Truckee River Fly Fishing Report

Matt “Gilligan” Koles Reports on 10.1.2015

Cold nights and warm days, or the typical “Indian Summer” weather pattern that we seem to experience every year is making for some difficult fishing in the Tahoe-Truckee area. Clouds and some rain can this week will change things for the better and make for some real, “fall fishing.”

The Little Truckee:

Fish are in really great shape, and pressure is light. There are not very many places in California that have fish the size that we do out on the Little Truckee River. It’s a real gem of a tailwater, and fall is likely the best time to fish it. Fall hatches include Baetis, or small blue wing olives, Psuedo’s, think very, very small blue wing olives, and caddis. The caddis are small, but sometimes fish will key in on them. There have been some browns pushing out of lake and making their annual spawning run up the river. Kokanee also are making the push out of Boca. Flows were down for the enhancement/ restoration project at 16 cfs, then came up for a week to 115 cfs, and are now at 45 cfs. Fishing has been tough out there at 45 cfs. Abundant sunshine and big finicky fish in clear water make for some tough fishing. We need some weather to get the beatis hatches going. Clouds will help. The dry fly fishing should start getting really good as we get into October regardless of the sunshine or not, but overcast/inclement weather is what we are looking for.

Truckee River (California Side):

After a very rough summer of low water levels on the Truckee River flows are at about the same as they were this time last year. Not ideal, but fishable in stretches and cool water. Some of water in the Truckee River right now is coming out of Donner Lake and water is again being released out of Boca

The Truckee River is right around 100 cfs in Hirschdale and about 115 cfs near Farad. TMWA was draining Independence Lake and Donner, but that looks to be about over. There was 60 cfs going into Stampede but that now is cut off. TMWA will store the rest of the water in Independence in case we need it next year. Fall bugs on the Truckee are Blue Wings Olives, Mahogany Duns, and some October Caddis.

Truckee River (Nevada Side):

The river is suffering badly from the lack of flows and drought. It is not advised to fish the river below Verdi until flows come up.