Posts Tagged ‘wooly bugger january best bug for rainbow’

What an unbelievable day it was at the club.  I arrived at 1pm and the temp was in the mid to upper 60′s and the flows were at 1385 cfs.  I decided to head down towards Cathedral and wet wade.  Shorts & t-shirt, wet wading in the middle of January…unreal!  Only in California!  The approach to the Bear Tunnel needs a some clearing but is accessible.  I started fishing where the bypass tributary dumps into the main river just above the Grey Eagle Riff.  I was using an orange GloBug with a trailing Hairs Ear.  Nothing.  I headed down to the pool below Grey Eagle Riff and change my set up…nothing.  I went down to Cathedral…nothing.   I put on a brown beadhead Wooly Bugger…still nothing.  I headed back to the lake after a couple hours of working the river pretty good and was ready to accept the fact that I’ve landed nothing.   Once back at the car, I opened a nice cold Stella and headed over to the rocks at the end of the tunnel.  I noticed that the river had dropped and the flows were at about 550 cfs.  I was able to get down on the rocks close to the water, casted my brown Wooly Bugger up into the tunnel and began to strip slowly down stream…boom, got a bite!  The next cast was up into the tunnel again and closer to the right ledge as you look up into the tunnel.  I began to strip the Wooly Bugger down steam and WhaaBoom!…It was a nice fighter at the beginning but then got pretty sluggish quickly.  I landed a nice 15″ Rainbow.  The next cast upstream across to the other side of the tunnel produced a 13″ Rainbow.  I hooked what felt to be at least a big as my first fish, but this time he took my brown Wooly Bugger and snapped it off!  That was my only beadhead brown Wooly Bugger!  I actually saw a rise and started to through some small BWO’s…nothing more.  Time to get another beer.  I’ve landed my January trout!  I’m looking forward to a great year.  A great day of fishing at the club!

Fish on,

Bob Schardt