What's Fly Fishing the East Walker River Like?

The East Walker River is a renowned fly-fishing destination, known for its voracious and healthy populations of brown and rainbow trout. The tailwater section of the East Walker below Bridgeport Reservoir creates a steady flow of nutrients fueling the river's rich ecosystem while supporting rapid trout growth. The river boasts an incredibly diverse and abundant aquatic insect population, leading to prolific hatches throughout the year. This ultimately leads to a thriving and healthy trout population. These attributes are why the East Walker is known for having the biggest trout in the entire region.

Key insect hatches:

Midges: These members of the diptera family are present year-round. These are the bread and butter of this and many other tailwater fisheries. If you ever find yourself not sure of what fly to tie on, midges/chironomids are a solid bet, day in and day out.

Stoneflies: Skwala stoneflies in early spring, and golden stone flies showing up through spring and summer. There are yellow sallies present throughout summer and also some little winter stones varieties.

Mayflies: Notably, Baetis (Blue-Winged Olives) , Ephemerella (Pale Morning Duns) and Tricorythodes (Tricos). 

Caddis: There are variety of different caddis in the system hatching at different times throughout the year. Some common caddis found are Rhyacophila (Olive Sedge), Glossosoma (Saddle Case Maker), Brachycenturus (Grannom) and Hydropsyche (Spotted Sedge). All life cycles can be present in the river throughout the year. Caddis are particularly active during summer evenings.

Terrestrials: Often overlooked but if fished properly they can successfully induce a surface grab even when there aren't any bugs hatching. Grasshoppers, beetles, ants, wasps and sometimes evens moths are land born insects and hatch breakers to always have in your fly box.

Baitfish: besides trout there are a multitude of different types of others fishes including forage fish. Carp and Sacramento Perch are found in the system but also Tui Chubs and Mountain Whitefish. Black-nosed Dace, Mountain Sucker, Speckled Dace, Lahotan Redside, Mosquitofish, Fathead Minnow and Paiute Sculpin to name a few. Also don't forget crayfish. 

Dry Flies
These prolific hatches provide excellent opportunities for our favorite method of tricking trout; dry fly fishing. The abundant dry fly opportunities available is one of the top reasons why we absolutely love this private section of river we fish. Fishing pressure on the ranch is drastically reduced by nearly 93% compared to the public sections of river that get absolutely hammered. That reduced fishing pressure unequivocally leads to more natural and relaxed feeding behaviors especially from off the surface.

Nymphs
Nymphing, like all tailwaters, is the most productive technique 365 days a year. Whether you're using an indicator rig or employing a high stick method it keeps your fly in the zone and in front of the fish whether there's a hatch or not. A dry dropper is a common rig we often opt to use and it produces on a daily basis. It not only assists in gentle and delicate presentations while not disturbing the trout but it also helps key us into times when fish will eat off the surface, even though you may not see a single fish rising.

Streamers 

Streamer fishing is highly effective and definitely one of our favored methods for targeting the largest fish in the river or in a particular run. There are multitude of different ways and variations to fish streamers. Fish preferences on how they want to eat or how they want it presented can change day to day or even throughout a single session on the river. There's a whole lot more to streamer fishing than just casting a wooly bugger out and mindlessly stripping it back in. The river's ecosystem supports a ridiculous variety of bait fish and crawfish contributing significantly to the large size of some of the trout.

In essence, the East Walker River offers a challenging and rewarding fly-fishing experience, with abundant insect life and the potential to catch truly impressive trout. Combined with the most experienced and knowledgeable guide team assembled you won't just learn how to catch trout here. Our goal for you is to walk away from your trip with not only a more in-depth and better overall understanding and a more skillful angler but to have acquired the ability and knowledge of how to employ those tactics and techniques anywhere you find trout.

This section of the river is strictly catch and release with only barbless flies being used. The fish are our business partners, so we exercise and teach proper fish handling.