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Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Team USA qualifer Reno

This past weekend was the Reno regional qualifier for the Team USA National Championships. We fished the lower Truckee through town and Pyramid Lake. Lots of great anglers came out from all over the country to sample some of our local waters.
Day one started out with me on the River. In the AM i got to fish the same water i had fished two years ago in the Cutthroat Classic. We started at 9am and It took an hour or so for the river to turn on. By 10ish the fish started biting. I went two fish landed out of 7 hooked. Had trouble keeping fish on using small flies. The biggest fish of the morning bent my hook. This beautiful rainbow didn't count for me because by the time i got it in, it had spit my primary fly and snagged on the dropper. At the end of Beat 1 all i had on the board was a 12 inch white fish.

A cool little Mink came trotting along my beat on the side of the river.
John Stanley was my controller for the morning session.
In the afternoon i was further up on the river in Beat 1. I was one of the only competitors who fished a streamer in the comp. This beautiful rainbow grabbed a sculpin pattern within the first 15 minutes.
After covering the water with a streamer i went back to nymphing and managed to pull out this bright buck. Great take and long hard fight.

My controller Dan and i had to jump through some hoops to get to the good water at the other side of the river.
My last fish landed was this nice 22 inch rainbow. Went 3 for 3 on the second heat.
Day 2 put me at Pyramid Lake. It was cold windy and overcast in the a.m. I fished hard in the first heat but got blanked at Separator Beach. There were only two fish caught in our entire group that session.

The afternoon session was at Indian Head. I managed to pull in this fat 2 foot LCT within the first ten minutes. Got him on a good old black wolly bugger. Just grinding it out with cast and strip cast and strip. A few other fish were caught this session but i think this guy was the biggest. It was good enough to put me in number one for that heat.
Over all it was a great weekend. Lots of nice fish were caught and it was great to see some old friends and make some new ones too. I ended up placing 5th overall and qualified for the National Championships in Bend later this summer. Big thanks to Doug Ouelette and Mike Sexton for helping so much in putting this event on, The Truckee River Fly Fishers club and also to all the other folks who volunteered and donated their time to making this event a great success.

1 comment:

El Pescador said...

nice job mw. congrats on qualifying and good luck in the next comp.!