well me and a buddy decided to hit up the carson before the winter comes in. lets just say ill be heading up there atleast one more time. fishing was great. weather was great. it was perfect.
fished from 11 to dusk. first area we fished was the west carson. i heard of some big boys that just got planted, big i mean 6-12lbs, steelhead size, and sure enough it was right. we started fish and started seeing fish in the 6-10lb range swinging around in the 2 pools we were fishing. they were not easy to catch, but i had a few flys up my sleeve, i threw on jts stone, and i hooked a pig about 28"s and he broke off. sooooo pissed i loved the look of that stone. so i threw on a size 10 dark brown kaufman stone and got another pig, this one not as big, but finally got this big boy to the net, a nice 25" donaldson trout. man those things fight hard. we fished this for a lil longer and i was gettin bored. so we moved to the east carson. i wont mention where we fished but it was on from first cast to the last. i was using orange bodied rubber legged stimulators size 10 and light cahils and white mayfly type flys in a size 18.
first cast with the stim and a nice 16-17"er rose very slowly at it but he took it, after a nice battle landed that bad boy. about 5 mins later 25 yrds down stream hooked another nice one about 14"s. worked some more pools with more and more rises, i started having a tuff time gettin the to hook up. guess i was to quick or 2 slow on the hook sets, oh well, it was fun though. we came to the end of our day and found a nice pool that led up to a nice tail out that gradually got deeper and then dumped into a nice 5ft long pool. well the top pool before the tail out first cast and i have the rise of my life, a hugh 20+" brown came up and this wasnt a rise it was a GURGGLE. and ofcourse i completely messed up on the hook set, man that sucked did another cast and missed a nice 15"er as well. man that really got my water boiling. i missed so many fish that day. so then i looked down stream and saw fish rising crazy. so moved down to the gradually area that went from about 8"s deep to about 2ft before it dropped of into a nice 5ft deep pool. the fish were rising like mad in the shallow area at something i could figure out what. but i remembered a good friend told me about small white mayflys. so put on a 18 light cahil and it was all over, had about 2-5 rises per cast and hooked a fish everycast if not everyother. pulled some nice decent size fish doing this between 14-18"s all on dry flys. so all in all a great day. and will be doing it soon. if someone would like to go with me let me know. it will take a 4x4 to get there, i do have a jeep so no worries on a 4x4 if you dont have one. if you would like to hit it up in this prime time dry fly action before the snow and cold PM me and we will work out a day.
here are some pics of the day. sorry about the first one, my friend doesnt take great pics
hopefully ill have some nice pics on the yuba weds, hey dtp and jt, you ready to get into some steelies, big bows, and maybe even a salmon on weds. i got a digital so you know the pics will be up asap.
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Fishing isnt about catching fish, its not about who caught the most, or who caught the biggest, its about the experience that you have on the water, and the life long bonds you make with others on the journey to becoming a better person inside.
Sounds like some sweet action on the Carson! Dry fly fishing is the shizzle... don't know if I'll make it back in time for any of that action, but we'll have to get out and nail some fishies soon! chuck
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"when you put your hand into a flowing stream you touch the last that has come before and the first of what is still to come" -DaVinci
you know it bro, steelies will be here soon. you just give me a call and we are there.
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Fishing isnt about catching fish, its not about who caught the most, or who caught the biggest, its about the experience that you have on the water, and the life long bonds you make with others on the journey to becoming a better person inside.
Brian, those are some nice fish. We are headed up there on monday, this is probably the last week before a big tempature drop. I forgot to ask you wed if the new camera was waterproof?
ya the first fish first 2 pics is a planted donaldson trout, the rest are native rainbows from the east carson in the canyon area
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Fishing isnt about catching fish, its not about who caught the most, or who caught the biggest, its about the experience that you have on the water, and the life long bonds you make with others on the journey to becoming a better person inside.
