Issue No. 12 · Week of September 21, 2026 · The Weekly Lowdown
Seven valley days between 72 and 84, nights mostly in the 40s, and — for five straight days — no daytime wind wording in the forecast at all. The Humboldt mainstem is up sixty-six percent in a fortnight to the highest flow this newsletter has ever printed for it. The catch: the South Fork tailwater gauge has not reported since September 8.
Sorry for missing you last week. The good news is that
you picked a fine week to hear from us again — the fishing conditions
this week are among the best we have printed all season.
We have spent ten issues telling you to fish the margins of
the day. Be on the water at first light. Get off before the wind
stands up. Chase elevation, chase shade, come back at dusk. That advice
was right every time we gave it, and this week it is simply
unnecessary.
Look at what Tuesday afternoon's forecast actually says.
Today 81, Thursday 84, Friday 82, Saturday 79, Sunday 78, Monday 72,
Tuesday 74. Nights mostly in the 40s, dipping to 35-41 Monday night. And the part that
should stop you: the forecast carries no daytime wind wording at all
from Friday through next Tuesday — not a speed, not a direction, not even
the bare word "breezy." The two days it does publish cap at ten miles an
hour, with gusts to 25 only after midnight Thursday night. This
newsletter signs off about wind most weeks. Five consecutive days without a wind term in the product is the closest thing to a gift
the high desert hands out.
There is no rain in any period from today forward.
Yesterday — Tuesday, the equinox — the product carried isolated
thunderstorms at twenty percent over the valley and scattered storms at
fifty percent over the Rubies. We do not know whether anything fell and
we are not going to pretend we do. What we can tell you is that
everything from Wednesday on is dry, fire danger is still rated
High on all seven districts, and Stage 1 restrictions
hold through October 31.
Now the water, and it opens with good news for once. The
Humboldt near Elko read 2.23 cfs at 0.94 feet just before
four Tuesday morning, against the 1.34 we published on September 8. That
is up sixty-six percent in a fortnight and it is the
highest absolute flow this newsletter has ever printed for that gauge.
It sits at 74 percent of the September 22 median and well clear of the
25th percentile.
One honest footnote on that. Seventy-four percent is the
same percentage we printed two weeks ago, and it would be easy to write
"flat." It is not flat. The date-median for this gauge climbed from 1.8
to 3.0 over the same fortnight as autumn water returns to the system —
the river gained, and the bar it is measured against gained with it. Both
moved. That is better than it sounds, not worse.
Lamoille Creek is the mirror image, and it needs two sentences
rather than one. In raw terms it fell, 2.89 cfs to
2.76. Measured against the record, it improved: it now
sits about 27 percent above the lowest September 22 flow in
ninety years, where on September 8 it was four percent above that
date's minimum. Both of those are true and they point in opposite
directions. The creek is not recovering. The yardstick is dropping faster
than the creek is. At 48 percent of median it is still a creek to walk
along and leave alone.
And then our best water went dark. The South Fork
tailwater gauge, 10320000, has not published a reading since
September 8. Both parameters stop on that date, the most recent
instantaneous value is still the 6.50 cfs we printed a fortnight ago, and
the page has not been touched since. The modern view is worse still — it
claims the record ends September 1. It is the second time this season
this station has gone quiet; it also missed its August 25 report.
So we are not printing a flow for the South Fork this week.
Not a stale one dressed as current, not an estimate, not a trend line
drawn through a gap. If you pull that gauge yourself and see 6.50, that
is our September 8 number looking back at you. The river is almost
certainly fine — 6.50 was inside NDOW's stated five-to-fifteen-cfs fall
range, nothing has happened to the weather that would move it hard, and
this reach is still the best trout water in the county. But "almost
certainly fine" is a judgement, not a measurement, and this week you fish
it by reading the water instead of the internet.
Closures: nothing new, and that is verified. Fire danger
High and Stage 1 restrictions were both confirmed today. The Ward Fire
order on the Ely District is now three weeks past its published September
1 end date with nothing replacing it. Angel Lake's developed access stays
closed through October 31 for dam work, FSR 57390 likewise, and Tabor
Creek is open. Call before you commit to a road — the district, not a
website.
The gauge stopped talking and we are going to say so
plainly. Station 10320000 has published nothing since
4:40 in the afternoon on September 8. Discharge and gage height both
end on that date, the page has not been modified since, and the
modernized view disagrees with the legacy one about where the record
stops. Fourteen days of silence on the one gauge that actually tells
us something about fishable water.
