As mentioned above, the Truckee has benefitted from the week of cooler weather and thunderstorms, and temps are topping out around 66 degrees from the Boca Confluence to the Nevada state line. The section from Tahoe City to the confluence continues to see the water get too warm in the early afternoons and fishing here should be limited to those looking to just fish the morning hours. This will be the same anywhere on the Nevada side of the river as well. With the warmer water recently, expect to find fish holding in fast water. Like, faster than you’d probably think. Riffles, the tops of buckets and pocket water are all great areas to fish right now, and fishing this water requires a good amount of weight. Tight line nymphing (Euro-Nymphing) remains the best way to consistently get into fish right now. Dry fly fishing has continued to slow as we see far fewer bugs on top and even fewer noses. That said, we are seeing quite a few hoppers around and these will make a searching pattern if looking to quickly cover water on top or use them in a hopper dropper set up. The streamer fishing has been a bit slow this week and we anticipate it will be a few more weeks before it becomes even slightly consistent.

For nymphs, we are recommending a good variety of PMD imitations, caddis pupa, golden stoneflies, and don’t forget to try dead drifting crawdads. Make sure that they are well weighted and that you are adding split shot in addition, getting your flies down to the zone quickly. Right now, with the fish holding in fast water, one could argue that they have a split second whether to take your fly or not. So, fly selection isn’t very important, but good drifts and plenty of weight are. Because of this we have been doing great on flies like T.J. Hookers, perdigons, frenchies, blowtorches, duracells and the likes, being due to their all-around buggy appearance and their ability to get down into the strike zone quickly. Don’t worry so much about matching the hatch, just match the drift!