Living and working within 10 minutes of two nice rivers has it upside. A lunch break, actually an extended lunch break, can get one a solid hour on the river with the total time away from work exceeding no more than 90 minutes.
Since flows are starting to pump, I decided to hit the smaller of the two rivers as it is not as ravished as the bigger river during runoff. Upon arriving at the West Carson River I noticed another car in my usual parking spot, so I wheeled downstream into the canyon section. I quickly rigged up and was on the water without delay. Fishing lunch breaks are all about moving rapidly. The water is much higher than normal, but only slightly off-color. I toss in the thermometer and it read 46 degrees…perfect! No bugs in evidence, but I had already decided at the truck that I was going to probe fast and roily pocket water with a heavily weighted nymph setup.
I worked my way down to the automatic hole and by my third drift…BINGO…I’m into a cool 10″ stocked Rainbow. 20 more drifts produced 2 more strikes, but no hookups. The automatic hole will normally produce a few fish before the entire hole needs to be rested. Maybe it was the higher flows, the tinted water, or the still slightly cold temps, but there was only one fish to be had this lunch break.
Time to head back to the car and go back to work.