Issue No. 10 · Week of September 7, 2026 · The Weekly Lowdown

Two more summer days, then the bottom drops out.

Wednesday and Thursday come in at 87 and 89 — warmer than anything in last week's issue — before a breezy Friday and Saturday hand off to a real autumn shove: Sunday tops out at 72 and Sunday night falls into the upper 30s. No rain anywhere in the product. Angel Lake closed for the season yesterday for dam construction, the tailwater gave back last week's gain, and Lamoille Creek is now within four percent of its ninety-year record low. Tabor Creek, though, is open again.

This Week's Bite

Good · Dawn Game Again, Then the Turn

SlowFairGoodHot

The Lowdown

Summer got one more turn at bat. The 208 PM zone forecast has today at 87 and Thursday at 89, which is warmer than any day in last week's newsletter — the issue in which we announced that summer was done. It was not quite done. Two hot, bright afternoons is a short relapse rather than a reversal, but it is enough to put the middle of the day back off the table for forty-eight hours. Fish first light Wednesday and Thursday the way you did in July.

Then the week turns, and it turns hard. Friday and Saturday are both flagged Breezy at 85 and 84, with Saturday night coming in "breezy, colder" and down into the low 40s. Then Sunday tops out at 72, and Sunday night falls into the upper 30s — the coldest night this newsletter has printed. Elko sits at 5,050 feet; the Ruby basins sit above 9,500. When town is in the upper 30s you should expect the cirques to be well below freezing. Sunday is the best-scoring day in this issue and it is the one most people will skip because it looks cold.

There is no rain in this forecast. Last week we led with scattered showers — the first precipitation this newsletter had printed since June. This issuance carries none: seven dry daytime periods and unbroken sun. We are not going to tell you whether that weekend rain actually fell, because we could not verify it. What we can tell you is that the new product is dry, fire danger is still rated High on every district, and the roads are hard again.

Now the water, and we have to correct ourselves. Last week the South Fork tailwater read 7.38 cfs, we called it the healthiest number of the summer, and we wrote that irrigation season winding down made the trend "durable rather than a spike" and that it "runs your way for the next month." It did not. It read 6.50 cfs Tuesday afternoon at 2.20 feet — down about twelve percent in seven days, back to 70 percent of the September 8 median and now sitting a tenth of a cfs above the 25th percentile it had cleared. We were wrong about the direction.

Keep that in proportion, though. NDOW's own description of this river puts fall discharge at five to fifteen cfs. Six and a half is inside that range. The reach is below its long-term median for the date and it stopped improving, and both of those are worth knowing — but this is not a river in crisis, and we are not going to dress it up as one.

The mainstem, meanwhile, did the opposite. The Humboldt near Elko reads 1.34 cfs against 0.82 last week — up sixty-three percent, and at 74 percent of median it is the highest percent-of-median we have ever published for that gauge. One reach fell and the other rose in the same week. The plausible reading is that reservoir releases are being cut for the season while valley irrigation diversions shut off, which would move the two gauges in opposite directions. We have no source inside the district, so take that as the likely explanation and not as fact.

Lamoille Creek settles a question and raises a worse one. For three straight weeks that gauge returned 3.18 cfs and 1.64 feet to the hundredth, and last week we said a fourth identical reading would mean we stopped trusting the station. It came back 2.89 cfs at 1.62 feet. The sensor is fine. The creek is not: that is 44 percent of median and roughly four percent above the lowest September 8 flow in ninety years of record. Last week it stood fourteen percent above that mark. Leave it alone.

And a closure that is ours, on a water we sent you to. Angel Lake Campground and Day Use Area closed for the season yesterday, September 8, and stays closed through October 31 while crews begin construction on the new Angel Lake Dam. Angel Lake was the hot spot in Issue No. 1. If it was on your list for this month, take it off and call the Mountain City-Ruby Mountains-Jarbidge District at 775-738-5171 before you drive up the switchbacks.

