Truckee California

My brothers in law live in San Rafael and we all love to go stay with them. Every time we drive out there I think of two things: wow Nevada really is the butt of the west and dear God I want to fish the Truckee. I don’t really have it in for Nevada, its fine if you like casinos, power plants and prisons. When I say butt, I’m talking about a big nasty butt, with Reno as the center or butt hole if you will. Pound for pound, population taken into consideration Reno has more whores, druggies, pimps, pushers and child molester creeps than any other town in the west (opinion not fact, based upon gut feeling). If you like Reno just click off this site now.

Getting to the fishing aspect of my journey--the Truckee; here’s where I develop a bit of compassion for Nevada. When you start approaching the Sierra Nevada mountain range, it pretty much turns into California. The massive state of sun shine has so many things they can tout; think about how long its list is. But Nevada, they can’t even claim Tahoe, only a chunk of it. California should be nice and give all of Tahoe to Nevada. However if they did, Nevada would probably turn it into Reno. Oh well at least Nevada has a good chunk of the Mighty Truckee. I call it the Mighty Truckee because I finally got my chance to fish it.  I didn’t get much time because we were on a family trip, and that’s not the time to go fishing right? Well sort of.

We spent about 4 days in the bay area with Lee and Gene. If Nevada is the butt, and Reno  the butt hole of the west, then the whole bay area, including wine country, is all the good body parts (use your own imagination and fill in your favorite body part). Along with all the great things about The Bay I have found some great rivers to fish as well—see the Patah. On the drive back we meet up with our friends the Johnsons and stayed at a cabin at Lake Tahoe.

Kids and adult alike are all having a great time, at least is seems that way, because they all sleep in every morning until about 10:00. This is my chance to sneak a slice of time on the Mighty Truckee. It’s the second to last day we have, July 22, 2011, 5:45 a.m .God whispers in my ear, “get up and be a fisherman.” I listen to the voice of God, and I go fishing. On the drive down the canyon I look for a place to buy a fishing license for the day, but damn it I can’t find one. I am not in the mood to sneak around and be fearful of getting caught—especially in California. Solution: go further down into Nevada; they can’t be as bad as the state of California to bubba’s fishing without a license. At this point I’m trying to be open to the state I call the butt.

I find a nice bend on highway 80, which I have written down in my journal, so I can return to another day. No I will not tell the exact location.  The best part of this bend is that once I pull off the freeway, it has a dirt road that takes me deeper into the river. Remember I have no license. So my little plan is to put my rod,  my nymph fly box, my soft hackle box, which is full of flys I tied myself,  in my back pack. Then I’ll have my camera hanging around my neck creating the look of a nature photo bug. If I feel safe, I will pull out the rod, and try my hand. Honestly who am I fooling, it’s not an “if” but a “when” there is no way in hell I’m not fishing this river—it’s really a matter of finding the right spot.  It doesn’t take me long—see the black and white photo of the sweet hole. I didn’t read the river to see which bugs were hatching, I just think a big bead headed prince nymph with a smaller green soft hackle off the tag will be a great place to start. 

Five casts into it I hook up, and I mean hook up. Whatever I have on takes me in one single run down to my reel’s backing. This is so exciting because I don’t really know what I have on, and I am wondering if I hooked into something I don’t even know about. Are there fish other than trout that I have not read about? This thrill is combined with that fear of being caught. It would be right now that some fish and game officer would pop out of the trees and say,” we have been watching you from the cliff with our binoculars and you are sure acting nervous. Do you have a fishing license?” But this feeling is minor, I am mostly dying to see what I have on my line. I think I know by the way it’s fighting, it gives it it’s all in one grand run, then is done—a white fish. Sure enough it is. But it’s the fattest white fish I have ever caught. It’s about 20 inches long, which I think is about as long as they get, but this guy is fat. I fish a couple more extremely fishy looking bends. I know if I could work them, and figure them out, I would be rewarded, maybe with a brown or rainbow. This river has bends that you look at and you know it just houses a ton of huge fish.

But I have had a great morning, I finally got a chance to fish this heavy weight river. This water way  is big and powerful,  but not too big to wade. It flows from Lake Tahoe for God’s sake so you know it’s clear, clean and magical; it truly is mighty. Hence fourth I dub the “The Mighty Truckee,” be it Nevada or California. Furthermore,  I will give Nevada some respect. After all how can Reno be “the butthole” with the Mighty Truckee running through it; that would in essence make the Truckee the intestines, colon and rectum and that’s just wrong.

I get back to the cabin and everyone is just getting up and eating breakfast. Its like snatched a moment of time, no one really noticed I was gone. I danced with the devil, I explored and found a great bend to work with next time, I fished without a license and caught a beautiful white fish. I can’t wait to come back, and who knows maybe next time I will get a license.