What that does and does not mean. It does not mean
the river changed. Nothing in the last fortnight's weather would move
this reach hard — no runoff event, no heat spike, a gentle slide from
the mid 80s to the low 70s. The last honest reading was 6.50 cfs,
which sits inside the five-to-fifteen range NDOW describes for this
river in fall. The most likely truth is a reach running somewhere
near where we left it. That is a reasonable guess and we are labelling
it as one.
So fish it the old way, with your eyes. Before you
rig, stand at the spillway and look: is the water covering the same
cobble it was a fortnight ago, are the tailouts still connected, is
the wading line where you remember it. Carry a thermometer, because
with nights at 42 and days at 81 the morning water starts genuinely
cold and the afternoon may not warm past comfortable — which means
the middle of the day is not disqualified.
And this is the week to be there. Whatever the flow
is, everything else has lined up: no daytime wind term in the product
from Friday on, highs of 79 and 78 across the weekend, cold nights,
bright but not punishing sun. A Pheasant Tail under an October Caddis
covers the morning; when the sun gets on the water, go to the
streamer. Per NDOW, rainbows here typically run 14 to 22 inches,
alongside bowcutt, wild browns, smallmouth and channel cat.
Two standing cautions, unchanged. Access: the state
park's water runs a quarter mile past the spillway and that is the
stretch you can count on; below the park boundary it is a patchwork
of BLM and private ranch, and Nevada has no high-water-mark access
right. Regulations: NDOW still shows a special regulation on the South
Fork — artificials, single barbless, one trout — described as "above
the Lucky Nugget causeway," and we still cannot confirm which reach
that covers. Check the current NDOW listing before you keep a
fish.
This is the fortnight people drive from Reno for, and the
weather just handed it over. Late September is when the
canyon aspens usually start to go, the road is open, and the Ruby
Mountains zone forecast is seven days of sun or mostly sun with highs
topping out between 66 and 76 — cooler still up at lake level — and
no daytime wind published after Thursday. Island, Liberty and the Dollar Lakes
sit under all of it.
The brookies are past peak color and into the serious part of
it. Two weeks on from the spawning-color note in the
September 7 issue, fish are paired on gravel in the shallows. The
restraint we asked for then matters more now, not less: stay off
obvious redds, keep fish wet, take the photo in the net, and be
content with fewer. A small streamer worked along the shelf edges
catches plenty without you hunting spawners.
Watch the nights, because the basins are not the
valley. The mountain zone falls to 35-43 Monday night, and
that range covers the canyon bottom, not the lakes. Elko sits at 5,050
feet; these basins are above 9,500. Expect frost on the trail and
possibly skim ice in the shallows on Tuesday morning, and
expect the fishing to be better at ten in the morning than at first
light — one of the few weeks all year that sentence is true
here.
Angel Lake is still shut and it is still ours. The
campground and day use area closed September 8 and stay closed through
October 31 while crews build the new dam. That is a published, dated
window and we are inside it. We have never read the closure map, so
what we will tell you is that the developed access is closed and heavy
equipment is on site — call the Mountain City-Ruby Mountains-Jarbidge
District at 775-738-5171 before you drive to
Wells.
Two standing orders. 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 or walking there is not. The order still does not
name the road in plain English. And Stage 1 restrictions were
confirmed live today: campfires in developed sites only, through
October 31, with fire danger rated High.
The mainstem has crossed from curiosity into something worth
a morning. Gauge 10318500 read 2.23 cfs at 0.94 feet just
before four Tuesday morning, against 1.34 on September 8 — up
sixty-six percent in a fortnight, and the highest absolute flow this
newsletter has published for that gauge in its short life. It sits at
74 percent of the September 22 median of 3.0 and well above the 25th
percentile of 1.5.
Do not let the percentage fool you into thinking nothing
happened. We printed 74 percent on September 8 as well. But
the date-median climbed from 1.8 to 3.0 over the same fortnight, which
is autumn water coming back into the system generally. The river rose
and the yardstick rose with it. Two weeks ago we called this "a
trickle connecting warm pools" and said come back in October if the
trend held. The trend held. With nights in the 40s
and no heat left in the forecast, the pools are cold and connected —
go look, early, and fish small.
Lamoille Creek needs the opposite warning. It reads
2.76 cfs at 1.61 feet, down from 2.89. That is 48
percent of the 5.7 median. And it now stands about 27 percent above
2.17 — the lowest September 22 flow in ninety years, set in 2013 —
where a fortnight ago it stood four percent above that date's
record.
That improvement is arithmetic, not water. The
record-low bar for this creek falls through late September faster
than the creek itself does, so the gap widens while the flow shrinks.
If you read only the record-low line you would think it was
recovering. It is not. Every trout in there is still stacked into
whatever pools hold cold water, and it still cannot absorb fish that
swim off and die. Leave it alone. Walk it for the
cottonwoods this week — they are worth the trip on their own — and
fish it next spring.
