Damn it got cold up here..

Fall fishing is officially here. We had are first cold front of the year hit the Truckee area last night leaving a dusting of snow on the peaks and very cool daytime temps. The last few days out the fish have been responding well to a Cased Caddis imitation, in fact all the fish I caught as of late have been on that fly. Bill's Stick Caddis is by far the best one out there. Learn how to tie it, it will serve you well on the Truckee. They should be on the Pupae real soon. This is the only fish I could get a photo of witch is a more fair representation of a wild Truckee River fish.

George's big brown

Big fish don't always eat big flies like this brown George from Santa Clarita caught today. This fish ate a sz#18 Baetis Nymph in shallow riffle type water. George commented on how these fish fight like Bighorn River fish, yes George, maybe harder. Looks to be a great Fall.

The old man and the L.T.

Today was Joe Cerniglia's birthday so a little outing on the Little Truckee was in order. When Joe ain't up running his lake at Northstar you can bet he's out on the L.T. Joe brought Cooper and when my dog and his get together not a lot of fishing gets done. The water is low and it was hot out. The day before was rough on me being out in the sun all day splitting wood. I just wasn't down for the desert like atmosphere. I lasted all of two hours. Joe is the man on the Little Truckee. He knows where every damn fish in that river hold. Joe will take you to school on that river period.

Why go to Montana...

I'm often asked by clients, what is your favorite river you ever fished? I always reply the Truckee River. Now don't get me wrong, Montana has more fish able blue ribbon water than any other state and the scenery is unreal. There are Grizzles, Rocky Mountain Elk, Moose, and Cutthroats, but for me the Truckee River in the Fall is the place to be. It's my country. This is a view from today up from the historic lumber town of Floriston.

The pull...

It's all about the big pull. Getting that grab on a streamer is the shit. We had nice overcast skies today, perfect streamer weather. Fall overcast days means streamer time. I hit some runs down deep in the canyon and bam, big pull on a big streamer, never even saw the fish. The fish ripped line off down the tail out into another rapid heading towards the next run, gone. Oh well....

They're here....

The big browns of Fall are here. Get up here and fish the Truckee now. You got until mid November for excellent fishing. Went out with Giggles from Mountain Hardware and we both did well. I hooked the brown in the photo off a far bank with a dry dropper rig on my Switch, fish took a sz#10 red copper john. Giggles also hooked a very big brown and lost him about 50 yards up from where I hooked my fish. We both hooked and landed multiple fish today.

Switch Rods

I am a big proponent of the use of Switch Rods on the Truckee. It is a perfect rod to nymph with, streamer fish, and currently for using dry dropper rigs with. The Truckee has often difficult to reach holding water such as middle river seams, or places where making a back cast just ain't gonna happen. I use a Skagit short line by Rio for streamer fishing, and put my desired tip on the end. For nymphing you need to up line two line sizes. On my 5wt I use a 7wt Rio Atlantic Salmon Steelhead line. You can toss your nymph rig a country mile with minimal effort. I rock Sage Z-Axis Switch rods, 5, and 6wts. For folks with limited cash, Reddington's Switch's are great rods. I stuck five fish in that seam today in the photo. It would have been hard to fish that pocket with a single handed rod. I just wrote an article for Sierra Fisherman http://www.sierrafisherman.com/ and that will give you a lot more info if your interested.

Holding water No#2

A lot of anglers that come and fish the Truckee fish the inside seam, or inside part of most runs. I find that most fish on the Truckee like to hold on the outside of runs. It takes a lot more work to make your way over the rip rap rocks, bushes, and snags from trees, but that my friends are where most of the fish are. This photo is of Gabe from this last weekend fishing the outside of a run lower down on the river. He had several takes, and missed a big brown.

Labor Day weekend report

Looks like things are shaping up for a nice Fall on the Truckee. Today felt like Fall was in the air. Despite very windy conditions down in the canyon Gabe had a good day on the Truckee. A Dry dropper rig seemed to be the most effective today as it put the flies in some difficult to reach holding water. Gabe had a taste of what the Truckee has to offer. At one point today he had a nice brown instantly break his tippet. Good job Gabe, you made the blog.

Holding water

This will be the first in a series of posts on holding water. It is so crucial to fish the right kind of water on the Truckee, or on any river for that matter. Theirs an old saying in fly fishing that 90% of fish hold in 10% of the river. You will have more success on the T if you fish the most likely holding water. In this photo you can see a patch of slow water created by a rock with two seams on each side. The water in that slow patch has a negative current flow meaning the water is actually circling around going upstream. Fish can sit in there and expend very little energy waiting for food to come by on both of those seams. Put on plenty of split shot to get to the bottom of that seam. Fish it hard, it might take a while for your flies to hit the right spot. I got two descent size Rainbows out of that spot this morning, but it took about 10 drifts and plenty of shot.