Spring runoff + off color water + overcast weather = great streamer fishing! Yep, I’m calling it, this weekend should make for excellent conditions for chucking meat as we are seeing all of the right criteria: cold windy days, overcast weather, high water with slight turbidity and good water temps. There are multiple ways to throw streamers and not necessarily any wrong way to do so, but we find the best techniques for streamer fishing here on the Truckee would be to use a fast-sinking line with a quick retrieve either directly across the river or even with an upstream cast, or using heavy weighted jigged streamers fish dead drift style on a euro setup. We have found streamers in the 2”- 4” range in olive, black, white, or yellow to be the most consistent producers, but as is typical with the Truckee both presentation of the fly and covering lots of water seems to be the most important factor.

If nymph fishing this weekend, we would recommend keeping the euro nymph setup at home and focusing on the indicator due to the heavy winds expected, which is a euro nymphers worst nemesis. The bug selection seems to be all over the map and we have been catching fish on everything from Pat’s Rubberlegs, to pheasant tails and prince nymphs, baetis patterns, as well as worms, eggs and crawdads. Getting a good drift, fishing deep while using ample weight and achieving a good drift will be the most important right now, but that’s nothing new. With a busy weekend expected here in town, we encourage you to focus on the mornings to be the first to put a fly into any given run. Don’t forget that we are open from 7 A.M. to 7 P.M. daily, including Memorial Day, so stop into the shop before you hit the water to get the latest on conditions and to pick up a few bugs.