Current Fishing Report

High water, combined with low visibility, meant fishing was slow. The big draw this time of year, is throwing Skwala dries. There was no shortage of flies, it was trout noses poking up that proved in short supply. With more rain on the way, conditions will be poor for another week, possibly two. Once the weather clears, the fishing will improve. Skwala will remain viable through the end of March, as focus slowly shifts to PMD's and March Browns. TIP: Try a reach or a wiggle cast for a "fly first" presentation. 

Summer hopper fishing on the Lower Yuba has started with a bang. This is a very unique summer as recently the fishing pressure on the river has changed significantly. Over the last few years there has been a lot of riff raff along the river driving quads and polaris razors around causing a ruckus. The landowners have grown tired of this and put up a heavy duty locked gate at the highway 20 entrance. This means that the public access to launch there has been cut off so anyone who is not in the private club that I am a part of essentially cannot launch a drift boat. Additionally, public bank anglers will only be able to hike in at highway 20 and sycamore ranch/hammon grove. Being that the water is up and the river cannot be crossed in most spot and they cannot drive down the 4wd road to access the middle sections of river, there is going to be very little bank angler pressure. The sign on the new gate says that the gate will be up for an undetermined amount of time but they are going to try and do some work in there so my guess is it will be a pretty long time. While this is unfortunate for the everyday bank angler, it just happens to be good for us.All of our days out so far have resulted in a lot of dry fly eats. Hopper fishing is generally much better when there is good flow versus low water conditions. There are a lot of sneaky spots with so much water that we can tuck into. Sometimes the fish will miss the hopper and many people will set too early, but if you want to get some awesome California hopper eats then July August and early September this year is the time. Have plenty of dates open this summer but coming up soon I have July 18,21,24,25,26 to fill. Hope you have a great summer. Ben

I had my first yuba trip since the last big storm yesterday and it went very well. There was a suprising amount of bugs around- I saw skwalas, march browns, lots of pmds and a few caddis. The color of the water is excellent and the river is in good shape. If anyone says that it has been scoured out from the high flows- don't believe it. The river was just over 5,000 cfs yesterday and is definitely big. We hunted down slower water and found eager fish. Our outlook for the rest of spring is great, once the weather warms up the hatches will probably get huge and provide good action both nymphing and throwing dries. 

Floated the Lower Yuba yesterday, and the river is looking good. The storms drastically changed certain runs and some of the normal routes have changed. Water was a nice tint of green with 3+ feet of visibility, sitting around 3200 cfs flows. We got into over a dozen trout and mostly caught them on big bugs and eggs. We found our first skwala adult of the season and hopefully this is a good sign for the skwala hatch in February. With the big water that came through there certainly is some steelhead that pushed up and we will be chasing and patterning them hard over the coming months. Flows are likely going to stay around 3k through next month so the walk and wade skwala game is going to be tough for most. Your best bet will be to fish it from a drift boat, ideally with someone who knows the river well. I have availability in February and would be happy to get you out there. 

I guided the Lower Yuba River today and fishing was very good. The river has cleared up since the last storms and the water is a great color. Fish were eating eggs and small attractor flies consistently throughout the day. We caught good numbers and had a quality grade of fish on the wild rainbows and also found a clip fin steelhead. There were some pmds and bwos that hatched and fish were up on dries in certain spots. Winter is a great time to fish out here, short drive for most people, good nymphing, dry fly fishing, streamer fishing and swinging can make for a fun day on the river. 

Had a a great day today with Chris who was a first timer and Seth who is from Georgia and never fished from a drift boat or caught wild rainbows. They were both impressed with the power and beauty of the trout they caught. We were also stoked to catch a small lost clip fin steelhead in July. The last 2 weeks we have been catching fish primarily on hoppers and nymphing. The flows are up for Ag purposes with plenty of water getting pushed down the river, it is a nice change of pace compared to how low and clear it often is nowadays. If you want to fish hoppers from a drift boat with only a 2 hour drive from the bay area, now or August is the ideal time. 

We had a fun day on the Yuba yesterday. We caught some fired up trout and landed two steelhead. January is often a quality over quantity game out there. We saw a few pmds coming off and most days recently there have been bwo hatches. More hatches will continue to come off as the month progresses and by the end of the month we should be seeing some skwala adults and having good dry fly action.

I have attached some pics of a few different steelhead from this fall so far on the Lower Yuba. Some of the fish we are finding are Yuba steelhead and some are lost from other rivers. The steelie season has kicked off with a bang and should get better from here. We just had a bunch of rain but the river is already cleared up and is currently fishing again. With deer creek already having been flushed twice, and much of the upcoming storms going to produce snow instead of rain, hopefully it will hold. If not, it clears very fast compared to other rivers in the area.Some days recently the fish have been looking up and eating bwos on top. We don't need a lot of vis and the river fished fantastic after the big storm at the end of October. December and January are some of my favorite months to chase steelhead out there and of course get into trout daily as well. February is generally prime time for the infamous skwala hatch. If you have not tried throwing hefty stonefly dries in the middle of winter from a drift boat out there, I recommend it. March and April will bring more hatches to throw dries and if it continues like last year we will find steelhead here and there all the way into May.

I had a fun day of hopper fishing on Friday with some skilled clients. I have spent the majority of my summer doing hopper trips on the Lower Yuba. Many days the bite has been good and we have thrown hoppers all day, and other days the bite was slow so we switched to nymphing and started catching more fish. August is one of my favorite months for hopper fishing. Swinging has also been productive and is a good way to cool off and practice spey casting skills before steelhead season is upon us. Water temps are great on the Yuba and the fish are healthy.