Two things opened, and we owe you both. The Ward Fire closure of the entire Ely Ranger District now shows an end date of September 1 with no order replacing it, so the Snake Range approaches are clear on the published record for the first time in five weeks. And the Tabor Creek campground and BLM Road 1275 reopened on September 1, with the Forleen Fire declared contained and controlled — we told you that closure was open-ended last week, and it is over. There is now no fire closure anywhere in Elko County.

Water Conditions

South Fork Humboldt — Below the Dam

Flow6.50 cfs · Sep 8

vs Median70% · at 25th pct

Gage Height2.20 ft

TrendDown 12% on wk

We got the direction wrong last week, and here is the number. Gauge 10320000 read 6.50 cfs at 2.20 feet at 4:40 Tuesday afternoon, against the 7.38 we published seven days ago. That is 70 percent of the September 8 median of 9.3, and it puts the reach a tenth of a cfs above the 25th percentile of 6.4 — the line it had finally cleared. The recovery stalled and gave back most of its gain.

Now the context we should have led with. NDOW describes this river as running five to fifteen cfs in the fall. Six and a half is inside that band. Measured against ninety years of September 8 records it is low; measured against what this reach normally does in autumn it is ordinary. Both things are true, and the second one is why this is still the best trout water in the county — sixteen miles away the mainstem is running a fifth of it.

Fish it like low, clear water again. Wednesday and Thursday afternoons at 87 and 89 under a bright sky are the harshest conditions this reach has seen in two weeks. Go back to the long leader and the fine tippet we were prescribing in August, keep your shadow off the water, and take the first two hours and the last one. The nights are still cold enough that the water starts genuinely cool, so the morning window is long even on the hot days.

The weekend is the whole point. When Sunday tops out at 72 after a breezy, colder Saturday night in the low 40s, this reach will fish all day for the first time since the cold snap two weeks ago. A Zebra Midge dead-drifted through the slots covers the morning; the last hour is still the best hour on the water. Per NDOW, rainbows here typically run 14 to 22 inches, alongside bowcutt, wild browns, smallmouth and channel cat.

Two things to check before you go. Access first: the state park's water runs a quarter mile past the spillway and that is the stretch you can count on. NDOW describes fishable water about twelve miles down to Hunter Banks Diversion Dam, but below the park boundary ownership is a patchwork of BLM and private ranch, and Nevada has no high-water-mark access right. Second, regulations: NDOW is currently showing a special regulation on the South Fork — artificial lures with single barbless hooks and a one-trout limit above the Lucky Nugget causeway. We are not certain which reach that covers, so check the current NDOW listing before you keep a fish rather than trusting the limit we printed in August.

Ruby Mtn Lakes — Lamoille Canyon

Angel LakeClosed · Sep 8

AccessFSR 57390 closed

NightsUpper 30s Sunday

BrookiesPeak color

Start with the closure, because it is a good lake and it is gone until spring. Angel Lake Campground and Day Use Area closed for the season on September 8 — yesterday — and stays closed through October 31 so crews can begin construction on the new Angel Lake Dam. The named sites are the campground and the picnic site, and a closure map defines the footprint. We have not read that map, so we will not tell you the water itself is legally shut; we will tell you the developed access is closed, heavy equipment is arriving, and you should call 775-738-5171 before you drive to Wells. Angel Lake was our very first hot spot. This one stings.

Lamoille Canyon is open and the brookies are at their best. Island, Liberty and the Dollar Lakes are into peak spawning color now — orange bellies, white-edged fins, fish stacked toward the inlets and the shallow gravel. The cold is what did it, and more is coming: with town falling into the upper 30s Sunday night, the basins above 9,500 feet should be well below freezing.

Which is a reason for restraint. Colored-up brook trout in shallow water are aggressive and easy, and easy is the problem. Stay off obvious gravel where fish are paired up, keep them wet, take the photo in the net, and be content with fewer. A small Woolly Bugger stripped along the shelf edges covers the whole morning without you having to hunt spawners to catch fish.

