A PANDEMIC-DRIVEN SURGE IN FLY-FISHING HAS CREATED OPPORTUNITY IN THE TAHOE AREA, WHERE AN INCREASE IN ANGLERS INDICATES GROWING INTEREST IN THE SPORT—AS WELL AS MORE PRESSURE ON LOCAL WATERS.

The rod moves like a windshield wiper on a drizzly day, tracing wide arcs over the Truckee River as Jeff Sasaki points the tip upstream toward Lake Tahoe, then downstream toward Lake Pyramid, then back again. The physics at play in getting his fly between two pale boulders where a rainbow trout may be hiding—involving potential and kinetic energy, air resistance, surface tension, turbulent versus laminar flow and who knows how many more textbook terms—may be nearly as complex as the rights governing the highly contested water that runs through California and into agricultural fields and kitchen sinks in Nevada.