fish caught all day.

All in all, it was a pretty good day. I probably had 10 - 12 fish on, and landed 6 fish over 18 inches. Not bad for me. I'm notorious for not being able to land fish once I get them hooked.