Milton Reservoir, Truckee River

A Second Chance At Milton Reservoir

by Matt

The last time I visited Milton Reservior was 7 years ago in 2019. I was able to get a few grabs but wasn’t able to bring any fish into the net. The lake is known to be a difficult to figure out and I wasn’t as experienced as I am now. I wanted to fish somewhere new this summer and decided on revisiting Milton Lake as well the Middle Fork of the Yuba River above the lake.

The regulations on Milton Reservoir and the Middle Fork of the Yuba River have changed to 0 limit since the last time I visited. I arrived on Milton Reservior around 2pm and introduced myself to two other anglers that had already set up camp. The fishing report I got from them was that they had just arrived and missed the morning bite but were able to get a few fish on midges under an indicator. The afternoon wind was blowing pretty good on the lake so I left to check out the Middle Fork of the Yuba River for a bit.

There is about a mile of water between Milton Lake a natural barrier below the Jackson Meadow Reservoir. The flows on the Middle Fork of The Yuba River were at 140 CFS according to Dreamflows. I covered a couple hundred feet of water as I made my way upstream to the natural barrier and was able to get a few takes but only netted one beautiful brown trout. There was an afternoon hatch of a medium sized brownish mayfly that fish were rising for but I stuck with my nymphs to try and cover as much water as quickly as possible. After I reached the barrier I backtracked to my car but didn’t wander too far downstream. The fishing on the river was okay. There isn’t a lot of fishable water and it looks like the flows are only increased during the summer which answers the question why I didn’t find very many fish. The Middle Fork of The Yuba River is a good place to kill some time during the afternoon lull on the lake but other than that there isn’t much to it.

I came back to the Milton Reservoir at about 5pm and was on the water at 6pm after gearing up and setting up camp. I brought two rods, a 5WT with floating line and a 6WT with a triple density type 3IPS sinking line. I started with a balance leech and midge dropper under an indicator but noticed that the weeds on the lake on the eastern side had grown pretty tall with only about 4ft – 5ft water between the top of the weed beds to the surface. I adjusted my set up a few times and saw my indicator go down multiple times but couldn’t hook anything. Fish were rising all over the lake so there were plenty of fish around. After about an hour of no action I swapped to my sinking line set-up and started stripping an olive damsel fly. I figured brown trout like to chase so let me give them something to chase. I quickly got into fish and caught about a dozen decent size brown trout. I forgot how ice cold the water in Milton Reservoir was and numb by the time I called it quits at about 8pm.

The following morning I was the first person on the lake at 7am. From my experience brown trout are low-light fish so the earlier you can get out the better. I swapped the damsel fly for a midnight cowboy simi seal leech in hopes of hooking into a trophy brown trout. The lake was glass until about 7:15am when fish started rising all over the lake. They were absolutely hammering my streamer and I was hooking a fish every other cast. The bite started to slow down around 8am which was about 30 minutes after the sun hit the lake. My dark colored streamer wasn’t working as well anymore so I switched back to my olive damsel fly and started picking up fish again though at a slower rate. I caught over a dozen fish from 7am to 10am and felt satisfied enough to call this visit to Milton Reservoir a success.

On the way out of town I fished the Truckee River below Boca. The water was looking pretty good at 484 CFS below Boca. I caught a handful of fish and couldn’t stop catching some of the biggest whitefish I’ve ever caught.

Milton Reservoir is definitely a challenging lake to fish. Although I managed to catch a ton of fish they were pretty picky about what they wanted to eat. The anglers I saw using indicators only hooked a few fish here and there despite tons of fish rising all over the lake. The lake appears to be a completely wild brown trout fishery as I didn’t hook a single rainbow trout this visit. The fish averaged at about 10″ – 12″ with a biggest fish being about 14″. There has to a few 18″ – 20″ fish in Milton but they are most likely rare. The eastern side is relatively shallow until about halfway towards middle where it deepens towards the dam. There are a lot of submerged trees on the western side that you should make note and be aware of. Milton Reservoir is one of the better trout lakes I’ve fished. The ease of access, abundance of challenging brown trout, and catch-and-release regulations have made it a top destination on my list. I plan on visiting Milton Reservoir more often and hope to someday catch and land a trophy brown.

Truckee River

Truckee River Fly Rafting

by Matt

July is my least favorite month. It’s the hottest and feels like the longest month of the year making it a slog to get through. Fish regardless of cold-water or warm-water don’t seem to be very active this time of year unless you’re fishing in the early morning or towards the evening. However this year is an exceptional one due to a heavy winter snowpack. Many rivers are surprisingly still running high and cool allowing for continued recreation. I had a few days of personal time and decided to beat the heat in the valley by making my way up the hill. It took some time trying to figure out where to go but I ultimately decided to revisit the Truckee River with a plan of hiking in and rafting out in my Alpacka Caribou.

