Wed 11/28 ~~one hour, one fish~~

Lahontan · Senior Member

Wed 11/28 ~~one hour, one fish~~

Xnjb707X · Senior Member

Congrats, Nice looking fish, I lost a few last friday that were about that size, they just got the best of me. I'm hoping to get into a couple of hogs tomorrow, but I always hope on that. Congrats again!

- Nic

shon42073 · Senior Member

Nice fish Ed. The flows came up quick in the evening, Maybe that was why there was so much grass floating down river.

Emerger · Senior Member

Nice fish Lahontan!

JT · Senior Member

Lahontan,
Nice fish.� I'll have to agree with Captain on the grass situation.� I noticed last night that flows jumped up pretty quick.

chemdoc · Senior Member

Nice fish Ed.� What fly did you catch it on?

Phil

Lahontan · Senior Member

You guys are aboslutely right!� It was really low when I got there, and I could literally feel the change.

The amount of debris (all be it organic) coming downstream the second half of the hour was unreal.

I visited the USGS site last night and saw the jump in flow but didn't make the connection.

Phil, the fly was a pretty big glow bug...see PM for details.

Ed

JT · Senior Member

I thought that was a glo bug in the corner of the fish's mouth (in the picture).

brian clemens · Senior Member

congates ed, wish i was there to celebrate with ya, but there in spirit. gotta love those footballs. and looks like ill be gettin some glo bugs before i go out next time. it work well for me last time i was out as well. was it the egg egg dropper or just an egg. that was the second thing i saw when i seen that fish. well third, first your crazy ass grin, which i had the same thing with my pig, ya i know pics pics pics, then i saw that fish. freaking awsome bro, and then the glo bug. again congrates. did you nab that in one of the hole you me and shaun was fishing.

well hope to get out there next week we shall see. might be hittin up amador with my boss and his kid for some ama-bows aka cutt-bows, probably next friday.

oh ya the grass would be from the flows

again CONGRATES ED

-- Edited by brian clemens at 17:28, 2007-11-29

WytEurp · Senior Member

Ed nice fish I was there all day, fished above the bridge, at #3 and #5.....did not get even one nibbel.....I lost 5 flys throughout the day and saw two fish smacking the water above the bridge during a BWO hatch about 10am but couldnt get them to hit my fly.

Didnt see any action under the water at all.....the best I could say was I seemed to have the river to myself....left at 230pm

Now let me ask you guys a question. I taught my 5yr daughter what a brown trout, rainbow and cut throat troute look like. When she looks at the pic of your trout she said "thats a Cut throat trout"...I say its a rainbow but she will not belive me. Most of the rainbows I see on Putah have the the red slash on the gills...Am I just a nuckle head or are some of the rainbows we are catching cut throat. and if not is there a better way to tell.....

Lahontan · Senior Member

I am far from the authority.� Some of these other guys will have good commentary on this topic, but my experience with most varieties of cutthroat, including my namesake, show their signature red "slash" lower and much bolder thru the neck and belly.

I have been very intrigued by how the Putah "Bows" have a coloration that is so consistant with their environment.� I love this word,"dimorphism" or to my understanding differentiation, can be gender, environmental or even seasonal.

I notice that most native Putah bows look pretty much the same up to 13-14 inches.�Then there seems to be two different shapes. (I've only caught 2 fish bigger, saw Cappy's at 20" couple weeks back, the rest of my theory comes from your pictures).� I call em the "football" or the "torpedo".

On Putah, there is much more green, and darker over all than�the silver/pink sided, black backed varities I'm used to.

To more directly, answer your question, I'm 99.9% sure were talkin all rainbows so far.� Lot's of talk of browns, but no landed sitings in a while. I've not seen any yet.

Ed

brian clemens · Senior Member

its breeding time, its their breeding colors. just like coho get bright red when they are breeding same for rainbow, they just dont die.

Nohackle · Senior Member

Ed, most of the fish I have caught�that were 17 inches or over have been naturals.� As you have said, they are much darker in color than other rainbows.� Most�have fewer spots and many have an orange band along their sides.� I believe that their coloration comes from the fact that they are a steelhead strain of rainbows.� I'm guessing that steelhead were trapped in the creek when the dams were built and the naturals we catch are their decendants.� Also, once they get to about 16 or 17 inches, they seem to get fat very quickly.� I'm not sure what they are feeding on, but it's obvious they are well fed!

