The rain/snow mix this week did little to change the conditions on the Truckee. While there was a slight bump in flows, it has since dropped back to pre-storm levels. The water temps did also dip down a bit, hitting a high of 52 degrees on Tuesday. This should further spread fish out and put some of them in some slower water.

 

Right now, the best policy when prospecting the river is to fish it all; slow tail outs, medium speed riffles, pocket water, etc. Basically, anywhere you may have found some fish in the past is worth a few casts right now. For fly selection, it’s going to be hard to beat an egg or a worm right now, especially when paired with a midge larva or baetis nymph. This is a typical set up for basically most of the winter and will remain a good fallback set up when that wild looking blowtorch variation you tied 4 beers deep the night before isn’t getting it done for you. Stoneflies and crawdads are still putting fish in the net as well, but that bite has slowed down a bit compared to a few weeks ago.

 

Streamers are worth a try during that late evening window, when you’re staying on the river until dark. With the above average flows below the Boca confluence, we are recommending to fish anywhere from there, down to about as low as one would consider fishing for trout, I.E. east of Sparks. This lower section of the river makes for great streamer water as well as some potentially good dry fly water, with some good early hatches of baetis showing up on the overcast days last week.