It’s been several years since I’ve been on the Truckee River. I’ve been keeping track of the recent events regarding the river access at the Hirschdale section of the Truckee. In the past few years the area around the bridge changed ownership and the new owner has blocked off access points to the Truckee River that has been in use for decades. It’s been a messy situation and I commend all the folks out there who are fighting the good fight for the right to access the Truckee River. Of all the rivers in California I find that the Truckee River is one of the most cherished and protected. I hope the issue is resolved soon so that we can all enjoy the canyon section of the Truckee like we did in the past.

I’ve never had a lot of luck in the Hirschdale section and though I’ve caught fish there it didn’t fish any better than the other sections of the Truckee. The true bright spot in the Hirschdale section was the ability get a bit further away from civilization and fish the canyon. With all easily accessible accesses blocked off the only way to fish the canyon is by hiking upstream via Tahoe-Pyramid trail from Floriston to the Truckee River Wildlife Union Ice Unit between Hirschdale and Floriston. It’s not a long hike about 2.5 miles but it’s a lot of ground to cover before you can start fishing. I planned on fishing below the railroad bridge, raft my way downstream covering different spots, and take out before the Floriston Gorge.

I parked below the I-80 bridge at Floriston and made my way up the Tahoe-Pyramid trail at around 8am. It took me 45 minutes at a moderate pace to reach the railway bridge. The flows were a bit high around 725 CFS near Floriston. At these flows the Truckee River is impossible to safety cross so I utilize my Alpacka Caribou packraft to cross to the other side. I was euronymphing with my Echo Shadow II and put about a dozen fish into the net. All of the fish were on the smaller side around 10″. I managed to hook two larger fish in the 18″ range but they came off as soon as I set the hook. The Truckee River is a true 90% of the fish are in 10% of the water type fishery. I covered a ton of fishy water and found that most of the fish were in the softer white boils below or to the side of large rocks. There were mix reports about what the fish were eating so I had to figure it out by mixing up some patterns. I tried a combination of heavy streamer jigs with the hopes of entice the larger fish with a smaller go-to mayfly nymph as a dropper. There were a ton of caddis and yellow sallies flying along the banks but I didn’t see any fish rising for them. I throat pumped a few fish I caught and found that they were eating medium sized mayfly nymphs. The flies that were hot this day were stonefly nymphs and size 14 pheasant tail nymphs. The fishing was fair. I usually don’t catch a lot of big fish in July but it sucked to put in so much effort to only land a few small fish.

The Truckee River is well-known for its whitewater rafting and some of the best rapids can be found in the canyon section. I once went whitewater rafting on the Middle Fork of the American River and quickly found out that once was more than enough for me. I was hoping that floating down the Truckee River below the railroad bridge would be a breeze but found it to be pretty gnarly. I have some paddling experience rafting down the Yuba River and Feather River but I had to really prepare for the Truckee River.

I researched all the rapids and watched a ton of different runs on Youtube to get a good idea of what the rapids looked like. The most difficult rapids in the canyon were Railroad Rapid and Rock Garden. I pictured one long run but the rapids were broken into two sections. Railroad Rapid was swift as the gradient drops into a rapid with a large pool at the bottom and Rock Garden lives up to its name with rocks protruding all over the river. At Railroad Rapid I broke down by raft and portaged since I had already covered all the water I felt was fishy. I was debating whether or not I should run it but ultimately decided not to take any necessary risks. My portage is probably less than 20lbs give or take so there I didn’t have an excuse not break down my raft if needed. I put in above Rock Garden and found myself in quite a technical rapid. I would definitely classify Rock Garden as Class III as numerous obstacles and rapids made it challenging to navigate at these flows. Other than hitting two sleepers and getting some spray I managed to make my way through Rock Garden. My heart was racing and I learned real fast to make sure to breakdown all my equipment before going down any rapids. After this adventure I now know that my limit in my Alpacka Caribou is Class I to +II. If I had a self-bailing raft I would consider trying to run Class III but in the end would most likely portage to stay on the safe side.

The rapids below Rock Garden were Class II which was a relief; not a lot of quick on the spot thinking involved and a fun way to relax and make my way downstream to the take-out. I managed to accidently hit one last sleeper before the takeout which almost knocked me off. That taught me to pay attention at all times even when you think you’ve successful ran a rapid. The fishing was a bit disappointing and I’m sore as hell from all the bushwhacking, boulder hopping, and whitewater rafting but overall it was a good trip.

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