Truckee River - Mays for Days

Flows are still pretty good above and below town @ 170 cfs, it won't last forever, so fish while the fishin's good.  Today was a first in a while, a hatch I couldn't match, at least not exactly.  I think they were Mahogany Duns (rust colored thorax and abdomen) and lots of them, a pretty large mayfly (#14) that I never fish because I think the river's normally high or blown out when they hatch so I normally switch to coppers and stones in April/May.  They didn't outnumber the baetis, but I'd bet they contributed to more calories overall and fish were totally zoned in on them.

Fly Fishing Northern Nevada - The Trifecta

1 Angler, 2 Days of Fishing, 3 Bodies of Water, 4 Species of Trout.....High 5.  I had the pleasure to fish what I feel are Northern Nevada's three best fisheries in a recent spur of the moment outing.  22 hours of fishing in 2 days amongst the most beautiful bodies of water the Battle Born State has to offer.  Midges, BWOs, caddis, streamers...they all worked, but midges followed by BWOs took the day for all three waters.  A Tasmanian Rainbow below, speckles protrude well below the lateral line.

Fish were best measure by the pound.

 Magnificent Colors

Bows and a Tiger Trout stacked up and doing anything but feeding

 Bring your A game to nymph these super clear spring heads

 A healthy post spawn cutbow

Morbid obesity is the number two cause of death amongst trout....ok bullshit.

 Browns are rare in one location I was at....getting two back to back was a treat.

Super ladder and a Pyramid Lake sunrise

A little Lahontan Cutthroat, monsters are alluding me this year, you have to put in your time and I don't.

The Truckee River entering Pyramid Lake

A feisty rainbow from the Truckee River in the brown waters east of town to finish it off

Truckee River - E.O.T. (East Of Town)

 East of Town is where its at, Blue Wings are out in force and fish are keying in on them in the foam line, both on and below the surface.

Got to pound some water though, good runs are few and far between.

Truckee River - Seine Ole Situation

Did some seining and fishing over the past week, way for me to get more hall passess...take the kids with me.

They seemed to love it, at least for the first hour.

One set of child waders, 3 boys, bad ratio

I learn as much as the kids when we do this and I'm always amazed at how many insects are floating by in any given stretch or water.

The seine sample was from about a week ago.  As usually, BWO's were the dominant mayfly, but I've noticed the hatch has waned since then, could be just about done.

 Letting the kids battle one or two fish always buys some more time before they get bored, and at their age, they always get bored.

 Still seeing a few Skwalas out and about, but this too seems to be waning around Reno.

Truckee River - Keeps Producing

BWO's again, didn't see much of anything else, just BWO's.  It was cloudy all day and the hatch came on strongest after lunch.  Fish seem to be past the spawn now, they're spreading out and you have to go looking for em.  Another bad hero shot, darn reeds!

Nice Vista just west of town

 This male was totally spawned out and thin as a rail.

Truckee River - Blue Wings

Today was all about Blue Wings, I did see some Skwalas but there is a crazy BWO hatch from 1-4.  Water got cold again since the last front so mid day is when fish are most active.   Check this guy out, almost pure cutty.  Damn reed, messed up my hero shot.

Check out One-Eye Willie, but don't feel too bad, he had no problem gorging on BWOs and had a pot belly to boot.

Truckee River - March Update

Played hooky from work for an afternoon session, only wish I had more time on the water, fish are active on 70 degree days in March.  Be careful, many of the bows are getting with it right about now, full spawn mode.  Several redds spotted from Verdi to downtown Reno.  You'll have to do some walking to find fish that aren't trying to procreate right now, but they're out there.  You can find fish in deeper runs that are still feeding on the myriad of bugs.  BWOs were being sipped readily today, but there were so many bugs, I think several patterns could have worked.  Fish are all hefty this time of year.

Add caption

Pyramid to Reno

Fishing slowed a bit this Saturday. Despite some good winds late last week, Pyramid was miserably slow and that seemed to be the consensus for everyone we spoke to. Water is still only 44 degrees; it needs to warm about another 5 degrees for fish to start coming in from the depths.

Though flows were stable in the 500 cfs range, the Truckee, through Sparks and Reno, wasn't much better since the river blew out last week. Water is still off colored but fishable. DJ put one in the net and lost a nice one, other than that, just a few random grabs. The usual suspects (BWO and Skwalas) were out in good numbers as well as ever increasing numbers of caddis.

Truckee River March Update

Yesterday conditions were just about perfect for this time of year. Tons of BWO's and Skwala's hatching, and a stiff breeze knocked enough adults into the water that we saw a few fish smashing bugs on top. Flows on the NV side have been up the past couple of weekends to ~545 cfs due to higher flows coming out of the dams at Tahoe and Boca, but still, the water was in great shape.

Fish seem to be keying into either BWO's or Skwala's, depending on where you go. Some sections of water still don't have many Skwala's hatching yet; in those sections, BWO's are on the top of the menu. Fish can be found in slightly faster water than last month due to the warmer temps.

