After a bit of a hiatus I am now back to writing more content.

During my hiatus I fished a bit here and there but overall nothing too exciting. A lot of my local options are a bust during August. Despite August being my birthday month I tend to find very few good fishing opportunities during this time. The weather is hot and the summer fishing experience begins to feel “stale” as the weather remains consistent with bluebird skies and long hot days. The fish are over summer and I’m over summer as well.

September is now in the air which means we are getting closer and closer to the fall turnover. Cooler weather and rain could not come any sooner. We can also look forward to the annual salmon run and the trout and steelhead behind them.

So what’s been going on the Yuba? Ever heard of a Short-Winged Stonefly? They seem to be everywhere this summer.

Summer Short-Winged Stones

Yuba River
The Yuba is now at it’s fall time flows. The river looks complete different after going from 1,000 CFS to 800 CFS. The cleansing from the El Nino last winter changed a lot of the river’s contour and structure above HWY 20. In my opinion the new fishy spots above the bridge are pretty poor in comparison to what they were before the change.

Before the upper section closed (Yuba River Above HWY 20 closed from Sept 1st – December 1st) I took some time to figure out where the fish were holding in these new areas. I had some success in finding a few productive holes but did not catch fish in the numbers that I had before the change. Hopefully as more time passes I can learn how to be more productive in this “new” upper Yuba section.

Flatten Run

The section below HWY 20 bridge was left relatively untouched by the El Nino. Besides a few runs being evened out or deepened the overall contours of the river remain the same. A theory of mine is that fish like familiarity therefore once you find a spot where the fish are you can continue to find them there. However once the structure changes you’ll have to figure it out all over again.

The first rod I grabbed to end my long hiatus was my switch rod. If I was gonna get skunked I was going to do it in style.
I dedicated this trip to swinging a big streamer in efforts to entice a big aggressive bow to strike. The first few hours went by slowly with just a few nibbles. After moving runs and covering water I finally got my first good take. Nothing like a good tug!

Overall the day went well with one landed for two grabs. Not bad for swinging in the hot sun.

Rainbow Tug Drug