The last time I visited Milton Reservior was 7 years ago in 2019. I was able to get a few grabs but wasn’t able to bring any fish into the net. The lake is known to be a difficult to figure out and I wasn’t as experienced as I am now. I wanted to fish somewhere new this summer and decided on revisiting Milton Lake as well the Middle Fork of the Yuba River above the lake.
The regulations on Milton Reservoir and the Middle Fork of the Yuba River have changed to 0 limit since the last time I visited. I arrived on Milton Reservior around 2pm and introduced myself to two other anglers that had already set up camp. The fishing report I got from them was that they had just arrived and missed the morning bite but were able to get a few fish on midges under an indicator. The afternoon wind was blowing pretty good on the lake so I left to check out the Middle Fork of the Yuba River for a bit.
There is about a mile of water between Milton Lake a natural barrier below the Jackson Meadow Reservoir. The flows on the Middle Fork of The Yuba River were at 140 CFS according to Dreamflows. I covered a couple hundred feet of water as I made my way upstream to the natural barrier and was able to get a few takes but only netted one beautiful brown trout. There was an afternoon hatch of a medium sized brownish mayfly that fish were rising for but I stuck with my nymphs to try and cover as much water as quickly as possible. After I reached the barrier I backtracked to my car but didn’t wander too far downstream. The fishing on the river was okay. There isn’t a lot of fishable water and it looks like the flows are only increased during the summer which answers the question why I didn’t find very many fish. The Middle Fork of The Yuba River is a good place to kill some time during the afternoon lull on the lake but other than that there isn’t much to it.
I came back to the Milton Reservoir at about 5pm and was on the water at 6pm after gearing up and setting up camp. I brought two rods, a 5WT with floating line and a 6WT with a triple density type 3IPS sinking line. I started with a balance leech and midge dropper under an indicator but noticed that the weeds on the lake on the eastern side had grown pretty tall with only about 4ft – 5ft water between the top of the weed beds to the surface. I adjusted my set up a few times and saw my indicator go down multiple times but couldn’t hook anything. Fish were rising all over the lake so there were plenty of fish around. After about an hour of no action I swapped to my sinking line set-up and started stripping an olive damsel fly. I figured brown trout like to chase so let me give them something to chase. I quickly got into fish and caught about a dozen decent size brown trout. I forgot how ice cold the water in Milton Reservoir was and numb by the time I called it quits at about 8pm.
The following morning I was the first person on the lake at 7am. From my experience brown trout are low-light fish so the earlier you can get out the better. I swapped the damsel fly for a midnight cowboy simi seal leech in hopes of hooking into a trophy brown trout. The lake was glass until about 7:15am when fish started rising all over the lake. They were absolutely hammering my streamer and I was hooking a fish every other cast. The bite started to slow down around 8am which was about 30 minutes after the sun hit the lake. My dark colored streamer wasn’t working as well anymore so I switched back to my olive damsel fly and started picking up fish again though at a slower rate. I caught over a dozen fish from 7am to 10am and felt satisfied enough to call this visit to Milton Reservoir a success.
On the way out of town I fished the Truckee River below Boca. The water was looking pretty good at 484 CFS below Boca. I caught a handful of fish and couldn’t stop catching some of the biggest whitefish I’ve ever caught.
Milton Reservoir is definitely a challenging lake to fish. Although I managed to catch a ton of fish they were pretty picky about what they wanted to eat. The anglers I saw using indicators only hooked a few fish here and there despite tons of fish rising all over the lake. The lake appears to be a completely wild brown trout fishery as I didn’t hook a single rainbow trout this visit. The fish averaged at about 10″ – 12″ with a biggest fish being about 14″. There has to a few 18″ – 20″ fish in Milton but they are most likely rare. The eastern side is relatively shallow until about halfway towards middle where it deepens towards the dam. There are a lot of submerged trees on the western side that you should make note and be aware of. Milton Reservoir is one of the better trout lakes I’ve fished. The ease of access, abundance of challenging brown trout, and catch-and-release regulations have made it a top destination on my list. I plan on visiting Milton Reservoir more often and hope to someday catch and land a trophy brown.
