Hello again. My annual California trip did not take me as far as the Eastern Sierra this year, but here is a report about special regulation waters near Truckee. This will be in three parts: the bad, the good, and a product review.
I started out at the Little Truckee River, the meadow section between Boca and Stampede Reservoirs. This is barbless hook water, with special size limits (which I didn’t bother to memorize as I was C&R). Fishing reports warned that flows were very low and fishing was tough, and boy they weren’t kidding. The water was clear and cold, but the riffles were obviously not fishable, and what should have been nice-looking slicks were shallow glassy pools. I spent most of a morning blind-casting unenthusiastically to the far bank and the center of current hoping for unseen deeper water. Turns out the fish were holding under midstream boulders, which are rare in this stretch. Raised a huge rainbow but didn’t hook it, and that was all the excitement there.
Next was Martis Lake, an impoundment just outside Truckee. It has an interesting history as a planned refuge for Lanhontan cutthroats, but attempts to eradicate previously planted brown trout were unsuccessful. It remains a C&R special reg water, with browns, bows and allegedly some Lahontans. Unfortunately, there has been significant residential and golf course development upstream, so the fertilizer load means heavy weed growth in the summer. It may be possible to fish from canoes or float tubes, but shore casting was impossible. Martis Creek downstream from the dam is also special reg water but was a weedy trickle and not even worth the hike down.
I drove around looking for reasonable water--there is always the Truckee River but I prefer smaller streams. Prosser Creek above Prosser Creek Reservoir (not special reg, but a productive area for me in the past) was barely flowing and the reservoir was down significantly. But the flow from the dam was ample, which validated a plan for the next morning.
