Didn't see another fishing thread in this subforum so I'm assuming talking about non fly-fishing is ok as well.

I went trout fishing last week and it was pretty relaxing, enjoyable and fun so I'm concidering taking up the hobby. The available rods, reels and so forth are a tad bit overwhelming. I enjoyed trolling the most [insert joke here] so that's what I want to do mostly in local lakes containing trout.

I really don't know if brands tend to be global or local so dunno how helpfull a mostly US audience can really be but here's the rod+reel I have in mind, budget roughly 70+70 Euro tops.

Rod: Really dunno, currently looking at Exori Trout Project (the Sensitip-X looks good) stuff and Balzer (Diablo VI) and maybe Shimano. Probably ~3m
Reel: Tica Dynaspin (GH2000)

FWIW I used Power Bait and galleria mellonella maggots last time and want to stick with that.

Pretty much any info would be appreciated

Rods I think can be pretty localized and you shouldn't have trouble finding a solid, graphite rod basically anywhere in the world. Reels--for niche applications there may be "better" reels (a lot of it is in the eye of the beholder) but you will be hard-pressed to go wrong with Shimanos. They have fantastic customer service as well. I sent in two of my Sustain spinning reels last year ($30 charge per reel) and they sent me back one brand new one, and put brand new gears/bearings into the other. I would say they have flat out replaced over 10 reels for me; all for the same service fee for reel. I have a few Daiwas that I really like as well and there are plenty of good brands but Shimano makes a good reel and stands behind it.

Fish story:

Hit a couple of different spots on the Truckee yesterday. Started off downstream from the town of Hirschdale...interesting spot. I drive an AWD vehicle and almost got stuck in this little access dirt road that leads to the railroad tracks. Hooked and lost one small trout, and then the rafters came by.

Went upstream to an area off of Glenshire Road (there's a private rail crossing labeled for foot traffic only). I got to this spot



and was trying to work a two-nymph rig behind the big rock on the right. As soon as it straightened out downstream, a nice fish comes up and hammers the trail nymph (I actually saw it). Felt good, but it went deep, gave a couple of head shakes, and gone.

Different fish story:

West Carson today, very low, very spooky fish, and didn't get a strike.

Ran out to the East Carson and found myself at the head of a deep hole...finally success! This guy put up a spirited fight where I actually had to chase it downstream a bit.

your getting the hang of nevada trout fishing. the fish are in tough spots or they have been caught already. you have to work for them but there are lots of big ones.

the rivers are so pretty even when skunked you have fun.

in summer real early or real late is best.

big browns after dark.

Beautiful fish man!

I got out last weekend and actually threw the fly rod a bit. Found some bonito in close and chased them around for a bit before they got all scattered. They were pounding the glass minnows and moving pretty fast so it was kind of hectic trying to get shots at the fish. Ended up catching two smaller guys around 4-5lbs and hooked one big one prob 12+ that I pulled the hooks on after it had a ****ton of backing out. Had a few more strikes too where the fish just whiffed on my fly and caught a couple spanish mackerels as well. I got a GoPro and have been fiddling with it some. Here's a short little video of the boneheads (forgive the rap muzak!).

LOL my only contact with bonito (besides the sushi bar) was trying to get them on live anchovies under a float off a pier in SoCal 100 years ago. 4-5 lbs would have been a monster there, most were probably in the 14"-16" range.

Sheesh, hoodies and shades for fishing as well as poker?

thats where poker players get the idea from. its all about trying to catch fish.

Got skunked on the East Carson and Truckee over the last couple of days...there had been some thunderstorm activity a few days prior and apparently there was a mudslide on CA-4 that caused the East Carson to be high and off-color.

I'd mentioned a trout drive-by on the Truckee before where I was fishing a nymph rig under a white yarn indicator and the fish batted the indicator. This time, it actually gave it a taste! I'd like to publish a fish story where the yarn got tangled in its teeth and I ended up landing a fish, but none of that happened.

This happened when the indicator was waterlogged and just below the surface, so this would call for something like a white wooly bugger, yes? (don't have one, but might pick up a couple). I've used beige and green indicators in other parts of the river and have never seen anything like this before.

try fishing a muddler with a white head if you can find one , the work especially for browns.

that fish might have just hit the white thinking it was a moth

Heading to Glacier/Waterton after Labor Day - no concrete plans for fishing yet, but will try to work some in in between sightseeing/hiking.

pm me when you get here if you have free time. if im in town i may be able to take you out fishing or at least tell you where to go hiking ,fishing, eating etc, i am in kalispell.

^^^^ If you go up there, seek this man out!

Thanks, Ray, for all the recommendations! The river/creek fishing I was able to get in didn't work out too well, and the trail closures early on in the trip kept us out of Avalanche Lake (due to smoke) and Hidden Lake (due to bear activity).

Fortunately, later on, both opened up. We did an evening hike up to Avalanche Lake where I was finally able to get into some small but spirited Westslope Cutthroats that were feeding on the surface. This is a representative of the 5 or 6 that I landed before we headed back down.




