Post by glitchmo on Jul 24, 2019 13:38:36 GMT -6
I just got back from a trip out to California for a combination of business and visiting with my parents.
They live in the foothills above Sacramento, and Dad is also a fly fisher (though less dementedly so than me), so we booked a trip with a guide he knew up there to fish, as it turned out the Little Truckee river.
The LT (as they call it) is a small special regulation tailwater stream between two big reservoirs that has some really big fish. On the other hand, it's a small, highly pressured, and clear water river, so the trout there are pretty tough to fool, in my experience. You a good drift is essential to have a chance, but is far from a guarantee.
On the day that we went there was a decent hatch of PMDs as well as some much larger green drakes coming off in the afternoon. We each caught about three decent fish, from 14-18", and we hooked maybe four more each, including some bigger fish, that we weren't able to land. Morning action was all tight line nymphing, but we switched to dries for the afternoon hatch when we started to see fish rising. Seeing an 18" rainbow explode out of a riffle for a size 8 green drake dry really got my heart thumping, though I didn't land either of those fish. I also hooked two fish on a little (and very bad) comparadun I tied, which was the first hookups I've gotten on a dry fly I tied myself, so that was pretty cool, especially since the fish there have such a tough reputation, and had refused the guide's fly five or six times at that point
.
Later in the trip we hiked up to a small mountain lake and crushed brookies for a few hours (until we were tired of feeding the mosquitoes). Not many pictures from this part, as there aren't really many trophy fish to write home about up there -- a big brookie is 8" up there, but it is a very pretty lake.
They live in the foothills above Sacramento, and Dad is also a fly fisher (though less dementedly so than me), so we booked a trip with a guide he knew up there to fish, as it turned out the Little Truckee river.
The LT (as they call it) is a small special regulation tailwater stream between two big reservoirs that has some really big fish. On the other hand, it's a small, highly pressured, and clear water river, so the trout there are pretty tough to fool, in my experience. You a good drift is essential to have a chance, but is far from a guarantee.
On the day that we went there was a decent hatch of PMDs as well as some much larger green drakes coming off in the afternoon. We each caught about three decent fish, from 14-18", and we hooked maybe four more each, including some bigger fish, that we weren't able to land. Morning action was all tight line nymphing, but we switched to dries for the afternoon hatch when we started to see fish rising. Seeing an 18" rainbow explode out of a riffle for a size 8 green drake dry really got my heart thumping, though I didn't land either of those fish. I also hooked two fish on a little (and very bad) comparadun I tied, which was the first hookups I've gotten on a dry fly I tied myself, so that was pretty cool, especially since the fish there have such a tough reputation, and had refused the guide's fly five or six times at that point
.Later in the trip we hiked up to a small mountain lake and crushed brookies for a few hours (until we were tired of feeding the mosquitoes). Not many pictures from this part, as there aren't really many trophy fish to write home about up there -- a big brookie is 8" up there, but it is a very pretty lake.
