Smallmouth on the Fly

Friday evening Nicole and I fished Lake Natoma. I was expecting to see a dozen novice kayakers and a couple boaters but the dock was empty. We got on the water at 7:00pm and headed upstream. I brought my fly rod out to sink some flies and try stripping some streamers. We anchored above Rainbow Bridge and I cast my quick-sink line with four feet of leader tipped with 4x fluorocarbon. The first bump felt like a bite but I wasn't sure, so I let the streamer sit for a couple seconds, and BAM! I lifted the rod and hooked into the smallmouth bass pictured here. It was 16" long, fat like a football, and easily the heaviest smallie I've ever caught. I got another little smallie about 8" long that completely inhaled my streamer.  I've read that Lake Natoma at one time was considered a great smallmouth fishery, and we are definitely going to target them more often.

Little Truckee River

Me and the family decided to go camping for a few days, so we headed up to Truckee and camped on the Little Truckee River at Boyington Mill Site. The weather was outstanding, the fish were flying out of the water chasing emergers, and I figured out fairly early what would work.

I found a nice run above the mouth at Boca, and started out with a caddis dry since I saw a few flying around. Not a bite. Switched to a PMD for 5 minutes without success. Threw a woolly bugger and got zilch. Finally, I decided to go to a two-nymph drop under an indicator, which is how I expected to fish e when I was sitting at home tying red and green Copper John's in size 12 and 14. My second cast got me a nice 12" rainbow on the green. Tuesday I landed 5, lost a couple. Wednesday I got the same, landing 5 and losing a few, including a nice 15"-16" thick rainbow, they all took the red Copper John's. Thursday was the best day, landing 14 and losing at least ten other takes. Almost everyone of Thursdays' fish took the green flies in size 12.

We hit the Truckee River on Thursday on a side trip into town, but at midday the water was too warm, gotta hit it early or late.