Pyramid - Its Gonna Be Late

I don't even know where to begin, kind of a bummer day. Was planning to head out to Anderson Bay on the east side of the lake only to find out its been closed. Apparently the closure is indefinite as the Tribe is considering whether or not to allow access.While on the east side we tried Howard Bay for about half an hour. Something grabbed my fly a couple of times, but it could have been Cui-ui, there are over 2 million in the lake today and HUGE schools of them congregate in that particular bay this time of year. Visibility was a foot...max. Even the Pelicans were striking out largely due to the low visibility. Here's a few hundered congregated near the Truckee inlet.
Here's the Pyramid Lake Fishway and one of its many fish ladders which leads to the Marble Bluff Fish Handling Facility. The ladders help fish get over Marble Bluff Dam. The dam was constructed in 1976 to reduce erosion in the lower Truckee and aid in the spawning migration of the the Cui-ui and Lahontan Cutthroat Trout.Here's where the fishway dumps into the lake.The creel census station said it was very slow today, we barely ended up fishing and didn't land anything. Nobody was catching fish at the north nets, however, apparently fishing was fair (but very crowded) at the south nets. It looks like its going to be late this year, the water is still cold. This week is going to be warm, I hope that gets the fish moving next week. Since the Truckee is flowing unsually high this year, and high enough for fish to breach the silt delta barrier, I'm wondering if the proponderance of LCT are trying to run up the Truckee to spawn vs. running up David Dunn hatchery in Sutcliffe. Has anyone spoke to the fisheries biologist about this possibility? Here is some insightful research which explains how lake water levels and Truckee water flows impact the ability of fish to successfully spawn in the river.

Pyramid - From Hot to Not

It rained literally the entire day, non stop. The wind was almost non existent as were the fish. In 6 hours I landed 3. I spoke to guys from Block House to Pelican, nobody did well, it was very slow. I didn't see any schools of fish like last week, just a couple of singles cruising the shelf. The fish seemed to want to watch my fly rather than take it, I had several chase it in and bump it, but they didn't grab it.

Looked like this all day.

This sand dune looks unassuming at first but....

Upon closer inspection, what appears to be white sand is actually thousands of small snail shells. Pyramid Lake is a remnant of ancient Lake Lahontan. These gastropods lived in Lake Lahontan dating back as far as 25,000 years ago, but have since died off. They were so abundant, that even today they still wash ashore in droves.

Can you appreciate the size of ancient Lake Lahontan? It was practically an inland sea, and within it evolved, what explorer John C. Fremont dubbed, "Salmon Trout". Today we call them Lahontan Cutthroat Trout.

We need water temperatures back in the 50's and some high winds for the fishing to pick up again. Of note, off colored water from the Truckee inlet has crept up as far as Rawhide Lookout, where visibility is only 2 feet. Not that you can't fish it, but something to be aware of.

Pyramid - Heating Up

Best fish of the day for me, just shy of 26" in full spawn colors. The amazing part was it started out as a double hookup, yep, he had a twin of the same size that took my beatle dropper. I was able to get both to the top before one came unbuttoned. Bummer, that would have been about 12lbs of fish on one cast had I landed both! Not a nibble for me or anyone else from Block House to Rawhide Lookout. They're stacked up near the nets, I landed a dozen there and lost two more. A westerly wind howled at 35-45mph, the harder it blew, the better the fishing was. Air temp was 60, water temp was 51, up several degrees from last week and just about perfect. Looks like the fish are in full spawn mode now, they're schooling up heavy and chasing anything you throw in front of them. They're bunched up, so back to back fish are not uncommon. Keep an eye out down the beach, if others are hooking up, its only a matter of seconds before the school is in front of you. Streamers outperfomed midges by a large margin today. This guy took a Martini Bugger right at the surface.Wind and cloud cover really emblodens the fish to come into the shallows to hunt. It also provides them with cover for ambushing Tui Chubs, the LCT's primary forage.
I thought this little creek and its cold snow melt water source would lure fish to its inlet. No such luck today, but fish do congregate at fresh water sources like this one from time to time.

Visibility was a big improvement over last week, 5ft plus from Block House northward. The Truckee is flowing into the lake at 2,300cfs, nearly 4x its mean and has the entire south end of the lake from Block House on looking like chocolate milk.

Truckee River Midge Munchers

Can't fish this weekend so I'm pulling out some archive footage. This is from back in January, the nights were in the single digits, the days were in the 20's, the flows were about 200cfs and water was crystal clear. I had to break through anchor ice to get to the water and I had to break ice of my guides to cast. In those conditions, fish are slow and lathargic. You literally have to bounce your nymph off their nose. Fish won't move far, the food is too small (and too low in calories) for them to spend much energy on any one morsel. They're also very selective and midges (#20-24) tend to dominate the menu. While dragging my stack over this particular run, on more than one occassion I had to pull midge larvae off my hook. Yes, the midges were so abundant they often ended up impaled on the hook. It was so cold, I didn't take a picture of the phenomenon, but should have.

