Fishing the Little Truckee again

Tanner and I hit the Little Truckee river again. We began the morning with the temperature in the mid 20's and ended it in the mid 20's. It was so cold that our nets and shoe laces froze solid. Fishing was tough! That river is going to make fly fishing experts out of Tanner and I because you have to do just about everything right to catch fish their. It is definitely not a river for a beginner, or even an intermediate level fly fisher. That's why I like to call it the Little Truckee University. Fishing on that river is the grad school of fly fishing.

The day started off great for me. I hooked a fat wild rainbow, about 20 inches in the first minute. I fought him for about three minutes but he shook the hook before I could net him. About two minutes later, I hooked and landed a smaller 15 inch wild rainbow. After that, nothing the rest of the day. Tanner also had a rough day, nothing for the first five hours until he caught the beautiful 18 inch brown pictured above. Tanner hooked another 10 minutes later but lost it. Although it was a really tough day, we had a great time and hopefully we learned a little more in the process.

The Little Truckee produces again!

Well I headed up to the Little Truckee with Foxy a few days ago. Tanner could't make it so it was just Foxy and I. Started fishing at about 10:00 AM. Nothing, not even a bite for the fisrt two and a half hours. I tried many different small mayflies and midges, but I could not even get a bite. At about 12:30, out of frustration, I put on a small brown San Juan worm. First cast, fish on! For the next hour and a half the fishing was red hot. I ended up with five fish landed with two lost during the retrieve. Four rainbows and one brown. The biggest being about 21 inches and three pounds. They were all really beautiful wild fish. By 2:00, the bite had stopped and not even another hit for the rest of the day.
Most years I only fish from June to August. This year, I made it a goal to fish at least once a month all year long. So far my goal is still intact. These were the first fish that I have ever caught fly fishing in December. This was the first time that I have fly fished in December.

The Little Tanner River

Well, they are now going to have to re-name the Little Truckee river to the Little Tanner river after Tanner catching this big Brown. My Dad and I met up with Tanner and uncle Dennis over the Thanksgiving holiday up at the Truckee and Little Truckee rivers. The four of us started off on the main Truckee. My Dad and I did really well, both of us catching about 15. My Dad might have caught a few more than that. But Tanner was struggling quite a bit with around 5 to 7 fish. However, Tanner's luck changed once we hit the Little Truckee. He immediately caught this really nice Brown and then went on to have four or five more hook-ups. The rest of us could not even manage to get a bite. This was the best that I have ever seen Tanner fish. Man, was he on! I was really happy for him because he has been talking for months about catching a monster brown and he finally did it. Great job Tanner!

Been doing a lot of fishing and a lot of hiking lately

Well it's been a while since my last post. Not much has changed. Ive been hiking about once a week and fishing about once a week. The fishing has been good. Tanner and I are still catching lots of fish, nothing huge for a while though. The water on the Truckee river is getting low and we may have made our last trip of the year up their. The hiking has been great. About three weeks ago, we hiked up Thunder Mountain. The hike is located near Kirkwood and it is literally up a mountain. The view was awesome. Here are a few photos of the hike.

Tanner nearly falls off the mountain.

Enjoying lunch at the summit.

Maya loves to drink from the hydration pack.

Big trout on the Truckee

In the last week I have had really bad luck on the Truckee and really good luck. Tanner and I went fishing a few days ago and not five minutes after reaching the river, my fly rod broke. I was really disapointed. I have had that rod for about 10 years and I was really attached to it. Luckily I kept a back-up rod in the car, however, after just two hours and two small fish, Raquel called me and said that she was really sick. Tanner and I rushed home to make sure that she was ok. She took a couple of days off and is feeling good again.
Anxious to erase that horrible day from my memory, I headed up to the Truckee by myself. For the first three hours, it could not have been better. I caught several nice fish. Then, at about 11:30, I detected a very subtle hit, not sure if it was a fish or just a slight bump on a rock. I set the hook just to make sure, and then it started pulling. It was a heavy fish. I knew that it was big from the way that it was fighting, but would have never guessed that it was as big as it was. After about a 10 minute battle I landed the biggest trout of the season, somewhere between 22 and 24 inches. However, bad luck also was with me today. Right after the camera took the photo of me and the fish from the self-timer, a gust of wind came along and pushed my camera into the river, which ruined the camera. I can't complain though, I had an incredible time!

Video of Tanner catching a trout on the Truckee

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2BwL9n2Gkg

The fishing just gets better for Tanner and I

We had yet another great day on the Truckee river. Tanner broke out of a tough slump, and just slayed them. The last three or four times that we had been fishing, Tanner had a hard time catching any fish. All that changed last weekend when Tanner caught 20-30 fish. Together, we caught about 60 quality wild trout. We even had two double hook-ups which is pretty rare.



Tanner with the first nice fish on his new fly rod.




A double hook-up! My fish is on the left and Tanner's is on the right.

Dad and I score big on the Truckee

Well, it continues to be an awesome 2008 fishing season. I took my Dad to the Truckee last weekend to try to get some wild trout. What a day! We ripped'em real good. We caught so many big beautiful rainbow trout that we decided to call it a day after just 3 1/2 hours. My Dad did especially well, just about everytime I looked at him, he had a fish on. The hot fly today for my Dad was a Prince nymph, and for me, a San Juan worm and a black WD-40 midge.




