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.

Hero Shot - how to shake the skunk

Having been skunked 3 times in a row at pyramid Jim (below) shows us how to shake the skunk with this 30", 11.5 lb beast. He was using an 8wt with a shooting head and throwing an olive bugger with a purple beetle dropper-- the fish took the dropper... but really I think it was persistence that caught this fish:


Awesome fish Jim.

Any more? send pics to renoflyblog@gmail.com

--Posted 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)

Pyramid Lake Flies

Since I've been on a pyramid lake kick-- here's some video tutorials from Andy Burk-- specifically his pyramid lake ties that are posted on youtube. Come into the shop and hear more about flies for pyramid lake and buy the materials to tie these (or pick some up already tied!).

Pyramid Lake Woolly Bugger:


Pyramid Lake Tadpole:


Pyramid Lake Glitter Midge:


--Brian J.

A different sort of fish ladder...

Pyramid Lake. The place has some sort of alien magic to it. Whenever I'm there and remember to take the time to breathe in deep and take a slow look around I get the feeling that being on the surface of a different planet wouldn't look a whole lot different. Except I bet they wouldn't have trophy cutthroats swimming in the water:


Most guys who have fished Pyramid a lot would look at Justin's fish above and say casually "yeah, that's a nice fish." I still hold it in high regard as I've never managed to hook a fatso of this caliber. It was caught on a sparkly green woolly bugger fished on a sink tip. For my part I've only managed a couple of small ones on some sparkly nymphs fished a lot higher in the water column.


Now I know there's a lot of you out there dedicated to the pursuit of these cutthroats-- let's hear from you! E-mail me your big fish stories with a hero shot picture... and while you're at it let's hear about that secret fly that "gits'em" everytime! (renotroutblog@gmail.com)

-- posted by Brian J. who now thinks casting a 30ft shooting head in the wind is fun

Shout out

Here's a quick shout out to Michael who's been one of the brave few sending me photos of fish (renotroutblog@gmail.com hint hint)-- seems a SJW with a pheasant tail dropper was a good combo for these greedy, fat truckee rainbows. I love this first shot:


--bj

One fish day

Last week I made it out on the truckee a couple of times. I put a few fish in the net with a BWO emerger fished with a downstream presentation way back in the tailouts of a few pools, but for the most part it's been tough fishing through the downtown area. One particular day I was able to fish with Justin for 4 hours or so-- and between the two of us only one fish was hooked and landed.

I got the skunk but watching this fish lose it's mind and come flying out of the water multiple times made my day. I'd like to say we stayed cool and collected and got this guy netted and back in the water with a nod and a handshake but... instead I think I did that stupid high-pitched laugh that we all some of us do when we get excited. Justin and I also yelled "Soonnn!" a lot-- which is something I am truly proud of.

In the end this one fish made it an awesome day on the water:

25" brown trout taken by a generic dark-colored #14 mayfly nymph trailed behind a stonefly nymph.

posted by Brian J. who thinks this is a considerably higher quality post than the last one.

kinky fish.

Local angler Michael sent me this picture of the elusive boomerang trout caught near Verdi. These rare fish are pursued diligently by a rare few and are desired for their odd tendency to return to their original hold to get caught and thrown back again:


Posted by Brian, who knows this is the dumbest shit you've seen all day.

The East Walker in March

I had a great time on the east walker the weekend before last. The weather man said "snow" and I think that thinned the crowds but it ended up being overcast yet warm. This brought out the bwos as well as put the fish in the disposition to eat things. The best producing flies (for me) were a #18 disco midge and a #8 stonefly nymph tied on a scud style hook:

My Stonefly nymph:

a chewed up disco midge:

There were BWO's, and midges hatching galore and lot's of various mayfly nymphs and cased caddis underneath every stone. The disco midge did really well in the morning and then afternoon and evening the fish really started keying in on the stonefly nymph. It became apparent why that evening when adult skwalas were spotted crawling about on the shore.

trout snack:

My two best (or perhaps just "favorite") fish of the day were two browns that weren't quite 20" long -- one of which was quite skinny-- but were feisty and, I think, quite healthy. In the end it was Justin who caught the fish of the day though-- he put away a large number of fish on small attractor dries including a beautiful 21" brown trout.

Truly a great day on the water! --BJ

Recent Ties

I had a great time on the EW last weekend but I've also been tying up a few things at the vice. I've really been digging John Barr's tung teaser and have tied up this modified version in hopes it will be a killer green drake pattern (tied with tungsten to be a lead fly):

MATERIALS:
thread: Danville black 6/0 (or other)
hook: #10 -14 tiemco 3769
beads: 1/8" black brass or tungsten
underbody: .015 in lead wire to center the bead
tail: golden colored goose biots
body: Arizona synthetic peacock (dark)
ribbing: Br or Sm gold ultrawire
Thorax: pearl tinsel with thin skin pulled
over the top and epoxied at the end
Legs: hen back fibers

I also tied up some a lot closer to the original tung teaser prescribed by John Barr and have actually caught a lot of fish recently in the truckee on small sizes (14-16) of the fly described above:

Something closer to the original with white biots
and lighter Arizona synthetic dubbing:

Caught a lot of fish on this guy last week:

Lastly I've been tying some big heavy jumbo johns to use as lead flies this upcoming season. Last season when the caddis were coming off a Stonefly with a caddis dropper was fast-riffle dynamite:


--BJ

Truckee Update & Monday Links

The River:

As you can see the river has taken to fluctuating a bit and is on the rise. There has been a couple of days where the river is totally blown out but there has also been some days where guys have been catching some very decent fish. Last time I was out there I saw a lot of bug activity with big baetis (#16 or so), lots of midges and even a bunch of skwalas coming off the water. That last part is pretty exciting IMO:

So make sure you have some skwala patterns handy for this spring. For inspiration check out the shit eating grin of a guy who just brought to hand a monster brown (the picture doesn't fully do it justice) on a skwala dry-- this happened last week:

Monday Links:

In other news I was happy to see two back to back messages in my e-mail declaring that my two favorite e-mags have new issues up:

This Is Fly: I never would have thought so many of my obsessions could be covered in one magazine-- art, music, and fishing. So check it out if you like any of those things. Or go there if you curiously want to see the newest 80's throwback sneakers next to the newest set of line clippers.


Catch Magazine: Focused on fly fishing photography this Brian O'Keefe & Todd Moen creation is abundant in fish porn, inspiring fishing photos and best of all-- embedded fishing videos that will blow your mind (usually two per issue).