As of today, we are seeing the flows around Glenshire at 800+ CFS, while the gauge at Farad is reading just under 1,000 CFS. The forecast is calling for typical spring temps of upper 50’s to low 60’s here in Truckee. We expect a slow, but continued ramp up of the flows on the river, which is ideal. Despite a great snowpack last year, the temps in the spring were far warmer than normal which diminished the snowpack quickly and left us with water temps reaching the 68-degree mark by around mid-July. Even with a bit less snowfall this year, if we get a cooler spring there is still a possibility of avoiding these voluntary hoot owl restrictions altogether. Unfortunately, with the way the summers have been over the last decade, we would say this will be unlikely.

There are a couple of things to note about the current conditions. One would be that the flows between Glenshire Drive and Farad are not too far off from each other. This is thanks in part to the dams found at Lake Tahoe, Donner, Prosser, Boca and Stampede holding back water and filling the reservoirs for the summer. A quick look at the USGS Water Data page will show that the releases out of the Tahoe dam are 71 CFS, out of Donner Creek is 134, Prosser Creek is 16, and Stampede and Boca is a whopping 6 CFS. This is a total of 227 of the 950+ CFS that is currently down in the canyon section. This means that the majority of the water in the river right now is coming from the multitude of smaller feeder creeks along the Truckee River watershed. Once these feeder creeks begin to die out in a few weeks we should see the flows begin to let up and the releases from the dams resume. With all of that said, when the flows come up to these rates, areas along Glenshire become fast and “pushy”, limiting the areas of good soft water for the fish to sit in. The sections further downstream, perhaps in the canyon, will provide more, slow deep runs and because of this, more areas of good fishing water.

Due to the weather being cool, we are not seeing a lot of turbidity here on the California side. Using smaller perdigons, micro mays, and attractor nymphs like duracells and frenchies have been fishing a bit better than the larger offerings like stoneflies, worms, crawdads and eggs. These smaller flies are best fished on 4x tippet, and for the larger flies we are using 3x. In the coming weeks the big bugs will likely become the best bet as the turbulent spring flows dislodge these large meals. As of right now, they are still making great attractor nymphs and should be in everyone’s fly box.