Check out this Yuba River FATTY!
Well it has been a while since my last post. Things up here in Chico have been crazy hectic trying to balance the responsibilities of being a guide and part time graduate student. Only a couple more weeks before the school will be out of the picture until next fall. That will be a nice break. The last week and a half I have been bouncing back and forth between the Lower Sac and the Yuba. It is pretty wild how different these two rivers are and you really have to change your style when fishing each one.
The Lower Sac has been fishing average with most days seeing 30+ rainbows being boated. I have really turned my focus onto the lower river from Balls Ferry down to the Bend Bridge. This time of year the lower river really starts to fish well. The key to the game has been mainly stones with the hot patterns being rubberlegs, golden stones, iron sallies, and twenty inchers. On average the fish in the lower river are smaller than those up by Bonnyview. However, if you are on the water enough, there are still a small chance at hooking some big late steelhead. So dont be surprised when your indicator goes under and you set up on a 24-26'' fish.
The Lower Yuba has been fishing decently as the summer caddis are starting to crawl around. This last week has seen some great caddis hatches with a handful of PMD's in the mix. The key has been to fish the river really early or late. It seems that the cooler times of the day are when the fish are feeding heavily. The morning bite is solid until about 1PM. Then from 1PM - 5PM things get a little tight and you really have to start working for them. My advice is keep changing bugs until you find something that they are willing to eat. I know on Friday my clients hooked 20 fish on 8 differnt flies throughout the day. I could get the fish to eat one bug for about and hour and then an hour later they wouldn't touch it. Just teach yourself to be methodical and you should find them. We all know that the fish are in there and it is just a matter of making them eat. You gotta love and hate the Yuba.
This week I need to commend two younger kids that I took out. Matt, who is 15 and lives in Conneticut, is hands down the best 15 year old fly fisherman I have ever seen. I sware this kid is serious prodigy level. One thing I can tell you is that he is more skilled at nymphing than probably 80% of my clientel. When he gets to be in his young twenties the fish better watch out because Matt is going to have some serious game. The other kid I took out was Kent, a 13 year old, from Sacramento. Kent had never nymphed fished in his life and he had the skill down within thirty minutes. I fished Kent and his dad on the Lower Sac on Sunday and Kent only had one tangle the entire day. If Kent would spend a little more time to enjoy fly fishing he would be a complete natural. From my perspective it is awesome to see all of these young men coming out with their fathers to enjoy a day of fly fishing. These young men are the next generation of fly fishermen and in their own time they are going to teach us a thing or two.
To keep all of you informed I will be leaving once again the first part of June to go guide in Idaho for the summer. I am looking forward to another summer of throwing dries on the South Fork of the Snake. It is going to be a nice change of pace after watching indicators day after day. I will try to throw up some reports on the blog to let you all know how it is going.
Fish Hard!
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