Well, the flows on the East Walker River have dropped to the 360 range now. That's not to say they won't raise a little here and there, but I think for the most part they should stay down in a fishable range. At 360 cfs you can cross in some places and there's still enough water for the fish to be spread out and hanging in the riffles as well as the deeper pools.

 

Most anglers have been doing pretty well on the river for the last week or so. There seems to be more fish in the river than in years past, I credit that to the high flows we've had the last two years. These higher flows (900cfs plus) pull a lot of fish out of Bridgeport Reservoir and into the river, once they're in the river, there's no leaving! There's lots of rainbows in the 12 to 18 inch range and we've seen browns up to 9lbs so far this year!

 

It is legal to keep one fish from the East Walker with an 18" minimum, however, we very strongly encourage catch and release on this special piece of water. The fewer fish that get taken from the river the better the river will be in the years to come.

 

This past week we've had anglers catching fish on lots of different bugs. There's lots of mayflies, caddis and midges in the river, as well as some stones, scud and damsels. Some of the patterns that have been catching fish are: Flashback emergers, San Juan worms, WD-40's, micro mayflies, deep sparkle pupa, buckskin caddis, micro stones, Fox pupa, tailwater tiny, zebra midge, birds nest, etc. There's also been some anglers swinging streamers and doing well, mostly early and late in the day. I also talked to one angler who fish the day before yesterday when it was windy and caught a dozen or so fish on hopper patterns on top.

 

Most of the action on the river is usually on the bottom, however, there are times when the surface action can be great. I usually recommend to fish the bottom, but keep your eyes open for surface activity and be ready, sometimes when these fish decide to look up, they don't look up for very long.

 

Our guides have been pretty busy on the river lately, if you think you'd like some help with some of the finer details of the river, just give us a call and we can get you hooked up with one of them (760-932-7707).

 

The Sceirine Ranch on the Nevada side is also fishing very well. Sometimes the California side can get a little crowded so if you'd like a section with a little less pressure, we can help you out with that too. We had clients on the Sceirine yesterday and they were able to get in to quite a few fish. When they came in after a full day on the river they were ready for some rest. They caught most of their fish on red zebra midges and olive birds nest. Some of the browns were up to about 22" they said, with most of them in the 15 to 18 inch range, they also caught some rainbows up to about 19 or 20.

 

Bottom line, with the flows on the river coming down, the fishing is great, and should be for possibly the remainder of the season!

 

JR