The Truckee River continues to fish well as most of the brown trout finish their spawn and look to recover lost calories. During the overcast days of last week, we saw a fair streamer bite for those willing to put in time. As well as some good dry fly-fishing east of Sparks. With the subfreezing temps in the mornings, the fishing will be best after the sun has hit the water and the fish wake up a bit. So put a good focus on the 11am-4pm window.

For streamers, we have been doing good on some smaller profiled flies such as sculpzillas in a size 8 and Egan’s poacher. Both patterns have been producing in olive or black, and I would base color selection on lighting and water clarity. Olive when the water is clear/sun is high and black when there is lower visibility/low light. The dry-fly fishing on the lower river has been mostly mid-day and can happen both when it is sunny or overcast, with the biggest factor being days with little to no wind.

Although, often when it comes to baetis, or BWO’s, they do prefer overcast days. This can make the dry-fly bite a bit more predictable. The nice thing about dry fly fishing on the Truckee is that even though it doesn’t happen too often, when it does, the fish aren’t overly picky in terms of fly selection. A good drift remains important, but they are typically willing to take a variety of imitations of both the adults and emergers. 5x tippet is normally just fine.

As per usual, the nymph fishing on the Truckee remains the best way to consistently get into fish on an otherwise tough river system. We have been finding fish on the same flies as weeks past, and they will continue to work for most of the winter. So be sure to stock up on stonefly nymphs, worms, eggs, baetis nymphs, and midge larvae. The patterns that have been working this week have been brown Pat’s rubber legs in a size 8-10, brown or red San Juans in a size 12, size 12 squirmy worms in all colors, juju baetis in 16-18, olive micro mays in 18, rainbow warriors in size 18-20, and all colors of size 18-22 zebra midges.