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In lieu of an actual fishing report I'll provide some practical Truckee River winter, fly angling advice; excerpted from an article I recently authored in California Fly Fisher magazine.
"Wintertime angling has been legal since the
2008 season. Late-November, December through March, the savvy Truckee angler
doesn’t appear on-stream until midday, when the water is warmest. Access in the
snow is always an issue. As needed, I strap on snowshoes to reach my preferred
water. Their use prevents “postholing” — punching through the snow crust —
which can result in ankle sprains and hyperextended knees. In lieu of the
snowshoes, rubber or plastic-soled wading shoes are better than felt soles,
which collect big clumps of snow.
Winter trout inhabit soft water —
mild currents, shoreline edges, and quiet, deep pools. There are only limited
times when you can present a dry fly to surface-feeding trout, so the most
productive ploy is to probe subsurface, methodically, "low and slow", because the
trout will not move much to intercept your offering. Whichever load-and-lob
method you use, be it tight-lining, indicator fishing, or the currently
fashionable, “Euro” nymphing, get the fly down. The fish are at the bottom of
the stream, and that is where you need to present the fly. I advise fishing
searching rigs featuring tandem big/small flies with lead as needed, or
chucking streamers.
The aquatic bugs available to trout
during the winter are the ever-present midges in all parts of their life cycle,
the ubiquitous little black Winter Stonefly adults that pepper the snow banks,
and both Skwala Stonefly nymphs and adults. Starting in March, the angler will
start seeing the first brood of Blue-Winged Olives and March Brown adults, but
there will be few trout actively feeding at the surface."
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