You have some pretty good eyesight there. I was on the Carson below Hangman's bridge last week and noticed that some of the fish are holdover planters. This was as far down as Markleeville Creek which is some two to three miles below Hangman's Bridge. We figured it out one evening. Emerger and I fished the area above Hangman's for an hour and probably caught like fifty fish on dries in that hour. The dfg plants the heck out of the catch and keep section. We saw at least one hundred if not two hundred planters and holdovers in one little pool!! We were just laughing at how dumb the fish were.
There are some really nice wild fish in wild trout section though!!
thats where i wasz the trophy section. some very nice fish in that area. thats where i got the smaller fish from
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Fishing isnt about catching fish, its not about who caught the most, or who caught the biggest, its about the experience that you have on the water, and the life long bonds you make with others on the journey to becoming a better person inside.
I realize you were in the Wild Trophy section. My theory is that some of those planters float down into the Wild Trout section during the higher flows. Look at the tails. Those fish have to be holdover planters. Not that it is a bad thing, the holdovers actually put up just as good of a fight. You would never know they only had half a tail until you bring them to net. Some of the pools in the Wild Trout Section hold up to a hundred fish, but I don't think the fish are eating fish tails. There are too many hoppers for them!!
i have caught holdovers before on putah as well as on the carson plenty of times. i even caught a few that day. the reason i took this pick is because it wasnt a planter or hold over. i never take pics of those guys, only the wild native trout. after looking at the photo i see how you can say it looks like a hold over due to how the tail looks rounded, so i went and double checked on the digital, zoomed in just to make sure, and i am 100% sure it wasnt a hold over, its just the photo, they guy taking them sucked. but hey no worries. ill be out there again soon i hope.
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Fishing isnt about catching fish, its not about who caught the most, or who caught the biggest, its about the experience that you have on the water, and the life long bonds you make with others on the journey to becoming a better person inside.
Holy Toledo!!! Those are some NICE fish. Sounds like a great trip. Those first couple look like they've been eating at the Blue Coyote for a few weeks. Great Pictures.
hit up the east carson 2 days ago fishing in 35 degree weather....plenty of fish..didnt fish much but roped in 3-4 14-16 inchers and a nice 18 incher out of a deep hole....hot flies...adams..... ruber legged copper john....cadis pupa...also fished wolf creek and pulled 2-3 small rainbows out.....waters low and its damn cold up there go now be4 it starts snowing more.....
Nice fish Brian. I can't wait to get back up there in the next week or so. Won't be too long before the snow cuts off a lot of that river. Until then those fish will be gorging themselves to fatten up for winter!
I wasn't trying to bust your chops or anything. Those are nice fish, and the area is tons of fun. I was just informed by a little bird that wild fish may have rounded tails. I have never seen one before, but the gravel in the Carson is volcanic, so I guess it is possible.
Here are a few pics from the Carson where I have hidden the tail to avoid confusion
Beauties! My dad lives up there. He fishes Blue Lakes and stops for beer in Markleeville on the way home.
#1 and #2 look to have some "kype-age" going on. I had never heard of the Donaldson. Looks like a big shouldered brute.
Are they common up that way? If the Donaldson is a planter, they're sure planting them big!
Sorry for being ignorant on this one! Nice looking fish any way you slice it!
Ed
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"You tell yourself that it will be both educational and spiritually uplifting, as all imaginative excuses for goofing off are." John Gierach, "Music of the Spheres".
alpine county plants them, they stop eagle lake trout as well as donaldson trout. they grow them up in pens in the water, not only do they eat the pellets, but minnows, crawdads, or what ever passes them by in those cages. they dont plant often, but when they do they are big, this last plant which was the last of the yr, average fish was about 6-7lbs with some going over 12, i seen on in a pool i was fishing that was as big as a steelhead had to be atleast 30"s. the thing was massive.
no worries otter. you can make it up to me by telling me where that path is at. hahaha. how about you and me hit it up soon. before it gets to cool and white.
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Fishing isnt about catching fish, its not about who caught the most, or who caught the biggest, its about the experience that you have on the water, and the life long bonds you make with others on the journey to becoming a better person inside.
