The Truckee has seen a drop in flows this week, and the upper river is far too low for ethical fishing. The dam at Tahoe City is flowing at a whopping 10 CFS and by the time you get down to Glenshire Drive flows are just 32 CFS. This will mean that most of the river up here will have little to no flow and the few fish still in here are in survival mode. At some point we are hoping that they will begin to release water out of Donner Lake, putting more water in this section, allowing for fishing up here once again. Until this happens however, please give these fish a break and head down the hill.

With the flows out of Prosser dropping as well, the river won’t see good fishing until you get down below the confluence of Boca where they are dumping 300 CFS out of the dam. The canyon section of the Truckee continues to fish very well despite the low flows up high, and we’ve seen good action on nymphs, streamers, and the occasional dry fly from the Boca confluence the Nevada state line. The Nevada side of the river has been fishing excellently due in part to less water taken out this time of year from agriculture, cold temps, and light fishing pressure as Pyramid opens. The fish have really begun to key in on the winter bugs such as BWO’s, midges and stoneflies, and this week the bite on October caddis pupa has really picked up, but the adults have been non-existent thus far. With the combo of good weather and cool water temps, the fish are continuing to hold in a variety of water types and anglers should be thorough when fishing a run, making sure to fish everything from the riffles to the deep tail outs. Small adjustments such as using clear or white indicators, light tippet such as 5x and downsizing your flies to an 18 can make a big difference this time of year as the water is low and clear and the fish have seen angling pressure the entire summer. If fishing stones, worms, eggs, crawdads, or October caddis however, 4x will be fine.