Yesterday, our last day in the park, we walked down to Hidden Lake (500' up from the visitors' center, then 700' down to the lake ) I'm going to reprint an excerpt from a PM here without permission, hopefully Ray doesn't mind:

I tried stuff with orange in the pattern (October caddis/stimulator types) yellow, the mosquito-colored Adams that was working at Avalanche, all to no avail. Sometimes the fish, large and small, would angle up to take a peek, then maybe even swirl around, sometimes they would ignore it entirely. It was very nerve-wracking, but also very exciting! Too bad I couldn't interest one of them in what I was selling.





















On the way out, there was a family of mountain goats grazing by one of the waterfalls, perfect end to the trip.


Thanks again Ray!

great trip for you. glad it worked out so well. lots of trails get closed for bears so you get to go where they let you. happy you saw a bunch of bears in the wild. they are fun to see.
shortly after you arrived i set off for oregon to go surfing and crabbing. did well at both.

come back up again and this time meet me for lunch or something.

Absolutely - and please shoot me a pm when you're in the bay area and I'll try and get to wherever you're playing and buy you a drink (since I know Diablo is buying you dinner...)

Bound and determined to get one of these truckee monsters to net...still no luck. Almost had a heart attack today when I'm casting and real close by, upstream, out of my field of vision, there's an enormous splash. I thought there was no way it was a fish, and though maybe it was a piece of falling tree or someone was walking the embankment way above me and screwing around.

Sun starts going down and there's October caddis in the air, but the only fish I see rising are tiny and I can't interest any of them. Move upstreamand SPLASH again. Still can't see the source but I start throwing an elk hair caddis along a promising looking stretch, then right next to me SPLASH, I finally see it's a big beaver (and not in a good way )

Little guy this morning at Hirschdale on a baetis emerger. Barely saw the indicator move - makes me wonder what else I've been missing

your getting the hang of it. remember the big browns are caught best at dark or early morning.
fish will be starting to spawn around now. so the browns will move upstream and be in holes and outer bends in the river. throw a big streamer like a spruce fly at the bank and strip in.

so i'm living up in ithaca now. found some other guys and basically going fishing for the first time on wednesday. headed up to the salmon river which apparently is going to be pretty insane from the googling i have done. seems like lots of fish and lots of *******s. at any rate, i will be happy just to see some fish and put a bend in the rod. been too long. and i don't have a damn clue how to fish for these fish either but i'm just gonna watch and try and follow what others are doing.

bought some waders also, eek, it's gonna be cold!

Hope it all went well! I've never really been in a combat fishing situation. Even in the midst of a salmon run at the Pacifica Pier, my dad and I would stay on the periphery (which probably limited our chances, but who would want to mix in with that chaos?)

I love the pacifica pier . When in the bay area I go there most days and hang out and eat a sandwich from Colombo's deli.
This year I will be surfing at linda mar beach

fishing trip on wednesday was a lot of fun. i had really no idea what to expect so came into it thinking it would be fun whatever happened and hoped to catch a couple of fish.

from all the chatter it seemed we were on pretty much the tail-end of the salmon run (but apparently steelhead should be happening in next couple weeks) but there were still a lot of fish there. we fished the 'upper fly zone' part of the river so it was a little emptier and for the first 1.5 hrs i actually had a really beautiful stretch of the river all to my self.

it took some getting used to to try and mend the line and get the drift reasonably decent looking so i def was not getting as many bites as other people (tho i did get more than some!). the first fish i hooked up was a pretty lively king salmon that gave me a few runs and i fought it for ~5 minutes before i busted it off using 12lb tippet. after that i had a bit of a dry spell but got another taker and was able to land it after about 10-12 minutes. i think the fish was a shade over 20lbs--another guy took some pics so i am waiting on him to email me those--and was a lot of fun on a 7wt w/ 12lb tippet.

i had a pretty slow afternoon and managed to catch one more in the afternoon that was prob closer to 16-18lbs but was a lot of fun as the water was running a little faster in that spot.

towards the end of the afternoon i was working on my drifts and trying to fish a nymph in fast water and, to my utter amazement, i actually had a chinook take the fly. it jumped prob 5-6 times and i am guessing was around 24" or so. significantly smaller than the others but it was maybe the most enjoyable of the fish i hooked into since i was trying to work on my technique and actually got an eater. it was really fast moving water and the fish jumped and ran a lot so i got some pretty fun play in.

all in all, i had a fantastic time. it was a really long day--got up at 4am and got home at 9pm--but def worth it. i think i will head back up in a couple weeks to try and get a shot at a steelhead. i gotta say, the salmon reminded me a lot of catching redfish. some runs, some head shake, lot of brute force.

Once you get into the steelies you will really be hooked as they fight so much better. Look for spots to catch some of the big browns

Haven't been updating, but still try to get up into the Sierras whenever possible. It was a really dry winter, so the Carsons are already pretty low. Last time I hit the West Fork, there were a whole bunch of little planted Lahontan Cutthroats. Very feisty and quick to rise to a dry, which is fun, but I wonder if they'll survive, especially when the water gets low.

Yesterday, I hit this spot in Floriston:



It's very warm right now, so I went close to evening. Golden stone trailed by a pheasant tail with one split shot to get it down and all under an indicator.

Managed a couple like this:



Also lost another two, and broke one off (It was a bad knot and not a monster). These native rainbows are so energetic, it's great fun, although I did slip and fall into (a shallow part of) the river while landing this one.

the carson is good and fun to fish being smaller and gets low and clear in the summer. the fish make it but you have to find them.