Two standing items, both unchanged. Forest Order 04-17-26-06-02 closes Forest Service Road 57390 — roadway, shoulder and 300 feet either side — through October 31. Driving through is exempt; stopping, parking or walking in that corridor is not, and violation is a Class B misdemeanor. The order still does not name the road in plain English, so if your route uses a numbered Forest road, call the district. Fire danger is rated High and Stage 1 restrictions run through October 31 — campfires in developed sites only, and there is no rain anywhere in this forecast.

Rivers & Streams — Mainstem & Lamoille Creek

Elko Gauge1.34 cfs · up 63%

vs Median74% · our highest yet

Lamoille Ck2.89 cfs · 44%

Record LowWithin 4%

The mainstem had the best week it has had all year, and it is still not a fishery. Gauge 10318500 read 1.34 cfs at 0.89 feet Tuesday afternoon, up from 0.82 seven days ago — a sixty-three percent jump. Against the September 8 median of 1.8 that is 74 percent, which is the highest percent-of-median this newsletter has ever printed for that gauge; we have published 33, 0.5, 7, 23, 23 and 46 percent since July. Real improvement, from a very low floor.

Understand what one and a third cfs actually is. It is a trickle connecting warm pools. The improvement is most likely irrigation diversions shutting off for the season rather than new water arriving, and the fish in there are concentrated and stressed. If the trend holds into October this becomes worth a look. It is not this week. The tailwater is sixteen miles away and running five times the flow.

Lamoille Creek answered last week's question the right way. We flagged that the gauge had returned exactly 3.18 cfs and 1.64 feet three weeks running and said a fourth would mean a suspect station. It reads 2.89 cfs at 1.62 feet. The station is live and working — the flag is cleared, and we were right to print the number with the caveat rather than either trusting it blindly or throwing it out.

The creek itself is in trouble. 2.89 cfs is 44 percent of the 6.5 median and sits roughly four percent above 2.78 — the lowest September 8 flow in ninety years of record, set in 2013. A week ago it was fourteen percent above that mark. Every trout in that creek is packed into whatever pools still hold cold water, and it cannot absorb fish that swim off and die. Leave it alone. Come back in October for the cottonwoods.

Native Waters — Jarbidge & the Snake Range

Ely DistrictOrder expired · no successor

Verify775-289-3031

Tabor CreekReopened Sep 1

JarbidgePrime · all day

The Ely Ranger District closure is off the books. The Ward Fire order, 04-17-26-09-02, now carries a published Alert End Date of September 1, 2026, a week gone, and no successor order appears anywhere on the forest alerts index. We carried that closure for five straight weeks and could only ever say it was scheduled to lapse. The published record now says it lapsed and was not renewed, which is as close to open as a website gets.

Still make the call. An expired web alert is not a district telling you its roads are clear, and burned ground brings its own hazards long after the order comes down — soft shoulders, hazard trees, washouts on the first hard rain. 775-289-3031, the morning you leave.

And the drive north is clear again. Last week we told you the Tabor Creek campground and BLM Road 1275 were closed open-endedly over the Forleen Fire. BLM lifted that closure on September 1, with the Forleen Fire declared contained and controlled. The campground — twelve sites and vault toilets, fifty-eight miles northeast of Elko — is back. That leaves no fire closure anywhere in Elko County. BLM Wells Field Office is 775-753-0200 if you want it confirmed.

The Jarbidge is at its high point and this is the fortnight. Small streams at 6,500 feet with highs in the 80s falling to the 70s and nights in the 40s do not have a bad hour in them. Redband and Bonneville cutthroat will look up from breakfast until dark. Skate something big and rough through the pocket water. When Sunday's cold arrives, expect the fish to move to the slower, deeper tail-outs and stay there — go smaller and slower rather than going home.

