Lamoille Creek Fly Fishing

Lamoille Creek runs down the floor of Lamoille Canyon — the "Yosemite of Nevada" — right alongside the scenic byway that climbs to the Ruby Crest trailhead. It's small, pocketed, freestone water with beaver ponds strung through the meadows, and it's the most accessible trout stream in the Rubies: you can fish it a few steps from the road, then hike the alpine lakes above the same afternoon.

The fish are wild brook and rainbow trout — not big, but willing, and gorgeous in the fall. This is dry-fly and small-water fishing at its most pleasant: short casts, quick pockets, and scenery that's hard to look away from.

Drive the Lamoille Canyon Scenic Byway (SR 660) from the town of Lamoille; the creek runs beside and below the road for much of the canyon, with pullouts and meadow reaches to work. The upper canyon and the road close with snow in winter and spring; the beaver-pond meadows lower down are the easiest wading.

[RYAN INPUT NEEDED: which pullouts and beaver-pond stretches you'd point someone to, and when the canyon road usually opens]

• Brook trout — the classic small-stream fish here
• Rainbow trout

The creek is snowmelt-driven. It runs high and cold with runoff in late spring, then settles into prime dry-fly shape through summer and into fall as flows drop and clear (watch the live gage below). Terrestrials — ants, beetles, hoppers — get good in late summer, and the fall brook-trout color-up is the prettiest fishing of the year. The upper canyon is snowbound in winter.

Small-water tactics: a single high-floating attractor dry — Elk Hair Caddis, Stimulator, Humpy or a Parachute Adams — drifted through the pockets and pool heads takes most fish, with a small beadhead dropper when they want it subsurface. Approach low and upstream, keep casts short, and hit the beaver-pond edges and inlets. Light rods and fine tippet make the small fish fun.

[RYAN INPUT NEEDED: your producing patterns and the beaver-pond approach that works for you here]

Signature flies

• Elk Hair Caddis
• Stimulator
• Parachute Adams
• Humpy
• Royal Wulff
• Pheasant Tail
• Hare's Ear
• Flying ant
• Beetle
• Hopper

No special regulation is listed for Lamoille Creek, so Eastern Region general rules apply: 5 trout and 5 mountain whitefish daily, open year-round, any hour (winter access is limited by snow, not season). It's small water — consider going light on harvest to keep it fishing well.

See the full regulation card and license details → Summarized from NDOW; always confirm current rules at ndow.org before you fish.