Spring Half-Day Guided Floats

The flows on the Truckee are really all over the place this week, with 150 CFS being released out of Lake Tahoe (Up from 75), the river gaining a fair bit of volume here in town, sitting at 461 below Martis Creek, then getting quite large and in charge in the canyon thanks to larger-than-average releases coming out of Boca at 560 CFS. These big spring releases from the Little Truckee will be making flows at the Farad gauging station at +/- 1100 CFS, which is about normal for this time of year, but what is not normal is the fact that half of that is coming from the reservoir and not off the mountains via the feeder creeks. This does allow us anglers to be able to make a choice on what kind of fishing we are looking to do, however. We can fish upstream along Highway 89 and try some technical, slow moving and clear sections, try here in town where the flows are suitable for a variety of methods, or fish the big water in the canyon where it’s often a matter of locating the larger buckets where soft water is present and thoroughly fishing them with long leaders and a lot of weight. We are looking to get a fair amount of precipitation out of this weekend storm, most of it rain, with the possibility of a few inches of snow on Sunday. This will change things but likely not for very long as the Truckee is usually quick to clear up. When the turbid water is present, throw worms and eggs under the indicator or try covering water with a streamer for the big grabs. Keep in mind that flows become less and less as you head upstream meaning your fly selection should become smaller and more natural. If you’re down in the canyon, try some bigger, grabby squirmies, here in town you may find better luck on the floss worm. With the variety of bugs around right now, mix up you fly selection to imitate some of the larger march brown or green drake mayflies with patterns such as duracells, blowtorches, or CDC Hustlers. These larger profile nymphs will also fish better through this week’s storm as they have a good combination of flashy bodies and CDC collars providing extra movement.