Yuba River

May Flows Are Beginning To Go

by Matt
Beautiful Yuba Bruiser

Rejoice! The Yuba is at 2,500 CFS. Not the best flows but it’s the lowest it’s been since the big storms in March. The river is coming into shape revealing new contours and structure. As of right now I’m not sure if I like the new areas that I’m seeing. From what I’ve observed, the good is that there will be more safe areas to cross the river but the bad is that there aren’t as many holding spots for fish.

Hiked A Lot

The bug life is quite minimal right now. I flipped over a couple rocks in the new areas that looked promising and found very few nymphs. Not a whole lot happening while I was out there. A few midges, caddis, and one yellow sally.

Despite fluctuating high flows, the Yuba trout are still around growing strong and healthy. The fish seem to be holding in nooks and crannies near structure that anglers may overlook. The most perfect and ideal seams that were just right in both flow and depth, a goldilocks spot, were the only areas that produced hard fighting Yuba natives. Trying to find where these goldilocks spots were was tough. The big flows have moved a lot of bright stone to the bank which makes the fish less likely to hold there, too easily seen by predators. Cover water like a boss and keep moving.

Second Fish In The Net

Poxyback golden stones were the hot pattern. Golden stones will start moving around in May and June so it makes sense that the fish are on them. Luckily a bigger pattern means a better landing ratio. I went two for three this trip.
When I fish the Yuba I don’t expect to land more than two fish. What the Yuba lacks in numbers it makes up for it in fight.

Lots of Salmon Fry Around Still
Deer Creek, Horseshoe Lake, Sacramento River

Busy at Work, Busy on the Water

by Matt
Scenic Deer Creek

This week has been one of the longest and oddest weeks I’ve had in a while. The kiddos at school were acting up, I was sick Wednesday morning, there was a flash thunderstorm Thursday, and the fishing was pretty off.
Although the fishing was sort of difficult, I spent some time at Horseshoe Lake, Sacramento River, and Deer Creek catching a few here and there.



Horseshoe Lake
I’ve been wetting my line at Horseshoe a couple time this week in hopes of finding carp. I caught a cat one day and got skunk the next two trips. Monday I fished with Patrick, a friend from the fly shop, and he had all the luck that evening. Patrick says he’s never caught anything on a fly at Horseshoe but that evening he landed a good 4# bass and a nice cat while I caught the skunk. It was nice to see someone else catch some fish on a fly out there besides me for once. I fished the lake a few more times to be skunked again. It must be those darn east winds. The fish were scattered all over the lake and were very off this week.

Splish Splash

Sacramento River
I want to catch a shad. Its still a bit early for them to be in Chico in numbers but it never hurts to try. Although no shad were caught I did manage to catch a small hatchery steelie on the swing with a soft hackle. Its weird that there are trout out there because the water is pretty warm.

Washout Trout

Deer Creek
One of my favorite things about Deer Creek is that when I’m fishing, the majority of the time I’m fishing alone in the tranquility of nature. No one is ever on the water when I’m there. I made plans and opted out on going Saturday opening day because it was a bit too cool around 60 degrees. On Sunday the temperature range jumped up to a nice 70-75 degrees just as predicted. It was time to head up to Deer Creek for the first time this year. While I was there I saw hatches of midges, march browns, and a few caddis; bugs were pretty much everywhere.

Fish of the Day

My day started below Red Bridge where I fished my usual holes. I must have caught about 30+ fish on dries this trip. It feels good to get some action back on the 2wt. Although most of the fish were around 5-7” no nymphing was needed. Usually I start catching the 10”+ bigger fish as summer rolls in.

Salmon Smolt
 

After fishing the catch-and-release section, I fished above the Upper falls to catch some dinner and ended up with 3 pan-sized fish while releasing a ton of smaller ones. Overall a great productive day.