Tag: Rainbow Trout

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North Fork American River (6/29/08)

I fished the North Fork of the American River at the Iowa Hill Access on Sunday afternoon from 4 to 7 PM.  Bugs were not coming off, so I decided to nymph the pools.  From my experience a week earlier, I drifted a two fly rig using a Solitude Tungsten Golden Stonefly (#8) with an Angel Cased PMD (#16) dropper.  Within minutes, I hooked up and landed a 15″ Rainbow Trout.  For this size river, this is a large fish.  As I worked my way downstream, I hooked up with two more 8″ trout.

The North Fork headwaters start near Donner Summit in the Sierras and finally ends at Folsom Lake in Placer County.  The areas that I fish from Lake Clementine in Auburn to the Iowa Hill access near Colfax is home to Smallmouth Bass and Rainbow Trout.  It’s great fly fishing when the water flows subside after the winter runoff.  The best trout fishing runs from May into July.  During the rest of the summer, the water flows are low and warm.  Trout can survive in the deep holes, but they just hunker down.  During this time, it’s Smallmouth Bass time, baby!

Here’s a picture of the Iowa Hill Bridge with a lone fly fisherman starting to rig up.Iowa Hill Bridge

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West Carson River – 06/29/08 Early AM

I woke up early this morning and headed out the door.  Out of habit, more than anything else, I decided that I was going to hit the West Carson at my usual spot.  After getting some coffee at the local 7-11 and driving the short 12 minute drive to the river, I found myself stringing up the rod is some chilly morning temps and a medium velocity wind.  Gonna’ have to dress in a long sleeve and wear waders and shed layers when it warms up.

As I stood over the bank at the gaging station hole, I saw tons of bugs on the water.  I knew that this would be another great dry fly morning despite the wind.  I quickly waded into position and checked out the bugs flying around.  Seems that there were a good combination of midges, PMD’s and even some Yellow Stoneflies floating around.  A few larger drakes were still fluttering around, and I had a nice Callibaetis land on my rod tip.  Don’t know why I saw the lone Calliebaetis, but I just assumed that it was “gusted” to the river from one of the nearby lakes.  There might even be a small hatch of Calliebaetis on this river.

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