TCO Fishing Report - December 27th, 2024 for the Truckee River, Little Truckee River and Pyramid Lake
Happy Holidays everyone! We hope you were all able to spend some time with loved ones and maybe even got to sneak a bit of fishing in. We sure did! This week’s forecast is calling for a few more days of a rain/snow mix, peaking Sunday and tapering off to clear but cold days starting next week. As of today, the amount of precipitation has done little to affect the main river, only bringing flows up 50 CFS at the Farad gauging station and adding just a slight bit of color to the water. As for Pyramid Lake, we are seeing it continue to fire this week, at least during stormy days. The bite on sunny days has been nothing short of tough at the lake, but those sunny days are a great time to fish the river, so plan accordingly!
Truckee River Fishing Report & Forecast
This storm has done very little to change the conditions on the river, both here on the California side as well as the Nevada side. The flows came up just a tad along most of the Truckee, but we have already seen this begin to taper off.
As predicted in last week’s report the water temps came up a few degrees, but likely will drop again after this storm pushes through and we look at nights in the teens next week. This may slow the fish down a bit and really make evenings the best time to find fish. The water clarity has decreased just a bit, which is probably the biggest positive out of this storm.
The decreased clarity will often make the fish react more positively to the larger bugs, such as worms, stones and eggs, whereas the previous weeks were all about little black stuff in sizes 18-20. You can certainly keep these flies in rotation, especially later in the week as temps drop and clarity increases. But if I were going out today, I would put my trust in the worm. These high calorie meals are always a great choice during the leaner months of the winter, especially after a weather event, and especially if that weather event was rain instead of snow.
The streamer and dry fly bite on the lower river has been on a day-to-day basis and if you time it right then it can be epic. But we would recommend being adaptive if it isn’t happening and switch over to the bobber if you need to feel that tug.
Little Truckee River Fishing Report & Forecast
While the Little Truckee is open to some vehicles once again due to the lack of snow out of this storm, there is still a chance of running into snow and ice patches on the road out here. So we are recommending that only those confident in driving in such conditions attempt to head out here right now.
The river is currently at 200 CFS, which is not typical this time of year and what some would consider high. At these flows the dry fly bite will be tough along most areas of the river and nymph fishing will be your best bet to find fish. Due to the LT’s smaller size, both tight line nymphing and indicator fishing are good choices here when presenting subsurface during the winter months. The name of the game with be little black stuff on light tippet. The two bugs on the menu will be baetis and midges in sizes 18-22. The worm or egg will remain low hanging fruit as well.
Because this is a tailwater it will fish good most of the day, but with air temps expected to peak just above freezing this week, we would recommend fishing the afternoons right now.
Pyramid Lake Fishing Report & Forecast
Pyramid continues to fish very well in what most consider to be one of the slower months of the season for the lake. The series of stormy days last week have kept the bite good most days and along most beaches. Looking forward, the clear and cold days ahead may prove to slow things down in the short term.
We happened to go out on one of the clear but warm days that we had last week, and the bite really seemed to get tough in a hurry. Meanwhile the days out there with overcast and wind were very steady throughout most of the day. Those calmer periods of weather are great opportunities to put in some time on the strip when the bobber isn’t moving around and doesn’t seem to want to go down.
We have seen a significant switch in the fish’s preference this week, with a much higher number of fish taking the midge over the leech, especially when fishing the rockier beaches. On windy days with bigger swells, the leech remains king. The best leech colors this week have been black, olive and brown and we base our color choices on time of day and light penetration.
Mornings and overcast conditions should make shades of black fish better, while sunny days would make lighter colors fish better, olive is just a good standby if the weather is all over the place. Midge colors are typically in any shade of red, wine, brown or black and mostly in size 12s. we have been still finding most fish at 8-10 feet, with some as deep as 14 depending on the beach.