Dad with a really fat 16 inch wild rainbow.


Check out the San Juan worm hanging out of its mouth.


Is there a more beautiful fish than a wild rainbow trout?


Can someone please get me a bigger net!?

Labor Day Weekend

We had a great Labor Day weekend. It started friday night with a Rivercats game with Jamie and Shannon. Then on Saturday we took Maya to the Monterey Bay Aquarium and then took a drive down the coast to sight see and hike. We found a great spot just south of Big Sur with a nice beach and a waterfall. On Monday, I went fishing with my Dad but I will talk about that in my next post.


Maya enjoying the ball game with her uncle Jamie and aunt Shannon.


Maya at the aquarium.


Foxy enjoying the view from a point along highway 1.

Tanner and I hit the Truckee again!

Tanner and I fished the Truckee river once again. Being that this is so late in the summer, I was afraid that the water level would be really low but it was actually perfect. We fished from about 9:00 AM until about 1:00 PM and we had a great time. The fishing was good. We did'nt get huge numbers of fish, but we did get quality fish ranging from 16 to 20 inches. Most of the fish were caught on WD-40 midges and Pheasant Tail nymphs.

Jamie's first fish while flyfishing!

Three weeks ago, I probably made my last trip to the Walker of the summer fishing season. It was a great weekend of fishing. My Mom, Mike, Jamie, Shannon, and Aidan made the the trip with us. On the last day, Jamie decided that he wanted to leave the bait in the car and try fly fishing. It was another proud moment for me as Jamie's brother!
I took Jamie to a shallow run of riffles to target the Walker trout. At first Jamie had trouble casting, but within a few minutes, he was able to make a decent upstream cast. Now Jamie has a really logical mind where he tends to see things in a mathematical way. What I mean by that is, he looks at a problem, analyzes it, then does the correct thing and expects success. It is that part of his personality along with his incredible work ethic that has made him such a success in the business world. However, when it comes to fishing, it's not always perfectly logical. In fishing there is as much art as there is logic. In this sense, this is where Jamie struggled for a time. In fly fishing, it is so complex that you not only have to think your way through it by using correct technique, you have to feel your way through it. It's very hard to explain, but it is a huge part of fly fishing. Jamie was frustrated because even though we were fishing the same fly in the same area, I was catching many fish while he was not catching any.
I explained to Jamie that you can not simply rely on technique, you need to use all of your senses and "feel" the fish. It's kind of like the "force" in Star Wars, your instincts need to be able to anticipate what the river and the fish are going to do. I think that Jamie started to understand. First he got a couple of hits, and then he hooked and landed his first Trout on a fly. On the way home, we stopped at the Carson where Jamie eagerly grabbed my fly rod and then proceeded to pull out at least three trout within fifteen minutes.

More photos of Oregon

Maya holding her first starfish



Maya did great hiking, she loved all of the flowers.



Maya on the beach with her best friend.



Maya excited about another hike.



Taking a rest with my two beautiful daughters.

Oregon August 2008

We did it again! It seems as though the Tucker family may have started an annual tradition, an August trip to Oregon. We have gone up there the last three out of four years. We started off by spending a day driving up to Lincoln city, half way up the Oregon coast. We discovered Lincoln city last year and let me tell you, it is one heck of a beautiful place. It's cool, everything is green, and there is so much hiking available. We spent three nights at the motel 6 in Lincoln city. It has to be the nicest motel 6 in the world, it must have been so other hotel before. We then spent the next few days exploring the area, going on hikes, and eating as much great seafood as possible.

Another great day on the Walker!

Tanner and I took off to the Walker again yesterday, and once again, we killed'em. The fishing was so good! I landed between 50 and 70 fish including two big ones. It was so great, I was able to anticipate hits before the fish even took the fly. Here are a few of the photos from our trip.

Tanner with a beautiful wild brown.

Bigfoot print?

Tanner and I fished Caples creek today and came across this very interesting footprint. At first I thought that it was from a large hiking boot but then I noticed faint toe prints. If you look closely to the left of the print, you may be able to see a couple of impressions that, to me, look like toes. The print was in an area where the ground was slightly softer than the surrounding soil. My guess is that the area had a lasting patch of snow that was slowly melting over the last couple of months which made the ground wet. The area of the print where it shows the sole of the foot was slightly lower than the area of the toes. The toe area was drier while it was obvious that muddy water had settled in the sole area and then dried. The print measured 15.5 in length and 5 inches wide. I know that it's really hard to make out the toe prints from the photo but up close in person, it was much more clear. I'm thinking of going back to make a plaster cast of the print. It's a remote place and very rugged though, i'm not looking forward to the hike back in. About an hour after seeing the print, Tanner heard some loud wood knocking near by which is is a way that some primates communicate with each other. Unfortunately, I did not hear what Tanner heard as I was a few dozen yards away playing with Foxy.
As for the fishing, it was tough. They are emptying Caples lake which meant that the creek was raging high and fast. I did manage to catch four wild Rainbow trout while Tanner landed a wild Brown trout.




One of the photos of the print.



Tanner on top of the mountain on the hike back to the car.
I found the print down in that first canyon right behind Tanner.



Me and Foxy.