The Truckee has been fishing great this week with a good number of small fish still being caught and a handful of larger fish now in the mix. Crawdads and stoneflies are really going to be the best way to target the bigger fish right now, but it certainly doesn’t hurt to have that small mayfly nymph or midge larva below it to double your odds. The fish are still mostly holding in the fast water and may be sitting in shallower areas of the river than you may expect, especially in the mornings or evenings. A couple feet of water is all they need to feel safe in a riffle, and these well oxygenated zones are conveyor belts of food, providing the three necessary things needed for trout: food, oxygen and cover. 

Shallow riffles can be tough to fish. This is where euro-nymphing certainly shines. However, we’ve been getting it done on the indicator almost equally. We have yet to really see the streamer bite materialize, but if there was a time to give it a try, it would be during next week’s rainstorm. Worms will likely also fish good during this weather event, and likely even a few days after. A few good stoneflies to have in your arsenal this week would be brown or two-tone Pat’s rubber legs in sizes 6-10, brown poxy back stones in size 10, or my tan rock steady jigged stonefly in 4-10. For crawdads we are doing great on Tim’s dead drift crays in brown, however, we are currently out of stock!

We’ve placed an order for more dead-drift craws this week and we should have them early next week. If you order the dead drift craws through our website this week, we will fill your order as soon as they are back in stock and ship it out to you. Brown T.J. Hookers in sizes 6-8 are also fishing great for the euro rig. The smaller flies that have been working would be size 16-18 micro mays, size 18-20 olive mic drops, size 16 black blowtorches, and size 14-16 duracells, as well as the classic pheasant tails and zebra midges.