Truckee River Fly Fishing Report December 3, 2021

Conditions on the river remain similar this week, low and clear. We have a small storm expected on Monday but unfortunately, we don’t see it bringing in any significant precipitation and it will likely only improve fishing on the day of and possibly a couple days after, so if you’re planning to fish the river early next week will probably be the time to make it happen. This will likely be the case for Pyramid too, as these warm and sunny days have been keeping fish hanging in deep water and even a small low-pressure system can change conditions enough to temporarily improve fishing.

Truckee River Fly Fishing Report

The big Truckee river has continued to hold around 200 CFS in the canyon section and around 110 along Glenshire road. This is definitely lower than we would like, but all things considered with the drought this year we’re happy to see it where it’s at. These flows are certainly still fishable along most of the river, but for your best bet we would recommend continuing to focus on the section from Hirschdale down to the Nevada state line, or what we call “The Canyon”. If you have a Nevada license, you can move down through west Reno, where slower winter water is more abundant.

With this low and clear water, we have been downsizing bugs to a size 18 or even 20 in BWO’s or midges and dropping our tippet diameter to a 5x or even 6x to get a few more eats. We aren’t big fans of using such light tackle on this river, but every once and a while it’s necessary. This doesn’t mean that you absolutely can’t catch fish on bigger offerings such as crawdads, stones, worms, and eggs however, and the most important factor of this river is presentation. With larger bugs or streamers, it tends to be much more of a stick-and-move game where your first few casts are going to be your highest odds. When fishing small and light, you can potentially put that fly in front of that fish multiple times without spooking them, so if you’re the type of angler to cover a lot of water maybe try some larger “grabby” flies and if you are just looking to fish a couple of runs a little more intimately than fishing small bugs on light tippet will likely be best. Let’s continue to do our snow dances in coming weeks as this will be a make-or-break year for the fish populations on this river. One more drought year would be detrimental.

Little Truckee Fly Fishing Report

The Little Truckee remains tough as low water and continued fishing pressure keeps these fish on edge. While this river is normally technical, the current conditions here has made it tougher than normal. We recommend using dries or a dry dropper set up for best results as hatches of both BWO’s and midges come off with some regularity but can be short lived. Light tippet and an accurate fly selection will become increasingly important here as low water and sunny days persist, so stop by and shop our selection of bugs.

Pyramid Lake Fly Fishing Report

The mild weather over the last week has slowed fishing at Pyramid, but it hasn’t necessarily shut off all together and indicator fishing has still been putting a few fish in the next. While the windows of good fishing are always changing here we’ve been seeing the most consistent time of day to be mid-mornings and again when the sun goes over the hill around 3:30-4:00, but the best way to up your odds of the elusive 20-pounder is to just keep your flies in the water and make every opportunity count! When fishing under the indicator we are constantly changing our depths until we either find the bottom or a few fish, this week we where fishing around 8-10 feet in the mornings and lengthening it up to 12-15 feet in the afternoons, and yes, we did find fish at 15 feet! Small and sparce balanced leeches have been the ticket and colors vary depending on lighting, light on bright days and dark on dark days. We have had minimal luck on stripping streamers and on using midges under the indo, and we have been putting our trust in the leech, which should be the main fly over the next few months so have a good assortment of sizes and color combos ready for your next trip out here.

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Miles and the TCO crew