Just got done with switch/ swing week here at GGS on the Truckee River. Clinic yesterday and all week guide trips swinging flies. Awesome, because I love swinging streamers. Not necessarily the most effective way to fish the Truckee, but definitely the cool way to fish the Truckee. Anytime you can get trout to chase a streamer is a good day in my opinion. To get one on the swing with the switch is icing on the cake.
See most folks have a switch rod these days, but a lot of people don’t know how to use it. Thing is a spey cast if just a glorified roll cast with 2 hands. That’s it. Sweep your rod back a bit, get a nice D loop and cast. The late great Bill Lowe used to day, sweep a d and go. Once you figure that out, skys the limit. It’s fun to bomb casts to the other bank with no effort. There’s also a lot of confusion with lines. If you want to fish streamers with tips on the Truckee, get a Skagit line, period. The trouts got the upper hand this week on the swing, but that’s ok, the water is still cold.
Nymphing wise is always producing- 365 days a year here. Put a nymph in a nose of a Truckee River trout and chances are you’ll get bite. Like I say swing through a run and see if you can get that one pissed off fish to chase, if not, nymph back up on that run. Tight lining, indo, dry dropper, don’t really matter as long as you get a good drift. Fish are eating nymphs. Fishing for mid-winter is way above average because we aren’t really even having winter anywhere in the Sierras.
Looking like our Pyramid Lake clinic may be sold out unless someone cancels. Forecast for the lake this week is for a good east wind to blow. That could equal good fishing for the clinic. We’ll probably do a few more this spring.