SK60 · Senior Member

This fish is definitely not a cut throat-mouth shape, no red slash under the throat (even cut bow hydrids have the slash), body coloration and patterns of spots, stripes all wrong for CT. Regarding body color, rainbows of all sizes tend to match on their upper side (back) the color of the substrate they are over-darker the bottom, the darker their back and vice versa. I have caught rainbows in Grizzly creek near Quincy that were black in color topside. Their bellies were almost white. That part of the creek bed flowed over black solid rock. In other parts of the creek with a freestone bottom they were green and silver, as we usually expect to see. Have you ever seen a hatchery truck dump its load of rainbows? They are transported in the dark in the tank and after a few hours they come off the truck almost black in color. Lahontan's fish has dark "features"-I'm guessing it came from an area of the creek between the resort and FA3 where there is a lot of gray rock in the stream bed. Am I in the ball park?

Lahontan · Senior Member

Holy smokes, buncha folks on this board that totally dig da fly fishin ya?

Brian ... yep ... the spot brother.�Deeper, clear of the riffles, on the swing.� #18 olive fox pupah, 14+ inch dropper to glower. Hit the glower. Indicator to glower ... ??? about 6 feet. Changes every day .... you know that, in fact you've posted about that more than once.

Sherriff (aka Wyt) ... I told you these guys would bring it!� There is so much knowledge on this board its silly! I'm with you, on how fickle this water is. I hit this fish, and literally spent the rest of the hour picking grass, and untangling my rig between casts.� Just when I start getting a little ****y, this creek humbles me.� "builds character", Ben Justus ...my Missouri Mule of a father (a great man!) would say.

No Hackle ... WAY interesting! I love that kind of stuff. "Lahontan" my sudonim, never caught one, never seen one, just a fish I love the story behind.� It's amazing to discover the stories behind these critters.

You're on target SK60.� No more on that.

Probably, the most interesting thing about this has been that the fight gives me context for some of the "one's that got away"...this fish fought, good size, and was handleable.� There have been 2-4 I've hit since August but didn't see that felt like MAC trucks compared to this one ...YIKES what were they? ... the mystery is part of the fun, yah guys?

Ed

Lahontan · Senior Member

wow this sites filters are sensitive.� that word is synonymous with "mildly arrogant" or "like a male chicken".

SK60 .... I forgot to mention how impressed I am that your daughter can call the fish ... I've got a 5 yr old son that is more interested in sponge bob than fish, and my 10 year old daughter is all about Mylie Cyrus.

What ya do?� GO FISHING!

Ed

JT · Senior Member

As many of you have probably noticed, some of the rainbows show characteristics of cutthroat trout (red or orange slashes under the gills, few spots above the lateral line).� This topic comes up every once in a while.� Here's a quote from Bono in a previous thread:

"As far as cuttbow hybrids in Putah, I have unofficially heard that a cutbow hybrid was introduced in Miller canyon creek way back at the turn of the century.� This little creek flows into Lk Solano and the upper reaches of it has a population of these fish that I would fish for when I was a kid, so maybe thats where the source of the light red-orange slash comes from."

Nohackle also brought up the possibility of steelhead that were trapped in the inner dam region.� This would explain the winter spawners.� You also have all the hatchery fish.� It appears that the rainbows in Putah are pretty much mutts.

SK60 · Senior Member

Unfortunately, I'm a science/biology bum who also likes fishing and to problem solve. It struck me looking at the photo album that the large bows were of two basic color schemes-dark and light. My hypothesis about color is surely oversimplified and other factors contribute, but I hope it got you to thinking a bit about how nature tries to camouflage its own. Thanks, JT, for the repeat of the Bono quote. Heres another thought: do we have possibly 3 strains in the creek, holdover and viable plants (McCloud strain?), CT/R hybrids, dam trapped SH, and are the largest fish primarily from only one strain? Sounds like a great Master's/PhD /postdoctoral study-i.e, get paid for having great fun!