West Carson River – 06/24/08 Early AM

I just cannot seem to get enough of this early AM dry fly fishing.  I headed back to the West Carson River, this time to the Gaging station section.  Upon arrival, I note that it is noticeably colder (my thermometer in the car read 31 degrees…brrr) than the previous morning.  It was also windy.  On a positive note, the water is lower and clearer each time I get a chance to fish the river.

As I string up the rod, I keep a vigilant eye on the water.  Because of the winds and cold ambient air temps, I do not see nearly as many bugs on the water.  I only see one little shaker splash the surface, but that is enough to encourage me to tie on a dry to start the morning.

I tie on a #18 parachute Adams, Aquel it up, and start to wade out to my starting spot in the river.  Since the water is lowering and clearing quickly, I decide to take a late summer approach and I crouch down as I get about halfway to a likely casting spot.  I find a rock to hide behind and I make some initial casts.  Refusal strike…adjust drift, refusal strike…move a few feet, refusal strike…try another type of cast, refusal strike…SNIP!

Time to try a small #20 EH Caddis and cast to a new hole.  No luck!  The fish are rising, but not committing.  I haul in, keeping an eye on the fly after what happend with my “accidental” fish the previous day.  I add about 18″ of 6X tippet and an #18 HBI Nymph that I tied the previous night courtesy of instructions posted by Andy Burk at his burkfly page at youtube.com.  As the PMD’s start to show up in the rivers, this is a great fly to use both as a nymph under an indicator, or as an emerger as I chose to do today.  I usually use some of the Aquel to assure that there is *some* floatation so that I can effectively fish the nymph in an emerger fashion.  Much better results.  After losing the first two fish (LDR’s are always fun), I get the timing down, and land my biggest fish of the morning, a nice 12″ Rainbow.  Thanks Andy!

That was the last fish of the morning.  Time to head back to the office.  I was sitting at my desk and logged into my email account at 8:41AM…not too shabby for a quick morning outing.