Anyhow, these two fish came on back to back casts, though about 20 minutes lapsed between those casts. After releasing the first fish, I lost all feeling in my hands and had to run back to the truck to thaw out. I also had to stick my reel in front of a vent in my truck for de-icing because it froze up solid on me. Despite the cold water, the fish were feeding. They feed every single day, bet on it.

Independence Lake - Public Meeting

The Nature Conservancy is welcoming public ideas and feedback about the recreation and access management plan currently underway for Independence Lake located in Northern California in the Sierra Nevada mountains.
The Nature Conservancy is offering several ways for the public to provide input. The first method will be two public meetings.

• Monday, April 18, 2011 at the Loy
alton Social Hall – Open House 5:30/6pm meeting
105 Beckwith St, Loyalton, CA – Sierra County

• Tuesday, April 19, 2011 at the Truckee Town Hall – Open House 5:30/6pm meeting 10183 Truckee Airport Rd, Truckee, CA – Nevada County

Additionally, The Nature Conservancy has set up an online survey to collect input on specific strategies related to management issues. To ensure each person may only fill out the survey once, sign-in is required. The survey can be found HERE. Moreover, the Nature Conservancy is sponsoring focus group sessions with various stakeholder groups to gather additional feedback. The stakeholders are organizing these focus groups directly, and The Nature Conservancy has not placed any restrictions on who may organize one of these sessions.

More information can be found at the following blog, click HERE. If you're having any trouble with the survey, email me, I'll send you a link. Thanks.

Pyramid - Cold Again

This last cold snap that came through on Thursday and Friday followed by a calm and sunny weekend really put the fish off. Three of us fished 4 different beaches for 7 hours with only 2 fish in the net, one long-line release and two fish that chased our flies into the shallows. The creel census station reported numerous goose-eggs and we didn't run into anyone who did well. The mid day water termperature actually dropped to only 45 degrees (a degree colder than last week). Unless the water gets into the low 50's this week, it looks like the big fish run won't occur until late April and into May. The good news is, we haven't missed it yet. Water visibility is appoximately 1ft at Popcorn and 3ft at Cattle Guard improving to a maximum visitibility of 5 feet at the nets (yes, it was so slow we broke down and made a few combat casts). Even though we only got two fish, I did manage to make one of the most amazing catches. The first fish of the morning came on a lasso, that's not the name of a fly, it's just what you're thinking it is. Somehow, my mono line looped around the tail of the fish and it didn't come loose until I'd landed him. I'm guessing he was chasing my lead fly to cause this to happen. We'll see what next week brings. Here's the big fish of the day...bout 25".

Pyramid - Starting to Pick Up

I Fished almost the entire west shore Sunday, water is like chocolate milk from Howard Bay to Popcorn Rock, it clears up to about 3ft visibility at Block House, but it doesn't get much clearer than that, even at Pelican. The Truckee (measured at Nixon) is coming into the lake at about 1,400cfs, double the historical mean. Despite low visibility, fish are schooled up, in shallow and actively on the move. I had three fish back to back in only 2 foot visibility near Cattle Guard. All in all I put 5 in the net dragging streamers. I fished next to a guy that did very well on an ice cream cone midges 7 feet under an indicator. According to the biologist, the spawn is late this year and fish numbers should peak in the next few weeks. THIS IS THE TIME TO BE OUT THERE! For what its worth, the Tribe voted to allow fishing at the North and South Nets again, not that I care to stand shoulder to shoulder...See you out there!

Fish's Eye View

Every wonder what's in the water you're casting at? I decided to put the rod down and find out last summer so I floated a few miles of the Truckee above the town of Truckee. Filming trout underwater in a freezing, turbid river is a bit more challenging than I first thought. Anyhow, here is some footage of the experiment, I got about a dozen fish on film, but I only included 4 of the big boys. One was a real toad, the footage doesn't do it justice, but I'd put it at over 8lbs, possibly 10lbs. I missed footage of several large fish which I spotted while rowing my pontoon boat, but didn't have time to stop, gear up and jump in before they vanished. Stay tuned, I plan to do some more posts like this one when it warms up. PS: none of these fish were filmed @ Fanny Bridge, though I did jump in there and try to get a monster brown on film, the discharge was 300cfs and didn't permit me to get close enough to film (the fish make swimming against that current look easy).