Truckee River - Fresh Water Bones

Carpin with crays as its too hot to fish for trout in town.  Tim's dead drift crayfish has been getting it done.  

 All you can hope for out of a school like this is one fish, because as soon as you hook it, the rest spook.

The water muds up after our evening thunderstorms, when this happens, change tactics, look for nervous waters, tailings and most of all, plumes of mud welling up from a fish rooting around for baby crays.

 Kinda pretty...as far as carp go.

Truckee River - Down and Dirty East of Derby

....Derby Dam that is.  I finally took some time off work and spent a full day actually fishing, morning till dusk, first time in months.  I really did some exploring on the eastern stretches of the Truckee and spent most of the day fishing waters I've never fished before.  The mid day water temperature has finally dropped to an ideal 59 degrees and fish are very active.  I found some really cool riffles and runs and also found some dead water.

Its a tight squeeze getting under the tracks to Derby Dam.  As you approach, you're greeted by some beautiful wetlands full of cottonwoods turning color.  Remember, there is no fishing 1,000ft below the dam, which I'm sure is due to the Lahontan Cutthroats which come up to spawn in April and congregate at the base of the dam.

Here is a nice run below the dam but above the ranches further down. This section of the Truckee gets relatively little water as compared to the upper river, so don't expect a lot of deep runs/holes.

This little bend has some great riffles and good riparian habitat that's been largely untouched by man.

A few miles down things are different.  Here is what man has done to mitigate flooding, isn't it beautiful. The Truckee looks more like a ditch here than a freestone river. There are some good runs below this point, but the water gets very skinny and public access becomes increasingly difficult without a boat.   The fishing was good below Derby but the catching wasn't so mid day I tried some new waters below Clark.

Check out these beetles, they were hatching by the hundreds.  I couldn't positively identify them, the closest I came was Carabus intricatus, a type of blue ground beetle, but I know its not what they are.

This brown took a copper john, but I probably could have hooked him with a streamer.

Look at what he coughed up as I netted him.  Its hard to make out but it looks like a juvenile trout.

Everything seemed to be working today, so its no surprise that one would gulp a G6 Caddis.

This is a great bend with deep water, but there are lots of signs that the bait dunkers exploit this hole frequently.

A majestic view of the Truckee River Canyon looking East towards Wadsworth.  

Even streamers caught the attention of trout today.