I took five days to trophy hunt in northern California. The Truckee river left me with a bittersweet taste after losing what would have been my personal best brown trout. Kypezilla has been on my mind ever since. Those 20+ inches of copper colored scales, butter yellow fins and belly, kyped out jaw… yeah that big buck has haunted me ever since.
The clouds gray and ominous driving northbound. I was out of the loop of the wildfire situation in the greater Tahoe region. Work has had me in zombie mode and tunnel vision of the Truckee river from when I last remembered it, was all that I could see. National weather warnings interrupted the dull beats of modern country music, all that would come in frequency driving through rural California. Stubborn as I am, I still had my sights locked on the river, smoke and all. Only the grim reaper would be able to pry my flaming charred hands away from kypezilla.
The Donner pass looked like a highway to hell. A caravan of Oregon firefighters blazed passed, disappearing into the smokey horizon. I was told that approximately 3,000 firefighters were trying to pacify the fire. I probably should have turned around and headed to the Trinity river. As the Truckee river came into sight, I immediately realized this is not the river that I once remembered. Car sized boulders were denuded from the river, flows were low enough to make sections a stillwater fishery. I knew there were sections of massive elevation change and rapids still had to exist. I gave myself two days to figure it out.
I battled it out day after day. Stripping streamers, dead drifting crays, everything that made sense for the time of year. Crayfish were molting in the slow runs and I figured the big browns would be feasting on lobster dinner. I worked a section methodically, swimming my rabbit strip streamer in between the boulders. Electricity. The line went tight and my streamer was hammered by a hog. As usual I failed to seal the deal and everything went limp.
Frustrated and ready to throw in the towel. I called upon the Obi Wan Kenobi of the Truckee river. I met BigFly on the LT a few years back. Ever since, I check in with him every now and then to see how the river is doing. One of these day's i'll be lucky enough to get out on the water with him. After a lengthy conversion, he steered me in the right direction and I was on my vise tying up some new patterns. Think smallish caddis pupae, the type that hatch in October. Only once have I seen this magnificent hatch while on the Deschutes river in central Oregon. It is a bug that can nearly match the massive salmon fly in size. After tying a handful, I headed downriver to give it a run.
I began working one of my favorite runs and immediately began getting grabs on the caddis nymphs. A few in the 14" range and 16" rainbow. Still not the monsters I was searching more, my thirst was not yet quenched. The sun was setting low on the ridge and a few locals were sitting on a big hole about 50 yards from me. As the light faded to dark, the locals set their beer cans aside and pulled out their fly rods from the truck. They gave me a cold one and watched them throw mouse patterns at the edge of a submerged log. It didn't take long before I saw my first trout blow up on a mouse. I was shaking with unrelenting energy. I wanted to experience this myself. I called my fishing buddy Charles to help me devise a game plan. As always the plan gets sucked into a vortex by paranormal forces beyond my power. The next day, winds were up at the crack of dawn and smoke was about as heavy as it could be. The Truckee was left in my rear view mirror and hopes of that big brown was to be saved for another day. I'll be back.
My last hope of a two handed grip n grin was to drive north. The Trinity flows were up in the 3000 cfs and just recently lowered to 450. Ideal flows for this river and steelhead for sure would have made it up this tributary. I followed the pale light set between a funnel of black clouds. Rain began pouring and lightening flashes set off like paparazzi on the red carpet. One disaster into the next. Long story short, I got a short sweet taste of chrome. Its going to be a long lonely winter with a cold dim light waiting for me at the end of the tunnel.