The Jarbidge is in the best two weeks it gets, and this is
one of them. Northern Elko County tops out at 78 to 82
midweek and slides to the high 60s by Monday, with nights in the low
40s and a breezy Friday. Small
streams at 6,500 feet under those numbers do not have a bad hour in
them. Redband and Bonneville cutthroat will look up from breakfast
until dark, and the cottonwood and aspen along the canyon bottoms are
turning.
Fish it big and rough. Skate something with a wing
you can see through the pocket water — an October Caddis is the
obvious choice and it is the right one. These fish are small, willing
and unfussy, and the whole point of the drive is that you get to fish
a dry all day in late September. Bull trout go straight back in the
water.
The Ely District closure stays off the books. The
Ward Fire order, 04-17-26-09-02, still shows a published end date of
September 1 — three weeks gone now — and no successor order appears
on the alerts index.
Make the call anyway. An expired web alert is not a
district confirming its roads are open, and burned ground carries
hazards long after the order comes down — soft shoulders, hazard
trees, washouts on the first hard rain of autumn.
775-289-3031, the morning you leave.
Standing cautions. FSR 57390 is closed on this district too, same
order, same October 31 date. The Charleston-Jarbidge Road, CR748, is
unpaved and dry with nothing wet in the forecast — fast, and the
washboard is worse for it; Elko County Roads is 775-738-5036. Tabor
Creek campground and BLM Road 1275 have been open since September 1.
Stage 1 restrictions hold through October 31.
The signature fly of the next three weeks and the reason people who only fish twice a year fish now. Big, orange, unmissable, and the trout know exactly what it is. Skate it through the pocket water on the Jarbidge and the canyon creeks, or dead-drift it as an indicator with a Pheasant Tail hung underneath on the tailwater. With no daytime wind in the product after Thursday you will actually be able to see it on the water, which is not something we get to say often.
The autumn mayfly, and the one that rewards the angler who stays out past nine in the morning. BWOs like cool, soft light and flat water — which is exactly what 42-degree nights and a windless forecast produce on the slow tailouts. Fish it on the finest tippet you can manage, watch for the rise-form rather than the fly, and do not set until the fish has turned down with it.
Because the browns are getting ideas. Brown trout become aggressive and territorial as water cools toward the spawn, and a sculpin pattern banged off the undercut banks is the most reliable way to find the biggest fish in the South Fork right now. Fish it in the bright middle of the day, which this week is fishable. Strip it with intent — this is not a fly you drift.
The one that works when nothing is showing. Dropped eighteen inches under the October Caddis, or run deep on a long leader through the tailwater slots, it covers mayfly nymphs and most of what else is drifting in late September. Unglamorous, and it will out-fish your clever choices three days out of six. Carry them beaded and unbeaded — with the flows uncertain on the South Fork this week you want to be able to change depth without changing flies.
A long drive south, to a lake built by a highway.
Comins Lake exists because US 93 was realigned in 1953 and the new
roadbed made a dam. NDOW bought it with the 3-C Ranch in 1999 and it
now sits on the Steptoe Valley Wildlife Management Area, fed by Steptoe
and Cave creeks from the east. We have never sent you here. This is the
week to start.
Why fall, and why this fall. Comins is shallow — about
410 surface acres at capacity, an average depth around eight feet, and
fourteen feet at the deepest. Shallow water with, in NDOW's words, "a
tremendous amount of feed" grows trout fast, and NDOW names spring and
fall as the best trout seasons. The White Pine forecast runs 77 to 79
straight through Saturday with nights in the mid 40s to low 50s, then
a breezy Sunday — so give it the first half of the weekend.
How NDOW says to fish it. Outside spring, nymphs and
midges under a strike indicator. They add one line we will repeat
because it matters: use a heavy leader. Fish grow big
on that much food. Rainbow and brown trout share the lake with
largemouth bass, and NDOW's page still asks anglers to release any
northern pike carrying an orange Floy tag and a short antenna — those
are research fish.
Know the rules before you plan the trip. There is a
primitive boat launch on the west side and restrooms, but
overnight camping and fires are not allowed at Comins.
It is a day trip, or a night in Ely. We could not find a current NDOW
fishing report for it, so treat this as a fall bet on a lake built for
fall, not a report of fish being caught this week.
One email a week — the bite, the water, the wind, and where to point the truck.
Hardly a breath of wind in the forecast. Go fishing. — Great Basin Flyfisher
Questions, tips, or a report from the water? info@greatbasinflyfisher.com
Great Basin Flyfisher