Bailey and I went down to the river for an hour. Midges everywhere and lots of rising fish. None were caught but how can you claim no success with this smile.
Little Truckee – Flowing high but fishing well
With flows on most rivers at the blown out stage I have had to put some time on the Little Truckee river to satisfy my fishing needs. While the river is nowhere near it “normal” flows, it is running clear and the fish are hungry. Needing to get out, I left Reno after work and a short time later was parked at the upper lot and making my way downstream to a few of my favorite holes.
I managed to hook two very nice fish in the slack water. The first first took my San Juan worm in a seam and put up an good fight. The second fish took the Hare’s Ear nymph and ran my quite a distance down river in the fast water. A combination of water levels that are 8 times above normal, tons of fast water and a decent 14″ trout challenged me to land this fish. Its initial run took me clear into my backing, an event that is not common on a small trout stream. It took a bit of running downstream to recover line and catch up with the trout. By the time I got it into some slack water, both of us were tired.
A quick two hour session netted two fish and a very happy fisher.
The joys of Licensing
I am starting the process of purchasing all new licenses for the upcoming season.
Officially, my Nevada license does not expire until the 28th of February. Since they are normally available for sale on Feb 1, I grab it at that time. At $41 for the season, it is the least expensive of the annual licenses and can be done online. There will be no gap in my legal fishing status in NV.
California is a bit different. Since I have to purchase a non-resident license, it is both costly and a pain to get. More on that in a moment.
What started this thought process was the hoops that i just went through in Colorado for a simple day tag for my day on the South Platte. When I arrived in Deckers and went into the fly shop, they only accepted cash for licenses. Having just spent some good cash the night before, I was paperless in a paper only store. But no fear, you can order your license over the phone…yes…phone. After a fairly quick and simple info gathering process, the phone agents reads you an EXTREMELY long (27 digit) code and you are supposed to write that code on a piece of paper and carry that as your license. Wow! A fishing license on a post-it note! My question on this system – how does the warden verify that the code is valid and not just some long 27-digit code someone wrote on a piece of paper?
Back to California, my most expensive annual tag. Not only is the state that brought us Silicon Valley still using an antiquated paper system, but they do not allow licensing agents to charge appropriate fees, making it a loosing proposition for them to sell licenses. Getting a license becomes a cash only transaction. I know that they have a new online system this season, but you still can only print a temporary and they still mail you an official paper license, and they tack on extra convenience fees (which agents are not allowed to charge) making an expensive license that much more expensive. No thanks on the electronic system at this time. I go give some cash to my local fly shop and get some additional supplies at that time as well.
In contrast, my annual Utah license is half that of California, all electronic, and they allow me to print my own. They even have me saved in the system from previous purchases, so typing in my DL number brought up my info for a quick verification. Easy and simple is my opinion of their process. Why get an annual UT you ask – well I fish there enough days each season to justify the expense, and in most years it saves me a few ducats over paying for days a la carte.
Who knows what other licenses I will acquire in 2010, but so far I have three in the pouch and we are barely into the second month of the year.
October Caddis Time!!!
October Caddis are popping up in the northern stretches of California – Upper Sac, McCloud, Pit – and in the Sierras – Truckee, East Carson. It’s great because trout go stupid for these big bugs.
West Carson River – 06/30/09
I was able to sneak break away for an hour after work and hit the West Carson for an hour. My wife and daughter came along for the ride. Knowing that I was going to have to maximize the fishing with minimal movement and wading, I chose to hit up the Gauging station section. You have this section of rivers two best holes within sight of the gauge itself and there is a nice “beach” area as well.
The weather was perfect, about 80 degrees, and no clouds or rain. Water temps are warming and levels are almost all the way down to pre-runoff levels. The bonus was that even though I took some drastic anti-mosquito tactics (wore waders and slathered on the juice), that proved unwarranted as the pests were non-existent this evening.
There was good bug activity on the surface, so I decided to start off the evening with a Royal Trude, my searching dry of choice on this river. I was not dissapointed with this selection. Almost immediately I was into a small fish. He was able to shake off, but a few drifts later and I am release the first of several fish of the evening. One tactic that works very well on the lower hole is to present your dry fly with a downstream presentation. The upshot to that method of presenting the fly is the difficulty in setting the hook when you have 60 feet of line on the water all downstream of you. Practice makes perfect!
Since a picture speaks a thousand words I am going to end this post with several pictures that my wife took throughout the hour that we fished.
