Truckee River

Getting To Know The Truckee River

The Truckee River is perhaps the most fly fished river in California. Full of quality browns and bows that can get up to 30” the Truckee is one of the best managed fisheries in the state. Now that I’m within day-trip driving distance to this amazing fishery it was about time I took the chance to get to know the Truckee River.

Truckee Bow

I’ve fished the Truckee a few times before but have never done exceptionally well. Most of my lack of success stems from the fact that I’ve never fished the river at the right time. With fall officially in the air it was prime time to explore the Truckee.

I started the day around Boca Bridge. I’ve been wanting to fish this section but have never had the opportunity. I fished from the outlet of the Little Truckee to HWY 80 bridge. Most of the fish I caught were rainbows that were holding in-between fishy pocket water. These bows were mostly in the 10” – 12” range taking BWO nymphs. There was a deep drop-off in this section that I just knew had to have a big brown in it. I made several passes through it with my indicator hooking a few rainbows along the way. Through one of my passes I watched as my indi sank down within half a second. Fish on! Finally my first Big Truckee brown but easy come easy go; at least I knew where he lived.

Mountain Whitefish

After a few hours of covering water I headed east to explore the Glenshire section. The water here reminded me of a small stream fishery that would have been great to fish during the higher flows this spring. I didn’t spend too much time here because I felt that this wasn’t the place to be. I did manage to hook a few small bows while exploring this section.

Glenshire Section

The next section I fished was the Hirschdale section below the bridge. This is the section I usually fish however I’ve never had very much luck catching fish here. I covered water fast because I know the Truckee is a 90% of the fish are in 10% of the river type of stream. I hooked a few rainbows in this section and called it quits once I had made my way into the canyon.
With about two hours of daylight left I stopped by the Boca bridge section again to try to see if I could fool the brown that I had hooked earlier to take again. I covered a bit of water first to see if I could find any new fish in the same spots but I had no such luck. Once I finally arrived at the pool I threw my rig into the same seams and riffles that I had fished previously. Nothing was biting. Disappointed, I slowly started stripped my flies back to recast and then it happened. After a bit of chasing I had finally landed by first big Truckee River brown.

Nice Truckee Brown
Yuba River

Scouting The New Yuba At Fall Flows

With fall slowly approaching the Yuba River is now at a stable 1,000CFS. These flows have revealed new areas that will likely remain for the next few months until the winter flows change things up again. I took the time to check out the section above HWY 20 since it’s been unfishable for the last ten months.

The river has completely changed above HWY 20. Much of the deeper slots have flattened out leaving shallow flat water in-between the three pool/riffle/runs in this section. This may limit where the fish will hold above HWY 20 making fishing below the bridge a better option. I flipped a few rocks to check out the bug life and although it’s still there most of the insects were tiny. It’s a bit of a toss up right now but if the fish return to this section the dry fly fishing in the flats will be amazing.

I’ve read that after calamity flows over 50,000 CFS the fish remaining in the Yuba River go through a cycle where they turn skinny. Last year after seeing high flows at 25,000 CFS we thought that this cycle would happen but the fish survived and remained fat and healthy. However this year with the flows reaching over 80,000 CFS it seems as if this cycle has begun.

I caught quite a few fish that fought like typical Yuba bows but they were all skinny. Some were longer than others but they all shared the same thin feature. I’m curious to see what the upcoming months will be like on the Yuba. With little to no salmon in the Yuba right now and only small thin trout to catch, the fall season on the Yuba this year isn’t looking too great.

The future remains uncertain…

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