Feather River, Horseshoe Lake, Middle Fork Feather River, Truckee River

Windy Days, Fun On The Feather, and Truckee Love

Begin the Truckee River Canyon

It’s been pretty windy with the spring wind starting to come in, but its learn to fish the gusts or don’t fish. The wind is my friend… unless its blowing at 30 MPH. Casting and feeling the take can be difficult with the wind blowing your line and rod around but there is still good fishing to be had. The Feather River, Horseshoe Lake, the Middle Fork of the Feather River, and the Truckee River were some of the places I spent this week fighting the winds.

Feather River
The steelhead are around but I think we need a weather system to mix up the water a bit. Thursday morning I hooked two. Swinging flies on my switch rod with a 10ft Rio spey sink tip was the name of the game for this trip. The first fish I hooked felt like a snag on the bottom but once it started moving… holy crap that’s a fish. The fish came unhooked within 10 seconds so there’s the first one lost, hopefully I can get more shots at fish today.

The next fish I hooked made a good run and once it stopped its initial run I started to play the game. Please don’t come off, please don’t come off is what I kept telling myself as I started to strip in some line. The next thing you know the fish comes off. I let out a big sigh. Damn it… I stripped in the rest of my line and checked my flies to find a scale of the fish I lost. Haha. It was probably a snagged fish. The rest of the day I didn’t get a single nibble. That’s the name of the steelhead game folks.

Horseshoe Lake
Manda wanted to take a walk in
Upper Bidwell so I had some time to fish the lake. The day was windy and
it made casting a bit of a challenge. I made a new fishing buddy while
fish the lake that day. He looked like a 4th grader, was using a
spinning rod, and would follow me everywhere I went. After I hooked a
catfish he watched as I played it and landed it. His sister came over
and took a picture of him with the fish I caught which I thought was
funny. I gave him some tips about fishing the lake and left after Manda
got back.

Later in the week I decided to wet my line at the lake
again. When the wind blows from the east, the fish bite the least. Not
unless your using bait I guess. Using my
awesome fly fishing senses I saw that the wind was blowing from the east
that day and then it clicked, today is going to be tough one.
Looking at the water on the
surface, it kind of looked like the water didn’t know where it wanted
to go. I fished for a couple of hours and didn’t get any takes. There
were a few bait anglers out catching some cats but most of the fish they
caught looked like the average cat out in there. I commend them for
releasing the fish though. Once the fish learn to stop eating the liver
bait, that’s when they start getting big.

Horseshoe Cat

Feather River Middle Fork
The stretch between Portola and Blairsden opened this Saturday. Manda and I ventured to Clio to fish around the canyon. I’ve never fished this section so it was a good adventure. We hiked, piggybacked, and bushwhacked around the river but nothing looked fishy enough and the water was brown from tannin. I fished a little but overall it was just a good hike.
The water level this year is bad low. The lower section which opens up the last Saturday of April should be looking a lot better though. I have a feeling it’s going to be a short season this year.

Beginning of the Canyon

Truckee River
After the Middle Fork disappoint I saw a sign that said Truckee was about 43 miles away. After the okay from the girlfriend, we headed off towards Truckee. I’ve driven past the Truckee River before but never had the chance to fish it. Seeing the Truckee River again was like love at first sight and this time I finally had the chance to make my first move. The water is very unique and holds native browns, rainbows, and whitefish that all have the potential to get trophy size. The Truckee’s wild trophy sized fish are the products of a well-managed river. The river is open year around which means an endless opportunity to fish. The locals are very protective of the river and they should be with such an amazing fishery.
We fished a little bit outside of Hirschdale. The water looked amazing, a good flow and green tint. The only downside of the day was that it was pretty windy.

After high sticking tight lining a deep run I manage to land my fish Truckee fish. A beautiful 16” trout. The rest of the day I targeting browns but wasn’t able to hook any.  After testing the waters I can truly say I fell in love with the Truckee.

First Truckee River Bow
Butte Creek, Ellis Lake, Yuba goldfields, Yuba River

Closer To The First Greens of Spring

I’ve been out a few times the past month and haven’t had much luck on the winter bite. With the good amount of rainfall passing last weekend and a warming trend of 70 degrees, a lot of the plant and wildlife have woken up. It’s been quite beautiful out there and I’d be punching myself in the face if I didn’t spend sometime outdoors.

Fish On!

Ellis Lake
I’ve been tracking the pattern of the lake and so far the fish aren’t active yet. I fished during the storm which wasn’t the brightest idea. I was also on the lake a week after the storm and with the warming trend passing through I was hoping a few prespawn fish would be active. I was wrong.
As I’ve observed before, the first bedding bass usually don’t start becoming active until March. I will continue tracking the pattern for the lake in hopes of finding some quality bass in a not so quality place.

Yuba Goldfields
I fished around the ponds today and found a few active fish. Definitely prespawn bass. There are a lot of small fish, bass and bluegill, hanging around vegetation while the bigger fish are either in deeper water (which I did not have luck fishing) or in flats near potential spawning beds. The water was relatively warm despite a few wind gusts here and there. The fish were pretty grabby which is a good sign. I tried a bunny leech in purple this time and it did pretty well. I’ve always had a lot of luck with the color purple when it came to bass. Its still a bit early but I know more fish will start becoming active as spring approaches.

Preggo Prespawn Bass
Purple Leech Eaters

Yuba River
The flows are a good 750 CFS with good color as well. I think we got what we needed here; the conditions are ideal for fishing. I didn’t cover the river as much as I usually do but I did go 2/3 in one riffle and anyone who fishes the Yuba knows that’s a good day. There were A LOT of cars on the Parks Bar side of the river so I don’t know how well that part of the river is fishing, either really good that everyone is fishing there or really bad because everyone is fishing there. Below the bridge there is less pressure which is more enjoyable both in tranquility and in fishing. The fish I caught took a rubberleg and an S&M nymph. Super strong fish despite their size. I was using 4x and 5x tippet so it took a bit maneuvering to get them in.
I didn’t see any skwalas while I was there. I did see a few risers and quite a few midges and brown mayflies.

Yuba Native Beauty
This One Kinda Looked Like a Frog

Butte Creek
The creek is closed now and unfortunately the flows were a bit too high to fish productively before it closed. I fished my usual holes and found it difficult to wade in spots I usually had no trouble getting to. The steelhead most likely just raced up with the flows being around 400 CFS.

The almond trees are blooming and the plants around here are starting to bud. Spring is around the corner and I can’t wait.

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