I just got back from a pretty weird few days fishing around Markleeville on the East Carson.  I drove up late Thursday and set up the backpacking tent in the dark which was an adventure in itself, built a fire and cracked a cold beer.  I was sawing logs by 10pm and up again at 5:00 to hit the wild trout section below Hangmans.  I was on the wate4r a little before 6am and started nymphing some likely looking spots.  After a few selections I finally hooked up on a pheasant tai (small 10 inch fish)l but that was the sum total of my success until about 9am when the sun got on the water and the dry fly action began.

There were a few rises here and there but nothing hatching that I could see so I tried a big size 12 Royal Wulff and got another couple of small fish.  Changed over to a size 12 October Caddis and fish started hitting it, but they were so small most of them couldn'ty get their mouths open wide enough to bite on it!  By about 1:30pm I had about 8 small fish and had to work hard for each of them.  I tied on a big parachute adams for the last hour ahnd had a great time tempting one small fish that seemd hell bent on killing my fly by wrestling it to death.  It jumped over the fly, body slammed it, hammered it half a dozen times before I finall hooked him.  Fought like a little demon too.

Great fun, beautiful scenery and even caught sight of a bald eagle.

Saturday morning I headed to the popular stocked section of the river above the Carson River resort to see if there were any bigger fish around.  Again I was on the water before 6am and found a nice hole that looked fishy and tied on a tungsten cone head bugger.  As I was flipping out the fly to get the leader clear of the guides a 20 inch fish hit the fly and I was on.  5 minutes later it was in the net. A big fat hatchery fish. Within the first hour I had a dozen fish in the net the biggest 24 inches and they were absolute hogs, but had zero fight in them.  Dead weight on the end of my line for the most part.  At one point as the sun was beginning to hit the water and i stripped the fly out of the shadows into the sunlight, I counted 6 fish chasing it, 2 of them over 20 inches.

I got bored after a while stripping and tried a big hopper but they weren't interested so I tied on a muddler and again hooked up first cast.  I had to put on some split shot to get this fly down to the bottom of the hole but the fish didn't care they hit it every cast almost and sometimes before I even began stripping.

By 9:30 I had 29 fish in less than 3 hours, 4 of them over 22 inches, and I was done.  Of the total catch I think 2 were wild fish judging by the fight they put up, the rest had been put in the river probably the day before.  There were 3-4 large dead fish at the bottom of the hole that probably didn't survive the plant.

I caught the four biggest fish I've hever had on a fly and more fish than my last 10 trips combined, but it wasn't all that enjoyable to be honest.  There's no sport in hauling big dumb fish out of a river when they'd probably rather be in your net than that weird place with moving water and no 3 squares a day.

I know someone else posted a similar story about the same river and my reaction was "what? you're complaining about catching fish????" but now that I've had the same experience I understand where he was coming from.  It was catching not fishing.  I felt a little guilty and happily ceeded the hole to the bait dunkers who descended on me and started casting almost over my head....seriously some people have no manners whatsoever.

I took one hog back to camp that had to weigh nearly 7lbs.  Little tiny head with a scuffed up snout, and a huge bloated body.  Tasted good cooked on a campfire and fed 4 adults and 4 kids and maybe even a bear judging by the noise that came from the camp dumpster at 3am.

When I go back next year I'll be sticking to the wild trout section.  I had more fun stalking those little 10 inch fish than I had hooking the 24 inch planters, hands down.

We drove past that hole yesterday on our way to Ebbets Pass and there were literally 20 people fishing a 30 yard run.  I'd bet its empty of fish today.

-- Edited by Bob Loblaw on Monday 30th of July 2012 12:11:45 PM