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