Happy Halloween

To all you ghouls out there.

Mark

The Naked Lady Scores

If you've followed my blog for any length of time you know I have this affinity for things with odd names. Example, Bray Vineyards (here locally) has a wine called Brayzin Hussy Red.  I did a post on this Vineyard and wine.

A while ago I came across a fly called the Red Naked Lady. After red there are seven other colors and who knows where you can go from there. A simple fly to tie. It has a hook (duh), a bead (another duh), thread to match the color you want (more duhs), and floss to match.

Doesn't take a Rocket Scientist to figure out how to tie it. Wrap some thread, tie on some floss, and wrap the thread over the floss. 

So what's the big story? Again, as you know, I've been inducted into the Amador Flyfishers (no secret handshake or ritual blood letting ceremony) and now I'm invited to all the cool fishing expeditions.

A week ago Saturday a few of the guys were heading up to Heenan Lake for some Cutthroat fishing and I met them at Cooks Station (you know the place) for breakfast.

I had other things on my plate that day, but here's what happened:

We met Mark Kautz and three naked ladies for breakfast at Cook's Station. When we arrived, the naked ladies were laying on the table. We were thinking this was the beginning of a magnificent fishing trip.
We eventually got on the water and started fishing just before 10am. Dennis picked up his first fish (a Lahontan ~18 inches) within 5 minutes of launching his float tube from the weedy area near the boat ramp. The fish took a prince nymph fished on a (Type 6?) sinking line. For a lake where fly anglers normally average .48 fish per hour, this seemed like a great start, but it would be Dennis' only fish of the day. We clung to the curved western shore of the lake, working our way around points and through little bays, fishing ~50-100 feet from shore. Dennis' fish finder marked fish at all sorts of depths, from 2-10' deep.
Fishing was slow for Ron all morning, but starting at noon he started "getting some action" with the naked ladies. For the record, Ron was fishing a 5 weight type 3 full sinking line with a two-fly rig tied with 4X tippet: the upper fly was a size 12-14 bead head Prince Nymph or red Naked Lady, with the trailing fly being size 8-10 brown mohair leech (or Hale Bopp leech with a rust-colored marabou tail). The retrieve style alternated between a repeated and syncopated stripping retrieve of 2-5 inches each. From 12:00-1:15, Ron picked up three cutthroats (24", 16", and 23"). Two of the fish fell for the naked lady (who wouldn't?), while the third fish took the Hale Bopp leech. He also had a really nice fish break off on a Hale Bopp leech; the token "one that got away". Around 2:45pm, Ron picked up a 4th cutthroat (21") on a Hale Bopp. Both Dennis and Ron also had a few missed grabs between 11:00-2:00.
The afternoon winds were pretty bad and kept us pinned to the western shoreline. Fed up with wind knots and tangles we worked our way back to the boat ramp and left around 4:30pm. Special thanks for this trip goes to Mark Kautz, who provided the Naked Ladies!

I've got to tell you, when I gave the 3 flies to Ron I didn't know if they would work or not because I never tried them. All I knew was that the guys over at American Fly Fishing Company in Sacramento said at Heenan fish something red at about 10 feet. Guess they were right.   

Red Naked Lady

So that's the story of the Red Naked Ladies.

Mark