October 17th Fly Fishing Report for the Truckee River, Little Truckee River and Pyramid Lake
Things have warmed up quickly after the first official snowfall of the year in the Truckee area. The weather this week is looking just about perfect, with temps in the low-to-mid 60’s through the weekend. With higher than average flows along the canyon section of the Truckee, conditions are holding very strong and fishing has remained very good. We are also seeing far fewer anglers and fishing pressure is noticeably lighter this week.
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Truckee River Fishing Report
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.
Recommended Flies for the Truckee River
Little Truckee Fishing Report
The Little Truckee has yet to see a bump in flows out of Stampede and remains very low again this week. With these low flows and spawning brown trout, we feel it is best to give these fish space during this time and fish elsewhere.
Pyramid Lake Fishing Report
In just a few short weeks of the opener, the fish have already become a slight bit weary to the heavy angling pressure and the bite using jigs has slowed. The bait balls are still around, but they are likely to break up before too much longer. Once this happens, there is often a short window of using slip indicators and balanced baitfish patterns fished deep, before they move near the shore regularly.
We expect the shore fishing to commence in just a few more weeks. When it does it can be some of the best of the year, as the fish are still all fired up with the warmer water temps and after a long season of eating tui chubs. This is when using balanced leeches under an indicator or stripping streamers on fast sinking lines can be at their most effective. Overall, we’ve seen a great start to the year, with a bunch of high 20’s fish caught, but we are really looking forward to some bobber dunks from the shore… Soon enough!
Recommended Flies for Pyramid Lake
Check the Flows Before You Go...
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