Opening day on the rivers has come and gone, with me too busy trolling for trout on the lakes to even break out my waders and brush up on my fly techniques for the upcoming season. Having finally found some good spring brown trout action on Tahoe, you can understand why I put off river fishing. I've come down with a touch of the brown trout fever lately you see, inflamed by reports that anglers getting into Stampede Reservoir for the first few weeks since the road was plowed were enjoying a great bite for browns in the shallows. By the time I showed up though, the quickly rising lake level had shut down the shoreline bite, and my efforts in two trips resulted in a total of four brown trout from twelve to eighteen inches in length, along with rainbows, mackinaw and some pot-bellied smallmouth bass up to four pounds. Both the browns and the smallies hit AC Skinny plugs trolled fast in less than fifteen feet of water, and before you brand me as a true brown trout snob, let me say that it was hard to be disappointed with these big, powerful bass! They provide a double thrill in the murky water of Stampede; first when you feel them take a screaming run against lightly-set drag on trout gear, then again when you see a fat, copper-colored fish beneath the boat: "Nice brown! Um... I mean, smallmouth! Aw what the hell, nice catch!"

A few guys have been catching the big browns on this lake by fishing kokanee imitation lures offshore around the schools of small landlocked salmon, but this has not worked for me so far, though I can catch kokanee at will on a gold Vance's dodger with a nightcrawler. My last slow 'trophy trout' trip finally convinced me to start thinking about dialing in my other local fisheries in preparation for the busy summer guiding season. Then, just as my thoughts turned to high-water fly fishing techniques on the East and West Carson, high water rose to flood stage due to recent torrential rains and snowmelt.

So where can a fly angler go to fish moving water when the freestone streams blow out in spring? In a word- tailwaters. Okay, so my Microsoft Works spell check doesn't think it's a word, but that's just because the people working for Bill Gates don't get out and go fishing enough. A tailwater is a river with flows regulated by releases from a dam upstream, and one of my favorites is the Little Truckee between Stampede and Boca Reservoirs near Truckee, California. Sure, this river could blow out any time at the whim of water managers, but for now the flows out of Stampede dam are quite reasonable, having held around 130 CFS (cubic feet per second) for the last few weeks, and just in the last 24 hours dropping even lower, to 78 CFS (go to usgs.gov to see current flows on your favorite river). My friend Aaron Fox fished this creek recently and emailed me some great photos from his trip. He caught good numbers of wild rainbows in the 14 to 16 inch range on a size 18 black Copper John nymph, then he tied on a streamer and stripped it quickly through a large pool, where it was chased and crushed by a brown trout of close to five pounds! I enjoyed similar success a few days later, catching numerous rainbows from 12 to 20 inches, along with one 17 inch brown. My hot rig was a beadhead woolly bugger with a micro-egg trailer fly, bounced along the bottom on a dead drift under a strike indicator. Other productive subsurface flies here include San Juan worms and midge and baetis imitations (little black and olive nymphs, for the entymologically challenged). While I caught all my fish deep, I also saw some good trout rising sporadically to eat March browns; a size 14 mayfly dry with a reddish-brown body should get some attention from these risers.

Although it holds a lot of good fish, the Little Truckee doesn't always give them up easily; there are a few big pools and obvious holding areas, but there are also a lot of slow, meadow sections with more subtle current-seams that can leave a beginner scratching his head ("Where are the fish?"), and though these trout will often respond eagerly to attractor pattern flies, at other times they can be quite finicky; if you don't have the correct size 22 midge imitation, you may be frustrated. This river is also where I first learned the value of a good strike indicator in detecting gentle takes, but though the bite can be quite dainty, the fight from a Little Truckee wild trout is just the opposite- these boys are hot! Expect leaps, light-speed downstream runs and fish that seem to know how to wrap your leader around any available stick, root or rock. What's that you say, you're coming down with brown trout fever? While there is no known cure for this affliction, I prescribe a trip to the Little Truckee to ease your symptoms. The Little Truckee below Stampede Reservoir is a wild trout fishery, with catch-and-release restrictions. No bait, no barbs!

Next, in response to the large volume of email I receive from readers looking for answers to some of life's biggest questions (like how to catch more trout), I've decided to add a Dear Weezy section to my column for this publication, so let's kick it off with these reader questions-
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Hey Mark,
I am curious about moon phases. Do you follow these, and if you do how well do they work for you. I thank you.
Josh Tyson

Hey Josh,
Yes, I follow the moon phases, and I only like to fish on the full moon, new moon, half and quarter moon, or when it's waxing or waning between these phases. Can you see where I'm going with this? If you worry too much about a 'bad moon rising', you might go fishing less, and we can't have that now, can we? If you're asking if I've noticed anything about how the moon phase affects my fishing, the one trend I've found is that on a full or near full moon, early morning fishing can be slow, I believe because the fish feed by the light of the moon, then sleep in after all that late night partying. The good thing is that they then perk up and go on a good bite in the late morning or early afternoon. I just had this experience on Lake Tahoe last week, where the bite was slow at dawn, then improved greatly by noon, when I caught four mackinaw to seven pounds in less than an hour, topline trolling dodgers and minnows. So go fishing and forget the moon, unless it's full, in which case you may want to sleep in like the fish, then hit the water later in the morning.

Hey Weez, I am a newbie tenderfoot to fly fishing, what the heck is a shooting head, how is it used, and what fish can it be used for?
Thanks
Randy Fishing

Hey Randy,
That newbie tenderfoot thing sound painful- you ought to get it looked at. A shooting head system consists of the head, which is typically 24 to 30 feet of fly line, connected to a thin 'running line', typically 100 feet or so in length. The head can be floating or sinking, and the running line can be made of monofilament or low-diameter, level (non-tapered) fly line material. These two sections are normally joined with a loop-to-loop connection, so the shooting head can be easily removed and you can switch to a different head (say, one with a faster sink rate) as needed. This system was developed by West coast steelhead anglers to achieve extreme casting distance, thus the name- the shooting head 'shoots' out and pulls the thin running line, allowing further casts than with a conventional fly line. Shooting heads should be used in conjunction with a stripping basket which holds the running line loosely at the angler's waist, so it can be easily 'shot' as the angler casts. What do you fish for with a shooting head? Anything that swims, but particularly fish in big rivers and lakes where casting distance and deep-sinking capabilities are important. Oh, and if you're a beginner, you don't need one.

Hi Weez,
I prefer trolling for trout and wonder if there's a good system for picking the right color lure for the season.
Jadefa

Jadefa,
It's considered bad etiquette to use white lures after Labor Day. And horizontal stripes make your lure look fat. Seriously, I don't change lure colors by the season, but according to depth, water clarity, light conditions and forage species in a given lake. Here are some general guidelines:

-Natural colored lures (gold, silver, rainbow trout pattern) are best for clear water, while crazy patterns like fire tiger often excel in murky water.

-For dodgers and flashers, go with silver in clear water and sunny days, and try gold on overcast days or in green lakes.

-Going deep? Try greens, blues and chartreuse. When we troll super-deep on Tahoe, white and glow-in-the-dark can also be productive.

-Strangely enough, dark purple and even black lures can work well on very dark days or at night. Go get 'em!
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Thanks to everyone else who sent in questions as well; I will answer some more in my next article!

Until Next Time!
Mark (Never Stand In A Canoe) Wiza
Pro Staff for AC Plugs and Pro-Cure Bait Scents
Email Me!

Mark Wiza is a licensed fishing guide offering a variety of highly educational fishing trips in the Tahoe area. Call Tahoe Fly Fishing Outfitters toll-free at 877-541-8208 or Email Mark for details.