East Truckee River - Saturday January 31st

We had Super Bowl Sunday plans this weekend so made our trip out to the Truckee river east of town on Saturday.  We got on the water at about 11:30.  Up to that point and continuing on to this moment, the river has been steady right around 200CFS at the Reno marker.  Most of the action came in the first 30 minutes of the day with Brandon edging the success in his favor on a 22in Brown.  We didn't get a tape or a picture so, we're at liberty to say he might have been 15lbs, we'll just never know for sure.  Back in reality land, I was fortunate enough to pull a nice 16-17 inch bow in and snap off some proof for the fish porn at the bottom of the post.

Later in the day there was some isolated top water activity.  The activity was limited to about one fish in any given section of the river but that one fish was steadily feeding on the surface.  Since BWOs were the prevailing hatch (and pretty legit) I threw some BWO dries and only managed to miss a few takes.  Missing top water fish during the winter time is enough to put a smile on your face, irrespective of how not-wintery it may be right now.

Key take-aways from the afternoon

• With the weather pattern holding so steady lately on higher day-time temps, the bite seems to be best earlier and later in the day.  It's not the extreme like you'll see in the summer but the activity was noticeably better before noon, and then again around 3pm. 
• BWO nymphs down on the bottom in slow(er) water were the primary producer around size 16 to 18.  Two weeks in a row I've pulled in fish on that flashy BWO pattern so I'll have to give er a name and post some tying instructions in our flies section.   
• The fish have seemingly moved in to some (comparatively) quicker water but can still be found in the slow stuff.
• Surface feeding was far more noticeable this weekend and the BWOs were out in force from about 12:30 to 3pm.  

-Bobby