On Monday morning there was only one car at the bridge parking area by the restroom. Wanting to see new water, I hiked the trail from the bridge to the gaging station below Markleeville Creek. For years I have searched Carson Valley for evidence of its prehistoric inhabitants, from the protohistoric Paiutes back to the Paleolithic hunters of 10,000 years ago. As I walked along, my eyes darted back and forth, searching for telltale flakes of obsidian and jasper, evidence of campsites that were located on the ridges with the best lookouts well back from high water. I was disappointed and curious as to why I had never found an arrowhead on the river. I was surprised when I finally spotted some characteristic lithic debitage a few yards off the trail and dumbfounded that my other two trips down this trail had failed to discover the very prominent grinding rock in a small grove of pinion pines. This was an obvious Indian workstation. The large granite boulder’s surface was exposed over about a six foot length with four well-used mortar depressions for grinding the precious nuts on location. Pacing back and forth over the eroded soil between desert sage, I found a multipurpose tool of blood red jasper. It was a combination stemmed end scraper with a well-worn quarter inch semicircular notch in one side used for scraping arrow shafts of desert rose stem. I remember someone at ork asking if I ever get tired of fishing - hell, I had an uncle who went every Fall with buddies on a week long deer hunt and years later his wife found out he didn’t even own a rifle.

Tuesday found me cooking up an omelet and by mid-morning I drove my mother, Anne, and youngest son, Brandon back up Route 88 for some exploring. I wanted to check out Scotts Lake only 2.6 miles off the highway in Hope Valley. On the way, we stopped at a new parking area with restrooms just west of the 88/89 junction that has handicap access trails to two concrete fishing platforms on the West Carson River. There will be life in old age. Arriving at the lake up a dusty four-wheel drive road, we were the only people there. We enjoyed the wildlife, including a fat yellow-bellied marmot. The water was quite low and the wind more than I wanted to face in a tube so we opted for going on to Woods Lake for a picnic. Very few people were at Woods and only one other angler at the far side in a canoe. Too lazy after lunch to inflate my float tube, I practiced with my 6 wt. rod from shore, enticing a few small fish in deeper water on longest my casts.

Wednesday was blessed with much cooler temperatures so I headed in earnest to the East Fork again taking the trail to the gaging station. There was one fly fisher already working the deep pool downstream so I headed further down using a cow path through the willows. At first I worked all the fishable water, but finding myself alone on the stream, decided to just hit the deepest riffles and heads of pools. I quit counting at 10 fish brought to hand, almost all of them 8 to 10 inches. After a snack, I worked my way back to the gaging station to find the same angler just upstream still "hog hunting" with large streamers. He hadn’t caught a fish and noted he only fished for the big ones since anybody could catch little fish. I told him I’d entertain myself by skipping a few pools upstream and leave the dredging to him.

When the hog-hunter later caught up to me I could see his disappointment as I pulled a 16 inch rainbow from the fast water only a few yards above one of the deeper pools. He admitted he had not caught a single fish all day. After several more 8 to 14 inch fish I missed six takes in a row. I finally got smart and found that bouncing the fly off a rock face to achieve a short dead drift on the other side of the river had knocked the point off the fly. This little #16 Stimulator was the only fly I had fished for five hours. I tied on a fly that I made the night before. I intended to make small Stimulators but got creative, replacing the deer tail with an extended body of mustard colored ultra-chenille that I found stuck to the bottom of my vise. I also shortened up the thorax of orange angora a bit, adding two wraps of grizzly and used undersized palmered furnace hackle and fine gold wire over a Superfine dubbed body. My "Mustard Butt" proved to be deadly.

In a long run I took two nice fish and with one last cast here well below what I thought were the prime lies, a trophy rainbow greeted my fly. This fish did an abrupt turn as my fly passed, thrashing it solidly. I was sure the 5X tippet would part on the first run as the fish bolted, making three spectacular jumps upstream. It came out of the water each time like a porpoise arcing up and heading nose first back in. The line went slack and I stripped line as fast as possible as it headed back toward me. At one point he just turned sideways in the current far downstream, holding me off as if to say the game could be his at any time. This was the only time I have ever timed the battle, glancing down at my watch when I was sure the fish was firmly hooked. After six and a half minutes on my 4 wt. the fight was over and I was able to grab the rainbow by the tail with my right hand and gently extract the hook with the other, rod tucked under my arm. There was just enough time to measure his twenty-one inch length before one big thrust left my hand empty. It darted off for deeper water as vigorous as the moment it first engulfed the fly. He had not been caught... he just came over to say hello.

The following two days saw me back on the river for more of the same type of dry fly action. I did spend about an hour working the "long hole", a favorite of locals who know there will be multiple fish over 14 inches holding at the head of the run and along the cut bank at its middle. In the low water the fish had spread out more than usual and were further downstream. I coaxed six fish to hit my #10 cone head Bugger, landing only three. The upper river action centered around dodging fresh cow pies due to the local rancher putting his fence back across the water mid-week (as is allowed by the Forest Service after raft season ends) and grazing more than the usual number of cattle. There now is a well-marked opening in the fence for anglers complete with a sign made in the shape of a long fish pointing to the passage. On Thursday I discovered a large Indian, or perhaps early settler, stone three-quarter grooved axe that I carried half way back to the car. I brought it out with me on Friday. I had found, and left in-situ, a similar artifact near Martis Lake several years prior.

Saturday morning closed another great week of fishing, hiking, exploring, and artifact hunting in the Alpine County/Carson Valley areas. I hope others will try to fish it with me next August and get to experience the river mid-week. On the way home I stopped again at Silver Lake and chatted with an old timer on the warm granite slabs that drop into the north shore of the lake. As a steady wind blew off the lake, the late morning passed quickly with tales of times when the limit was 25 trout and Caples Lake had not yet been created by damming and connecting Twin Lakes. He had taken in this view of sparkling deep blue water and majestic mixed granite and volcanic rock every year for decades. I couldn’t help but notice the skeptical eyes of other bait fishers further out on the rocky point waiting to see if my rod would even get rigged up. After taking a while to rebuild my leader during our chat, the perfect moment arrived as the wind veered to my back and twenty feet of line was stripped off into the water and roll cast out. Onlookers shook their heads at my wimpy cast until more yards of line were pulled off the reel and a double-haul sent my dropper rig flying. That was my only cast of the morning and within minutes the tiny #20 Brassie was hit four feet below my hopper dropper. Bringing the vividly colored wild trout in as calmly as I could to my waiting hand in the water, the old timer nodded approval with "you don’t keep fish like that, do you?". After the release, he pulled up his stringer with three planted trout noting "that’s more than enough for our dinner". I don’t think he had bothered to bait his hook during the past hour. This was a perfect ending for my week. Now it was time to seriously drive, with maybe a stop at a shop in Lockford bearing an old plastic steer shaped sign over the door advertising "Sausage and Treats".

Join me next year in this spectacular setting! Better yet, I’ll be back for my Fall timeshare week the end of September.

Alan Fisher