A few highlights:

Today we ran into the Western Regional Qualifier for the US Fly Fishing Team. This particular day of the event, 30 anglers were on various beats of the river throughout Reno trying to tally the most centimeters in a day. For the second part of the qualifier, they do the same on Pyramid Lake. We learned one guy got 600cm in one day on the Truckee, that's 240" between 11 fish for an AVERAGE length of 21.5" per fish! Out for 30 competitors, 6 will move on to the US National Fly Fishing Championships and possibly make the 'Fly Fishing Team USA' World Team. That's the team that would represent the US in the The World Fly Fishing Championships in Bohinjska Bistrica, Slovenia. It was a cool event to observe, though we did have to give way to competitors which were hitting some of our favorite runs...oh well, it was for a good cause.

Post mortem update: I got the real skinny from the guy in charge of the competition, the angler mentioned above who caught 11 fish...apparently the official count was 10 fish averaging 20" each, still an amazing haul!

Little Truckee - BWO Blitzkrieg

First of all, MY RANT: The parking lot by the dam was so full on Wednesday I couldn't even park. I've never seen it that full, must have been 20 cars. I refuse to fish combat style next to bung-holes from SF who only come up for the spawn and do nothing but run redds. Hey, we all want to put a 27" brown in the net, but some of these guys are over the top relentless on them. Sorry, had to get that out of the way.

Due to the aforementioned outbreak of Nazi Zombies, I was forced to fish water I rarely ever fish (for a reason), just above the meadows...Why? Because nobody else fishes it. Relatively speaking, not many fish lie there, especially at low flows, but when BWO's go on a frigg'n blitzkrieg rampage like they're doing now, you'd be surprised at what's holding in even the shallowest riffles.

7x and #20 barbless BWO's duns = lots of lost fish. Some busted me, some just came unbuttoned, but I'll be damned if it wasn't a blast. So much action, many in the net, but many more long-line releases. Check out this bow and compare it to the picture above. Its a Boca Reservoir bow, the fisheries biologist told me the strain last year, I don't recall the name but think they may be Eagle Lake fish. As you can see from the photo, they're much different than the resident bows of the LT. These guys generally only follow the Kokanee up to gorge on their orgy: they differ from resident LT bows in that they're predominately silver, their spots stop at the lateral line, they don't have white on the tips of their pectoral, pelvic or anal fins and...THEY JUMP. By contrast, resident LT bows are brownish red with an orange underbelly, their spots go to their belly, they have white tipped fins and they NEVER jump, rather, they give tons of head shakes and bull-dog you like a brown.

Poor browns, the water master F'ed their spawn, last week. Flows were cut day after day until they reached their "minimum" flow of 32cfs, so the browns left the runs which went from 18" deep to only 5" deep and are holding in the deeper holes, 3' deep and deeper. I just watched them pair up and fight each other, pretty cool stuff. Here is a brief resident LT bow battle

Little Truckee River - Dry Fly Action

School is back in and crowds have subsided. I finally took a full day off work, dusted off the 4wt and 7x and hit the LT, first time this year, but then again, I wait until the crowds are gone. I have only been able to manage short evening sessions the past 6-months on local watersheds until today. Today, I got a full day in....well, it was going to be a full day but became a half day when the water master felt it appropriate to drop the LT to 17cfs...ugh! What's the purpose of having a recommended flow of 32cfs if they can drop the river below that? UPDATE: David Lass of Truckee TU explained it's not a required minimum flow, and only a recommendation. The low flows are due to a 6-year dam inspection; unfortunately they found some things that needed repair and are working on it night and day. Until flows get back up over 30cfs, please avoid the LT for the time being. They should be back up close to 100cfs soon, hopefully in time for the big Boca Reservoir spawn runs this fall.
Check out the exposed river bed, 20 minutes prior it was under water...all that trout food is dead. Prior to the flows dropping, I managed some fun dry fly fishing and sight nymphing while the river was @ 106cfs.

The AM was VERY slow and nothing was coming off. Though I prefer to dry fly fish the LT, if there is no hatch...I'll occassionally go for an SJW (without the San Juan Shuffle part, which is illegal on some watersheds). Sometimes you have to use what they're feeding on, and certain parts of this river are full of Annelids.Luckily BWO's started popping in fishable numbers by 11am; from then on it was BWO dries and nymphs only! QUESTION TO THE AUDIENCE: Anyone know why LT bows are so much darker than BT bows, other than the obvious...cause they're a different strain. Does anyone know the specific strains and/or any other reasons for why they differ so much? I caught this BT bow later the same afternoon, and it really struck me how different the two fish really are in color, number of speckles, shape and build. And another thing, BT bows always jump, LT bows seldom do.

BT bow LT Bow

All fish were heavier than normal, thanks to good flows all year (except the 1 day this year I decide to go). Oh well, I'll be back many times between now and mid December. I had an Osprey splash-down 20 feet from me today. It missed the fish, but what a sight! Of the fish I netted, half had what appeared to be talon scars across their backs. You'll see a closeup on the 2nd fish in the video.