Feather River, Yuba River

The Storm After Tomorrow

by Matt

Well it was fun while it lasted. I watched as the “Storm of the Century” passed through and blow out all the valley rivers and streams. I kept track of the flows and it was pretty fun watching them reach such high flows in such a short amount of time. Looks like there is some snow up in the mountains and my family that’s in Quincy said they got over 9” of snow. It doesn’t show signs of stopping as the rains continue to fall every other day until next week? I should probably learn how to fish for winter bass or get more confident at fishing muddy streams because it’ll probably be like this for a while.

Yuba River
The most recent place I’ve fished since the storm was this past weekend on the Yuba. The clarity wasn’t too bad but bad enough to where you couldn’t see a damn thing. There were a couple of other anglers out that said they got into some nice fish on your typical murky water flies. My brother and I didn’t do too well but I did manage to hook a native and hand it over to my brother to fight. I mostly spent the day teaching him the ropes. It was all good practice for the Trinity this weekend.

Muddy water. No Problem

Feather River
I was out on the Feather this morning not knowing what the conditions were going to be like. It was awful. The water was literally chocolate. I was practicing swinging flies for the Trinity trip and didn’t catch anything but a snagged Sac sucker. That river will take a least a week to clear.

I scouted out some of the American River and the currently closed section I looked at was murky of course… but it also had a lot of good water that was very accessible. The river looks very easy to fish and geography wise is similar to the Feather. I’m planning on making a trip down there some day during the winter.
The Trinity River trip is looking good. The river clears a lot faster due to the geography and the flows are looking good for some fresh winter steelies. I am so amped.
The Valley rivers and streams are not looking so good clarity and flow wise right now and it’ll take a few days or weeks for them to get back to prime fishing conditions. Until then its just tying flies, cleaning gear, and enjoying the holidays.

There is always something to look forward as my season never ends: The Yuba River skwala hatch, winter steelheading, new sections of rivers opening. The chasing never stops

Butte Creek, Feather River, Yuba River

Winter Is Coming

by Matt

Its starting to get cold and the fishing is in a weird transitional late fall early winter limbo. I’ve been finding that sometimes the fishing is good and other times its really poor. I’ve spent some time on the Feather, Yuba, and Butte creek chasing trout and steelhead. Finding and hooking into a fish isn’t too hard, its the playing and landing that I’ve had the worst luck with.

Yuba River Bow

Butte Creek
I fished Butte Creek after the latest rain storm and the flows were low around 127 CFS that day. The water was a bit off color and there were little signs of salmon around. I must have seen three salmon in a two mile stretch. I hooked and quick-released an 18”+ steelhead on a soft hackle which made it a pretty worth day. Beautiful fish, I wish I could have netted it and taken a picture. Note to self take your time when fighting a steelhead on a 3wt rod. I went 1/5 the whole day which is great considering I didn’t think I’d hook anything. Maybe with some more rain it’ll put more steelhead in the system. Here is to more rain.

Little Resident Butte Trout



Feather River
The Feather has been hit and miss. There are always steelhead around but its still pretty crowded. The fish are still taking eggs but its pretty much a salmon graveyard out there now. The fish are scattered throughout the low flow and with some rain, there should be a push of hatchery fish coming up the river. I want the high flow to start fishing well because I’m getting pretty fed up fishing the same runs and riffles again and again.

Yuba River
I wish I could lie and say that the fishing was good on the Yuba. For the last two days I’ve fished it I’ve only caught one fish. The first day it was sight casting to suckers and the following morning it was sight casting to a nice trout. I didn’t see a single person hook up the whole time I was there. I met up with some other anglers next to my car and they said they hooked three. So I don’t know.

Unsuspecting sucker

I’ll probably keep trying my luck on these rivers until I plan a trip to the Trinity or the American for some big ol winter steelhead.

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Keep Calm and Fly Fish™