Standing cautions. FSR 57390 is closed on this district too, same order, same October 31 date. The Charleston-Jarbidge Road, CR748, is unpaved — dry and hard this week with no rain in the forecast, which makes it fast and makes the washboard worse; Elko County Roads is 775-738-5036. Humboldt-Toiyabe Stage 1 restrictions run through October 31. And bull trout in the Jarbidge go straight back in the water.

Weather Outlook

Wed

Sunny

87°

NE 5 · W pm

Thu

Mostly Sunny

89°

W 10–15 pm

Fri

Breezy

85°

—

Sat

Breezy

84°

—

Sun

Sunny

72°

—

Mon

Sunny

78°

—

Tue

Sunny

82°

—

Wind in mph · two hot bright days to open — 87 today and 89 Thursday, warmer than anything in last week's issue · breezy Friday and Saturday, with Saturday night "breezy, colder" into the low 40s · then the turn: Sunday tops at 72, and Sunday night drops into the upper 30s — the coldest night we have printed · no precipitation in any period and fire danger still rated High on every district · best windows: first light Wednesday and Thursday, then all day from Saturday on · live 10-day forecast →

The Fly Box

Flying Ant

#14–18 · bright warm afternoons

The most underrated fly of early September and this week is built for it. Hot, still, bright afternoons in the mid-to-upper 80s are exactly what puts ants in the air over the Ruby foothills, and trout that have refused everything since ten in the morning will eat one without hesitating. Carry a cinnamon and a black, fish it flush in the film rather than perched up on hackle, and use it Wednesday and Thursday when nothing else is happening.

Zebra Midge

#18–20 · dead-drift, weighted

What six and a half cfs of gin-clear tailwater asks for. With the flow back down and the sky cloudless, the fish below the dam are looking at small food in thin water and they can see everything, including your tippet. Black with silver, red with copper, weighted and dead-drifted deep through the slots on a long leader. Unexciting, and it will outfish anything else you own on Wednesday morning.

Woolly Bugger

#8–10 · olive or black, slow strip

The right answer in the alpine lakes right now, and deliberately so. The brookies are colored up and moving to the gravel, and the honest way to fish over spawning trout is to stay off the redds and pull something they chase out of aggression along the shelf edges instead. It is also the fly for the Ruby Lake channels — the bass and the big trout both eat it. Count it down, strip it slow, and hold on through the pause.

Griffith's Gnat

#18–22 · glassy mornings

For the cold end of the week. Midges cluster and hatch on still, cold water, and Monday morning — after the upper-30s night that closes Sunday out — should find the spring channels and the lake margins glassy with fish sipping in the surface film. Sunday morning, off a low-40s night, is nearly as good. It looks like nothing and imitates a mating ball of midges. Fish it on the finest tippet you can stand, watch for the rise-form rather than the fly, and set slow.

Hot Spot of the Week

Ruby Lake National Wildlife Refuge

South end of Ruby Valley · Collection Ditch & spring channels · ~6,000 ft

With Angel Lake closed and the creeks too low to fish in good conscience, we are sending you somewhere that does not care what the snowpack did. Ruby Lake is spring-fed, at the south end of Ruby Valley under the east face of the Rubies at about 6,000 feet — 40,048 acres of marsh, meadow and upland, and one of the most remote refuges in the lower 48.

Know what you are walking into. There are no open-water lakes here. It is wetland threaded with cattail and bulrush into a maze of channels, and the fly water is the Collection Ditch — long, clear and weed-lined, holding rainbow, brook, brown, tiger and cutthroat trout along with largemouth bass. Sight-fishing is the game: walk the bank, look before you cast, expect the fish to see you first. The Collection Ditch is artificial lures and flies only, and bait, float tubes and wading are all prohibited — you fish it from the bank. In the South Marsh, by contrast, wading and bank fishing are open from August 1 through December 31.

