My friend Dan calls me and says he want to go fishing. I am always game for a quick trip. We start discussing the logistics of where to go and when, and he says that he really wants to hit up Pyramid Lake. Well, that is great for me as Pyramid is basically in my backyard (about a 40 minute drive) but Dan has to bang out about 4 hours of driving each way. So plans are confirmed and we both go into full prep mode. Dan’s job is to pack his stuff, put together a basic cooler of goodies and get over here the night before. My job is to hit the vice and fill some fly boxes.
After contacting a few fly shops and verifying which pattens are working at Pyramid, I get to work. I figure that I need to oversupply us by at least a dozen flies, if not more. My goal is to bang out 3 dozen flies just for this trip. This is of course on top of the 6 or 7 full fly boxes that I already have packed in my to-go bag for trips of all manners.
First order of business is to replenish the bugger barn. It has gotten a bit thin in the last few season and truth be told, buggers are something that I find difficult to tie. I would rather tie up 5 dozen Trudes in #12, #14 and #16 or 5 dozen Copper John’s in various sizes and colors than a few dozen buggers in #8 and #10. Go figure.
The first bugger is going to be a modified version of one of my favorite still water buggers, the Rickert’s Seal Bugger. After looking at the commercial flies for Pyramid, I figure that I need to shorten the tail and make the hackle quite a bit longer than normal. Most of the Pyramid buggers are well dressed. So I set to work and find that I have almost a dozen tied up pretty quick.
Next is to hit up the midges. Intel from the fly shop indicates that red and black (both basic midge colors) are the de facto standards, just in sizes #12 and #14 versus a more normal #16 or #18. The guy at the shop mentioned that the snow cone version has been pretty hot, but lacking any white beads and not wanting to make a trip to the fly shop for $2 in beads, I use white UV dubbing instead. a dozen red and a dozen black later I call that part of the project done.
Last is to tie up a dozen black buggers. As I rifle through the feather bins it becomes apparent that I am short on quality black feathers. I tied up one black bugger and took some pictures which I will show in another post. It was painfully obvious that the quality of the feathers are no where near as nice as what I used for the green buggers. Maybe I will get some white beads after all. Since I have to hit up the shop to replenish my tungsten coneheads and black bugger feathers I now have an excuse to make a single trip and restock in bulk. Hope that the fly shop has the good stuff!
Be sure to bring a BIG foam ball or thingamabobber indicator. Cast out, let the midges sink, then raise your rod tip every minute or so to give the flies a little action. Be sure to strip in the slack quickly because they will hit when the flies are dropping back down.
Thanks! Love the Thingamabobbers, so I have a handful of them already. Supposed to be cold and windy tomorrow. Some say that is perfect Pyramid weather others say the water will be too cold. The proof will be in the number of fish caught.
If there is a chop from the wind you won’t need to impart any action on the flies, the waves will do it for you, just be sure you keep a tight line. If you fish from the tufa outcrop it may be a bit calmer, especially at dawn.