Larry, Again

Untitled from Gilligans Guide Service on Vimeo.

Untitled from Gilligans Guide Service on Vimeo.

Oh, it's Larry again, you know the dude that makes a mean sandwich. He came up and fished today with me down on the Nevada side. The river rose over a hundred cubes overnight and had muddied up a bit. Needless to say we had a tough morning. After a break and an LOG sandwich we managed to find a few fish despite the conditions, mainly the wind. I did manage to bum an original Cal Bird fly off him. Cal Bird was from Verdi Nevada and is the man that came up with the Birds Nest. He fished the Truckee long before me and it just happens that Larry was friends with him. You don't know how stoked I am to have that fly. That fly will be in a shadow box hanging in the living room looking over the river that Cal used to fish. These videos are from today of a nice male rainbow in full spawning regalia. The fly is a Truckee River Coachman from the man himself.

Fish Are Look'n Up

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Fish are looking up, not all, but if you play your cards right you can have a pretty good day of dry fly fishing down on the Nevada side of the Truckee. We are getting a pretty good bwo hatch mid-day with an occasional skwala stonefly drifting by. If the water warms a little more, which it will shortly, the skwala hatch will intensify. I also like to work the edges with a dry dropper rig because you never know who will pop there nose up for a big dry this time of year. Tie up some sparkle duns, or better yet some of my baetis emergers and go do a little head hunting. This guy ate my baetis emerger in a sz #16 today.

Images, Not Too Many Words

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Untitled from Gilligans Guide Service on Vimeo.

It's about to get really good on the Nevada side of the Truckee River. These are some client photos from the last couple days. All we need is some warm weather and consistent flows, which looks like will happen this next week. Skwalas and BWOs are on the menu.

People Ask Me All The Time..

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People ask me all the time which fly is your favorite, you know, if you had one fly which one would you use on the Truckee? Well, all the flies I have in my boxes will work at certain times. If fish are munching on caddis pupae like they do all summer then I'll fish a caddis pupa, and so on and so forth. Usually though, my dropper fly is almost always my black baetis in sz #18 or #16. Fish feed on baetis nymphs daily. There are baetis hatches mid-day just about all year long. That fly catches 70% of my fish, hands down. Big ones, little ones, it doesn't matter. My baetis nymph will be available at finer Nor Cal fly shops this spring. It's dark with a tungsten bead and shiny wing case, just like the naturals. This rainbow today liked it in a sz #16.

Good To Be Back In The Mountains

After tying flys at the Pleasanton Fly Fishing Show and staying in San Francisco where by the way everyone has a horn on their car and knows how to use it, yes, it's good to be back home on the Truckee River. The Pleasanton Show was a great opportunity to network and meet lots of great people. Not to mention getting reacquainted with lots of old ones as well. Thanks for coming by to say hi, I hope the koozie was worth it.

I'm excited about this spring and if you've never fished the Truckee before we are coming into some good trout fishing months. The Truckee River on the Nevada side is fishing good now and will continue fishing good all spring. The California side should start fishing in a few weeks as the days get longer. Here's a few shots from today over on the Nevada side. This brown ate my Conehead Living Dead Streamer in tan, which will be available at finer fly shops this spring.

Pleasanton Show This Weekend

I'll be heading to the Pleasanton Fly Fishing Show this weekend. If you've never been it's actually a pretty cool show to go check out. It's an all fly fishing show unlike the ISE show in Sacramento and other sportsmen type shows. This year it looks like most all of the major fly fishing vendors will be back. You'll be able to book a trip to some far away destination, attend a seminar from top fly fishing personalities, or come by and watch me tie flies and get a free beer koozie. It will be nice to get off the mountain for a awhile. It's cold up here in Truckee and another big storm is on the way. This is a few shots from today.

One Month Till Spring

One Month until Spring and thank god for that. It seems like when it snows around here anymore it comes down in feet. It's hard to keep up with all the snow sometimes, shoveling etc, but we need it, and the Truckee River basin snowpack is now way above avergage again. Sugar Bowl Ski Resort is reporting 107" inches from this last week and it didn't start snowing until late Tuesday night. All this snow means one thing, the fishing will be epic this summer. This photo is of Billy from Chicago who braved the elements the last few days and ended up with a few nice fish over on the Nevada side of the Truckee River.