What can I say- the Yuba has been fishing well. The fish are chowing a variety of offerings and we are finding quality fish. We are regularly seeing golden eagles, bald eagles and osprey. December is a great month to get out there and experience it all from a drift boat. 

In the last few days the hopper fishing has peaked on the Lower Yuba in my opinon. These photos are all client fish caught on hoppers from recent trips this month. I have had three trips cancel in the next week because of fears of smoke. The smoke is not that bad on the Lower Yuba, I have had clients over the age of 70 in the last few days and they have been fine. At times the sky is blue and you can see the sun, other times the sky is hazy which acts like cloud cover and turns up the bite. Additionally I have recently secured private access water to float both a little bit above highway 20 and then all the way down to Daguerre Dam, which has some prime hopper water.

Hopper season is in full swing on the Yuba River! I was out there three times in the last week and each time they have been looking up taking big hoppers and attractors off of the surface. They have also been eating a wide variety stones, caddis and mayflies sub surface. We should have this good action continue on top and July is a great month for it. There is no better way to fish hoppers than from a drift boat.On a side note- those who have had to cancel big fishing trips out of country/state this year may want to consider doing more local trips instead. The Lower Yuba is just over 45 minutes from most parts of Sacramento, and less than 2 hours from many parts of the Bay Area. To throw these big dries for fiesty wild trout mid summer feels a lot like Montana. 

Had a great Yuba trip with Steve on Thursday. We nymphed in the morning and got into some fish, but the day really kicked into gear when we started seeing skwalas on the water and fish rising at about noon, which is a little earlier than we have been seeing it lately. We commited to the dry from then on and it was the right move. There was a bunch of different bugs coming off, but the fish were clearly keyed in on the skwalas as we could watch a live one float by and then see a fish eat it. They continued to rise to them steadily and then it slowed a bit just after 4pm but there were still some fish willing to come up to a good presentation in the right locations until the end of the day. 

It is skwala season on the Yuba River. Floated yesterday and while we did not see a lot of rises in the morning, fish were coming up in the afternoon. I had multiple skwalas land on me, and we also saw some pmds and march browns around. We wanted to primarily throw skwalas and were rewarded with some ferocious eats.They are off to a good start and it should pick up from here. Many consider skwalas on the Yuba to be the best dry fly hatch in the state. If you like throwing big dry flies to feeding fish, February/early March is the time to go try it out.

Had a good day on the Yuba with Topher and his son Finn. First day in a drift boat for Finn so we spent the morning learning to cast and present both nymphing rigs and a hopper dry fly. By mid morning, he was dialed in and hooked and landed a great fighting Yuba trout on a nymph rig. Topher also had some fun on the nymphs. In the afternoon we turned our attention to Hopper’s and we had 7 really great takes. Finn hooked and lost a couple of dandies and a few just simply didn’t cooperate on the grab . Fun to watch though.

Yuba Cookie Cutter!

Finn’s first!!!!! Awesome!

Took Leaf and Ketan our for a full Spey day on the Yuba. Water had dropped about 500 cfs from last week. We were able to swing up 4 nice Yuba trout with a few more grabs. The hopper fishing was off today but not for a lack of effort. Still need a good flow drop for things to reall drop into shape. Beautiful day even with the heat.

Little side channel heavan

Typical Yuba water

Wet wading is in with the kids!

Spent a beautiful day with the Spey rods searching for trout on the Yuba River with James from Idaho. Water still high at around 6,000 cfs, but there are plenty of good spots to swing flies for hard fighting rainbows. We fished hard and got a few grabs bringing two fish to the net. The real fun of the day was the fish caught on hoppers in between swing runs. Caught and landed a super nice fish on the hopper but the pic didn’t happen. Whenever the Yuba flows drop, things should be really good.

Bent!

Spent a day with Jeff fishing the Yuba River. Flows were around 1000 cfs and the water was pretty clear. We had a great day landing fish, all with good size. The dry fly action was awesome but the fish were very finicky! The highlight of the day was hooking into and landing a 25” tank! Big battle! With all the great fishing right now in Northern California, the Yuba is definitely worth a look.

Yuba Tank!

Took a day and drifted the Yuba. The flows were low (around 600 cfs) and the water was gin clear.  Although I was a little disappointed with the overall fishing on this day,  there were good signs for things to come this fall as the river has begun to create some shape and structure after the floods of the past few winters.  My biggest disappointment was with the Hopper grab.  Threw a lot of Hoppers in usual places with no response.  It's still a good time to fish this technique, but this particular day was slow. Nymphing was also slow.  Only a few grabs and only in the few deep and heavily oxygenated holes. I did have some fun on small dries throughout the day.  Simple patterns worked best and the 'ol Parachute Adams was the "go to"  for the day.  Seemed that the bigger fish were in the deep holes and the smaller fish were spread throughout the river looking for dries.  No whoppers to speak of, but still fun to have fish grab dries.  The best news of the day was to see the presence of Salmon in the system.  Even counted a number of Redds already being developed.  This is a really good sign for fall Yuba fishing as it has been awhile since I have seen this much early activity.  

Dry flies in shallow riffles can be a kick in the pants

What a great day on the Yuba!  Spent the day with Jeff from Sacramento chucking fat grasshoppers all day.  We had a blast!  We had a number of smaller fish come up and crush our fly with mixed results on hooking up as they seemed more poised for a fight than a meal.  The real highlight, was the number of larger of fish that couldn't resist either.  Got a few to the net with a few more heartbreaks.  So fun to watch the grabs!!!! We picked up a few fish nymphing as well so it looks like a good time to get out on the Yuba even with the heat!

Cant resist the Hopper!

A little wet wade to keep cool!