East Carson Report

[cdevine]

Got out to the EC today and literally didn't see a sign of human life. If you can hike I suggest it. Walked about 5 miles of the river and the anchor ice and snow is all gone. The river is in perfect condition. 140 CFS with clear water but the clouds and rain today helped give it a touch of color. I haven't fished it much since the drought. No doubt it took a beating like many of our freestones. But the good news is I caught a handful of 8-11 inch fish which equates to a couple years meaning they spawned successfully and we should see some bigger fish in the next few years.

Small size 22 BWO came off around noon today. No sippers. Kicked over a ton of rocks looking for bugs. midges and baetis is about it. Water is very cold. 42 degrees. Large plunge pools and tail outs are your areas to target. Find a fish and there are a few more. I was able to land 2 nice size rainbows on 5x. Nice to see some of the big ones made it... It was just a really good day fishing. Cloudy, muggy, rain..... Game on. Don't bother bringing streamer rod. I did and it sat on the bank. Too cold. Midges are bet.

Speaking of weather. Heading to Kirkwood with kiddos sunday. forecasting 8-12 inches of snow tonite but man it felt warm to me. Monsoonal. Maybe at 9-10k...

Pray for that storm window..
137781377913780

[EricO]

Great report CD. I haven't fished the East Carson in prolly 10 years. Probably
because it's one of the more fickle rivers for flows..timing is everything. 42 degrees
is bitter to the hands!

Good to know they are still in there.

There's a bigger storm rolling in Monday, but looks like
a warm one unfortunately. Truckee area is slated for rain.
Bummer!

Eric

[cdevine]

Thx Eric. It's really good for kids in the summer who are learning to fly fish because they plant it heavily above hangman. My kids have gone a few times and do pretty good. The truckee is pretty tough for the young ones. Heck it still kicks most of our rears time to time. EC is also a good river to practice on because it's pretty wide and not a lot of trees and stuff. 10 plus years ago it was a much better fishery than it is today though. The bait guys beat it up bad. I still hike into wolf creek and fish some of those areas. Good small creek stuff.

Snow is thin... up at kirkwood and you have to get to 7500-8000 or so. Sierra at Tahoe looks like dirt. Need this storm to come in a few degrees cooler. Need that snowpack.

[Fly Guy Dave]

The EC was one of my favorite rivers for a long time. The best fishing is WAY down from Hangmans. The drought and the fire that happened a few years back really hurt things, though. Warm and low water wasn't good for the fish and the silt that washed down from the hills after the fire covered up a lot of the spawning areas. I finally fished the EC this last fall and saw very few fish, a lot of silt and zero fry swimming along the margins of the river, which I always saw in the past. It looks like the river needs time to recover before it will be anywhere close to how good it was in the past. Still, I like to see that people are still getting a few out of there. Thanks for the report.

[cdevine]

Fly Guy- It was a great fishery years ago. Good point about that fire. They had a lot of debris flowing into the river as that area got really scared.

If you walk a long way into the canyon I think you can get into some nice fish. I put my work in but I got a couple good ones. But with that said the fish count pre mile is way down. I believe summer of 2015 was worse of the drought for our sierra streams (if memory serves me correctly) and we are just into 2018 right now. The EC got so boney and hot during that period. The recovery is 2+ years or so old. We need another 2+ good years to see some big progress.

But overall it was a great day and its a stunning area.

[OceanSunfish]

The EC was one of my favorite rivers for a long time. The best fishing is WAY down from Hangmans. The drought and the fire that happened a few years back really hurt things, though. Warm and low water wasn't good for the fish and the silt that washed down from the hills after the fire covered up a lot of the spawning areas. I finally fished the EC this last fall and saw very few fish, a lot of silt and zero fry swimming along the margins of the river, which I always saw in the past. It looks like the river needs time to recover before it will be anywhere close to how good it was in the past. Still, I like to see that people are still getting a few out of there. Thanks for the report.

In addition, the EC ran at 5K for awhile last Winter too. The high water mark in the upper section was very evident all Summer and impressive. I'm sure a lot of stuff was transported to Nevada!

Nonetheless, it's my understanding that such sediment from forest fires also replenished the waterway with nutrients that promote healthy aquatic life. We'll just give it time.......

As an aside, I wonder how many of the large and impressive planted fish (privately supplied, not CA fish) put in late last Fall and survived the 'meat lines' got push down into the far lower section.

[Fly Guy Dave]

Yeah, these kinds of things take time and there are natural cycles of boom and bust that occur. I was nice to fish that river when it was on one of its "up" times.

My understanding is that most (if not all) of the rainbows that are planted in the EC are triploid and cannot reproduce on their own. I have also heard rumblings that CFW planted lahontan cutts in there as well that could reproduce. I have indeed caught a few cutts out of there, but most were way upstream, near where Wolf Creek flows in. I did catch one way downstream, where I usually caught mostly rainbows and an occasional brown. The fishing down in the wild section is much different than in the catch and keep section upstream from Hangmans, a section I seldom fish.

Yeah, things will get better, but I miss how good the fishing was a few years back (and before).

[cdevine]

I wouldn't be surprised if a few of those bigger fish got pushed down and survived. But the survival rate on triploid fish is very low in a wild fishery. It amazes me when NDOW does surveys how few of the planted species they find and they stock the crap out of Truckee in NV for example. (town)

I only fish above Hangman with my kids. I've have ran into some "interesting" people up there during that time. Always willing to give me tips on fishing. Tips I didn't really ask for if you know what I mean... ha ha....

Lets just hope people continue to practice good C&R and we get winter precipitation that keeps our rivers flowing. In time she will be back. The remoteness of that river in the canyon will keep 90% of the anglers away.