East Truckee River - December 27th

On Saturday (Dec 27th) we hit the Truckee River at the McCarran ranch section above the private bridge.  As a note, this road is off limits to public vehicle traffic.  We received a visit from a gent who lives off that road who confirmed that he maintains the road and public traffic makes it a hassle for him.  The best access to this spot is by the way of he Mustang exit, heading east until the road bends to the south.  At the bend you'll find a dirt road that continues east, up around a hill and back down in to the flat.  Follow that road to its end near a highway billboard and your just under a half mile walk to the bridge.  There is a spot where the road forks and crosses the railroad tracks but its not a real crossing and I'm pretty sure crossing tracks like that is illegal plus a good chance of getting stuck on the tracks, which would put a damper on your day.

As for the fishing, we got out there around 10AM, rigged up and got on the water about 10:30.  It was friggen cold, I think the day topped out just above freezing.  We had ice in the eyelets most of the day and nary a bite to the effort but it was a nice day out for sure.  From about 2:15 to 3:15 there was a small hatch of chironomids that probably tipped the scales around a size 22 for the adults so I'd put the emergers around a size 20.
This section holds just about every type of water from quick rocky flows with 3ft deep runs in to tailout after tailout ending in a nice riffle into a long deep slow section (guessing up to 10ft deep) with big submerged boulders in it.  We hit the whole thing with just about ever type of presentation from nymphs to dead drift streamers but it was so damn cold we would have had to have drifted the stack right in to an open mouth to get a bite.  The south side of the river runs along a 50 foot tall cliff so we ventured up and had a peak down.  The water clarity was pretty good so any real activity would have been evident and there was none.

If time allows we might head out for a late afternoon effort today so fingers crossed.