Ryan came up from San Francisco this weekend for one day of snowboarding and one day of fishing on the Truckee River.  He rode at Squaw Valley on Saturday with some friends from the Bay Area and ended up taking a bad fall and hurting his shoulder.  Due to cold morning temperatures, we didn’t get on the water until around noon on Sunday at a spot here in Reno that has some nice fish, but doesn’t see a lot of pressure.  When we got to the river there was a modest BWO hatch under way, but no fish were feeding on the surface so we rigged up with an IndiCaddis and two nymphs, a stonefly on top and a Prince dropper.  It has been a while since I’ve fished with an IndiCaddis, so it took me a few casts to get used to the drifts.  Once I worked out the kinks I lobbed my rig into a nice current seam that usually holds a few nice fish, five feet into the drift my IndiCaddis went under and I was tight to a nice rainbow.  The fish fought hard, running about twenty yards downstream and refusing to be beached.  After about five minutes I finally landed the beautifully colored 16” rainbow (pictured below and at top of page).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                       Pretty rainbow

 

 

Ryan had some difficulties figuring out my camera, so he took these pictures using my new cell phone.  I was surprised at how well they turned out, the color was even better than the pictures he later took with my camera!  We fished up through the rest of the stretch without any more action, then headed to another spot upstream.  We started out fishing below a little diversion dam, but Ryan’s shoulder was really bothering him so he quit fishing and sat on the bank.  I moved up above the dam and quickly hooked another nice rainbow, this time on a size 10 orange Burk’s Bottom Roller (pictured below).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                        

                                    Nice rainbow

 

 

Andy Burk ties this fly with a lot of weight for Czech nymphing, but I like to use it under an indicator as well.  It imitates a caddis larvae perfectly, and trout go nuts for them in rivers with good caddis populations.  Andy Burk is an awesome fly tier (as well as a super nice guy) who has created many effective patterns for the Truckee River and elsewhere, and I find myself fishing his patterns more and more because I know that they’ll produce.  We decided to head home after the second fish because Ryan was really hurting and the wind had turned bitter and cold.  Had we put more effort into it we may had been able to get some more fish, but two nice fish on a cold, late winter’s day is good enough for me!