Hex, Lake Almanor

Chasing Hex

by Matt

The weather this June has been the most inconsistent it’s been for a long time; hot and cold with an emphasis on hot. We are currently going on a second week of heat advisory with temperatures in the triple digits. The only way to escape hell is to move up.

It has been over three years since I’ve fished the hex hatch and my plan for my weekend was to fish Yellow Creek in the morning then skip on over to Butt Lake for the hex hatch in the evening. On my way to Yellow Creek in the morning a rock hit my oil pan causing it to break spilling oil everywhere. Luckily I had only made it about half a mile off HWY 89 and was rescued by my father-in-law. The guy at Almanor Tow who towed my car back to Quincy just happen to be Hal Janssen’s son. Small world…

With my car out of commission I borrowed my in-laws jeep to fish the Almanor hex hatch. I was out on the water by 6pm and joined a battalion of tubers. I brought two 6WTs one with Type 6 full sinking line and the other with floating line.

I brought my cheapo fish finder with me this time to figure out Geritol Cove’s depth. I found that about 20 feet off the beach area there appears to be a rapid drop off leveling off at about 33ft. The middle of the cove towards the inlet was deep at almost 40 feet. The end of the cove leveled off at around 14ft.

Fishwise the fish finder can detect fish however the LED display reads every fish the same size which helps but doesn’t. According to the cheapo fish finder all the fish were on the bottom with a rare sighting of fish in the mid-column.

Lake Almanor’s current storage is 946,340 AF which is about 72% full. The lake was looking great and now with an idea of how deep it is now I was ready to rock and roll.

You gotta fish it deep. Let it sink. I hardly ever retrieve. Get it down deep and troll it. If your line is straight down you aren’t going fast enough. Give it a few twitches every once in a while.

These are some of the strategies I overheard while fishing this evening. This deep drop trolling method works however to me it seemed a bit boring. I fished my rig like I usually do, let it sink to the bottom and make one or two strips of about two inches of line to mimic an emerging hex. I was able to get four strikes throughout the evening and landed one nice brown trout and a new species I hadn’t caught yet, a chonky brown bullhead.

Unfortunately my dry rod didn’t get to see any action. There were so many bugs coming off that the fish were most likely full by the time the duns started popping up. Although I didn’t catch a whole lot of fish this year’s hex hatch, mingling with out-of-towners and seeing others catching fish was fun. That’s all part of the hex experience.

Little Truckee River, Truckee River

Browntown, California

by Matt

It’s no secret that the Truckee River grows some of the largest river-dwelling trout in the state of California. The Truckee River is full of variable size fish, ranging from as small as 4” to as large +30”, with the real possibility of a fish-of-a-lifetime. I’ve fantasized about coming into contact with one of these massive fish for a very long time and recently made my dream a reality after releasing one of the most memorable browns I’ve ever caught.

My original plan this trip was to learn how to fish the Little Truckee River whereas it is one of the few well-known streams that I have yet to pull a fish out. The Little Truckee is defined as a technical river with its match the hatch and quality over quantity type fishing. The flows on the Little Truckee were at a solid 97CFS which appeared to be above average for this time of the year. Decent flows, good weather, what could wrong?

Fishing pressure.

Notorious for being one of the most overfished streams in the Truckee area, the Little Truckee sees a huge amount of pressure all year around. The easy accessibility, skinny water, and distance between Stampede and Boca make it ideal for a quick “wet my line for a few hours” trip.

I covered a fair bit of water in the upper lot however became discouraged when I could not find fish where they were suppose to be and found other anglers holed up in the most productive spots. Rather than waste anymore time being frustrated and not fishing I left to fish the Big Truckee River. By the time I had return to the parking lot many more people started showing up.

The Truckee River was flowing at around 500CFS below Boca and 530CFS near Floriston. I covered water and was well rewarded for my efforts. I hooked a lot of fish including three huge fish, a large rainbow and two browns that broke me off. Each of these fish bent my hook slightly which made me switch to a streamer pattern. I had three follows and got one really good grab that I held on to for dear life. Luckily I was able to land it and behold my first streamer eater brown from the Truckee River.

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