The one rule that will catch this newsletter's readers. We tell you to be on the water at first light every week. Here you cannot: the refuge is open only from one hour before sunrise until one hour after sunset, and camping and overnight parking are prohibited. Plan a mid-morning-through-afternoon day, which suits the fishing anyway — cooling water pulls the bass onto the edges and turns the trout on through the middle of the day.

Go before October, and this is the honest reason. The short way in is over Harrison Pass: SR 227 to SR 228, which turns to dirt, 4.2 miles over the pass, then well-maintained dirt and gravel about eight miles to headquarters. Those 4.2 miles are not maintained in winter and may be impassable anytime from October on. The year-round alternative is the long way round via Secret Pass — I-80 east to exit 321, then SR 767/229. Either way it is 65 miles from Elko down the county road, and fishing licences are not sold in Ruby Valley, so buy yours before you leave town and take fuel, water and a spare.

A word on what lives there. Trumpeter swans nest on the refuge in summer and forty or more winter here, which is why the whole of Ruby Valley is closed to hunting white waterfowl. The only fish native to Ruby Lake is the relict dace, now reduced and hybridised by introduced species and the subject of an active recovery effort. Wet hands, quick release, and leave what you do not recognise alone.

TargetTrout · Largemouth Bass

Best WindowMid-morning to afternoon

MethodSight-fish from the bank · artificials only

Field Notes

RegTwo closures, one reopening, and a refuge rulebook. Angel Lake Campground and Day Use Area closed for the season on September 8 through October 31 for dam construction — call the Mountain City-Ruby Mountains-Jarbidge District at 775-738-5171. FSR 57390 stays closed with a 300-foot buffer through October 31. Tabor Creek campground and BLM Road 1275 REOPENED September 1 with the Forleen Fire contained and controlled — we reported that closure as open-ended last week. The Ward Fire closure of the Ely Ranger District shows an end date of September 1 and no order replaced it; still worth a call to 775-289-3031.

At Ruby Lake NWR: open only one hour before sunrise to one hour after sunset, no camping or overnight parking; artificials only in the Collection Ditch with no wading or float tubes; no live or dead bait fish anywhere on the refuge; Nevada licence required for anglers 12 and older, and none sold in Ruby Valley. State size and bag limits apply — and see the note on the South Fork special regulation in Section 02 before you keep a trout there. Everything else is on the regulations page.
CareThe hazard this week is the swing, not the heat. Wednesday afternoon is 87 and bright; Sunday night is in the upper 30s. That is close to a fifty-degree spread inside five days, and it catches people who packed once on Wednesday for a trip running through the weekend.

Pack for both ends. Sun cover and more water than you think for the first two days — high-desert September at 87 degrees pulls moisture out of you faster than the number suggests. Then real insulation and a wind layer from Saturday night onward, because breezy in the low 40s on open water is where hypothermia actually starts.

And the ground is dry with no rain in the forecast. Fire danger is rated High on every district and Humboldt-Toiyabe Stage 1 restrictions hold through October 31: campfires in developed sites only.
TipFish the front, not the calm behind it. The instinct when a cold push arrives is to wait a day for things to settle — and the settled day is usually the worst one.

The window here is Saturday afternoon into Sunday morning, while the change is still arriving and the wind is still up. Trout tend to feed ahead of a front and sulk once it has landed and the sky has gone hard blue. Saturday is breezy at 84, Saturday night turns colder into the low 40s, and Sunday tops at 72 — that whole stretch is the best water time in this issue.

Practically: be out Saturday afternoon rather than Saturday dawn for once, and give Sunday the full day. Then expect Monday and Tuesday to be slower while everything resets.

← The latest edition & all past issues

Two more summer days, then the bottom drops out.

This Week's Bite

The Lowdown

Water Conditions

South Fork Humboldt — Below the Dam

Ruby Mtn Lakes — Lamoille Canyon

Rivers & Streams — Mainstem & Lamoille Creek

Native Waters — Jarbidge & the Snake Range

Weather Outlook

The Fly Box

Hot Spot of the Week

Field Notes

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