Over-Due Truckee Weather/Fly Angling Report

...a self-portrait


It is 7 PM...new "daylight-saving-time", and we're receiving a steady fall of heavy-wet snow. Before we gradually settle into early spring we can use a few good wintry-blasts to pad the recorded, March 1 water-content of 124% of normal for this region. Jeez, if we can get the figure above 130+% of normal water-content...the trout will be appreciative. This is wet/sleet/snow pattern is predicted for the next 5-6 days. Bring it on!

This post was to occur about two weeks ago. At that time I'd just finished a busy 6-week run of three shows and venturing to Chilean Patagonia. Then the unexpected occurred; severe water-damage from a failing fixture at my "labor-of-love" cabin in Truckee; built in 1979. It has occupied the last 10 days of my life. Now I'm resigned to getting screwed by the insurance company. They will "depreciate" a 30 year-old carpet and padding. They'll subtract that $$$ figure from the replacement of a new carpet. I'll probably owe them money!!!

So, what do the current weather-patterns suggest to us fly anglers? Here's my take:

Access is, and will continue to be of concern for the next 2-3 weeks. More of a factor in the BT 's upper-river with more ingress points downstream as one proceeds down the canyon to the state-line. For sure everything is open in Nevada.

A "low & slow" mind-set with a tandem big-fly/small-fly rig (I think light/dark also) will get more tight-lines than hoping for the rarer near the surface taker. If the latter, think in the surface-film or slightly below; there might be a stillborn or crippled BWO or March Brown, midge, winter black stone or Skwala adrift. If the latter scenario is your choice, then go at mid-days, hope for little or no wind, lots of solar heating (read sparse cloud-cover) Prospect/target eddies, flats or light-velocity runs.

An excerpt from "Early Season on the Truckee" which I authored n the 2009 spring issue of Sierra Fisherman:
"...Early in the year there are sparse surface emergences. You will observe the ubiquitous, little, black winter stones peppering the snow banks and flitting above/on the water surface; midges, March Browns, first-brood BWO...Skwala hatch. Don’t hold your breath anticipating many, if any, of these bugs getting eaten on top…"

So, wait until early June when the "Big Bugs of June" make an appearance.