Truckee Update

Despite being fairly blown out through Reno, the Truckee is high but fishable once you head west a ways and fish the CA side. Proof of this was sent to me by Michael who's been sticking some beautiful fish up there on brown colored stones and wd-40's:


That spotty rainbow looks like something out of an advertisement for an Alaskan guide trip. Awesome.

--BJ

They're here!

The annual carpenter ant flights are starting up now that we're getting some warmer weather. The river's high, but fishable, especially further up. Try some big ant dries on the banks, or fish a drowned one like a nymph. This hatch isn't long lasting, but can be epic for a few days.

--DL

The Little Truckee

Don't forget to check out the reports tab from time to time to see how things are fishing in the area. And take a look at this beautiful trout from the little truckee so you can wish you were fishing while sitting in your cubicle all day (ok maybe that's just me...):

This is Mike who got into some fish this last weekend on the little truckee with Dan the man Lecount:




-- BJ

Spring Skwala Dry Fly

Here's another pattern from Dan Lecount for those springtime skwallas. In these high, turbid water conditions, this is a good bet to cast to a rising fish -- or any time there are a lot of skwalla stoneflies hanging around :-) Come in to the fly shop and talk to Dan about his flies and stock up on the materials to tie them!

Springtime Skwala Dry
(by Dan Lecount):

MATERIALS:
thread: yellow 3/0
hook: standard dry fly hook #6-10
Egg Sac: black 2mm foam
body dubbing: Olive & brown dubbing blend
body foam: 2mm brown foam
ribbing: yellow 3/0
Wing: web wing (or other wing material) +
natural grey deer or elk hair
Head: bullet style head with brown deer hair
coated with head cement at the end
Antennae: 2 deer hair fibers pulled out

Legs: standard brown rubberlegs
Site Dot: Any brightly colored foam

Here's the underside of a skwala-- think it's a close enough match? I'm going to say the fish will be surprised when they eat one and it has a hook:

--photos & post by Brian J.

Dan's Early Season Flies

We're lucky in the tahoe region, as we are blessed with a wide variety of aquatic invertebrates that hatch on our local waters. Some of my favorites are our early season mayfly hatches. We have grey drakes, march browns, callibaetis, green drakes + flavs, all happening in spring/early summer. Whats best, is you can copy most of these hatches with a few large, drab, impressionistic imitations-- a couple of which I've posted for you below.

The classic parachute adams in 10-14 doesn't seem like it should work in our technical watersheds, but it does. It's close enough to multiple hatches that trout usually seem to think its food of some sort. Most of the green drake imitations I see are waay too green or olive for our local variety. Especially when the insect has first emerged, a more drab, greyer imitation will often work better. I tie a dull, greyish/tan snowshoe cripple in size 8 down to size 20 and effectively fish that almost all season long if mays are hatching. The only time I swap it out as far as mayflies go is when the really light colored mays like the PMDs, PEDs or serratella (mr. pinky) hatch. Sometimes if the hatch is in its later phases I might throw a hackle stacker as a spinner imitation but that's usually not necessary.

The only drawback to these hatches is they usually occur near early season high water. Even then, with the size of the bug, that's often enough to pull the fish up in rough water. So unless the river is chocolate milk, you have a solid shot at trout on the surface once the big mayflies are hatching and for that I'm more than thankful. :)

Snowshoe Cripple:

MATERIALS:
thread: tan or grey 6/0 (or other)
hook: standard dry fly hook #8-20
tail: tan grizzly marabou
body: tan grizzly marabou
ribbing: small gold wire
thorax dubbing: Callibaetis antron dubbing
Wing: Dun snowshoe rabbit
hackle: grizzly or speckled dark dun

Snowshoe Humpy:

MATERIALS:
thread: olive 6/0 (or other)
hook: standard dry fly hook #8-16
tail: moose or coastal deer hair
wingcase: moose or deer pulled over with a
touch of head cement at the end
body: golden olive floss
Wing: Dun snowshoe rabbit
hackle: grizzly or grizzly + dark dun

--posted by Dan Lecount
(Photos by BJ)