Trip Report: Yuba

For this first time in I don't know how long, I went fishing on a Sunday. I normally avoid the weekends due to crowds. However, considering my workload, I didn't have a choice.

Surprisingly enough, my trip to the Yuba, above and below the 20 bridge, was relatively uncrowded. I did see other fisherman, but had no problem finding empty spots.

I'm going to wrap up this report quickly as I need to get back to work. The day was warm and the wind was acceptable for a change. I ended up catching 3 fish. None of them were over 15 inches. One was caught in deep water while high sticking my spey rod (yeah, I know, not the best use of a spey rod) around some rocks, right near the shore. If I remember correctly, he took a size 12 bead head prince nymph. About an hour later, I caught a 15 inch fiesty trout on the swing in some heavy riffles. This guy was caught on a size 10 partridge and orange soft hackle. The last fish was caught late in the evening on a small generic steelhead fly.

Started the day off with a 420 grain skagit line and 8feet of T-10 sink tip. I worked a run above the hwy 20 bridge pretty thoroughly for nothing. At some point, around noon, I switched to a 420 grain scandi line with a 15 foot floating leader and tried skating some flies. No takers.

I kept the scandi line on and switched to a 10 ft 3.6ips polyleader. This was kept on for almost the rest of the day. This is what I had on while catching those three fish. Late in the day I moved to a clear 10ft 1.5ips polyleader. Nothing with that one.

It was a good time. Especially appreciated because I'm not able to get out much to the river lately. Fingers are crossed for another opportunity soon.

Flow around 2,000
Water temp approximately 50 degrees.

Underwater fly fishing?

Because of a brutal work schedule, I'm not able to do much fishing these days. The only thing I seem to be able to do is live through others experiences.



I found this video on the net. Wow- how excited would this be? Amazing.

Fly #46: Sunset Blue Waker

This is one of my favorite waking flies so far. After giving it a test drive, I'll let you know how it performs.

Trip Report: American (Shad)

I've always wanted to try fishing for Shad, but I've never taken the plunge. On Monday evening, I took up an offer to be shown where to go on the American for these feisty fish.

We weren't to meet until 6pm, so I arrived a little early around 3:30 for some potential half pounder action. The temp was in the high 90's and thank goodness for leaky waders, cause I was pretty miserable. I waded and walked down some riffles and pools, but didn't get anything more than a bite. So much for steelhead.

I met Aaron a little after six and we walked for a few minutes upriver. He knew exactly where to go. Aaron started flicking out his jig (he wasn't using a fly rod) trying to locate the fish. I watched for a few casts and then started trying to get my line out there. We were in a section without much current, and frankly, I was struggling. I couldn't get the fly out very far and without the current swinging the line downriver, it was awkward at best.

Aaron didn't have the same problem and it wasn't long before he caught his first fish. He offered to give up his spot and I stepped in and didn't have any luck. Aaron seemed to catch fish wherever he was, so I knew they were there, I just couldn't get 'em.

I'm not sure how much time went by, but we moved downstream. Eventually and smartly I took off the longer scandi line and put on the short compact skagit with a 10 foot sinking leader. This allowed me to strip in further each time. We were now in a place with more current and swinging was possible.

Aaron needed to take off, and before he left, he gave me the jig that he was using. I thought I'd try it. My shad flies didn't seem to be working (upon further review, I think it was the presentation, not the fly) anyway.

Not more than a few minutes later, I was getting casts out 60-70 feet. Flicking it slightly upstream, I'd let it sink for a bit then twitch the rod here and there, followed by a strip. I finally got a bump! The next cast, I caught my first shad. He wasn't real big (maybe 15 inches), but inch for inch, he gave up a decent fight.

It was getting late and I was just now discovering a method that worked. Too bad it took me until then to figure it out! By dark, I caught 3 shad and hooked a bunch more. Whatever I was doing - worked. I'll be back to try again. Thanks Aaron!

Fly #45: Waker 2

Here's another waker that I tied a few days back. This one is on a size 8 hook and although I don't know how it looks in the water yet, I'm sure it will make quite the disturbance.

Waker 2

Tail: Squirrel tail.
Body: Brown and gold dubbing with palmered hackle tips.
Head: Red Buck Tail.

Fly #44: Waker 1

I've always been interested to try and make a steelhead rise to a waking fly. For one reason or another, I never made much of an attempt. I decided to tie a few up and give it a shot next time out. It looks like a fantastic way to catch a fish.

Waker 1

Hook: Size 10 Upturned Salmon.
Tip: Silver Tinsel.
Tag: Hot Orange Floss.
Body: Brown Dubbing with Palmered Hackle Tip, Craft Foam.
Wing: Yellow Deer Hair for easy visibility.

Fly #43: Brown Spey

A fly similar to this produced on the Feather the other day, so I decided to tie another up.

Brown Spey

Body: Angora dubbing, black schlappen palmered, oval tinsel rib
Collar: Guinea feather behind wing and hackle tip in front
Wing: Mallard
Tag: Oval Tinsel

Trip Report: Feather River

A week or two ago, I became the proud owner of a new spey rod. Instead of building another, I decided to simply purchase a 6-weight. Ever since, I've been itching to try it out somewhere other than the casting pool. The original plan called for a trip to the Yuba. However, the flows were much too high and I figured this would be an excellent opportunity to visit the Feather.

I've never been here before, so I went through my usual intelligence gathering. Satellite maps, flow reports, fishing reports, and contacting some people that have been there. It was decided to try the area between the hatchery and Palm Ave.

At early morning, pre-dark, I entered through one of the many gates to the wildlife off Larkin. The road was nothing more than gravel and rock. Pretty darn bumpy and rough. A maze of unmarked trails made for some navigation problems. However, my first stop was pretty easy to find.

This river is big! The sat maps don't do it justice. Even with my two hander, there was no way I could cast across the whole thing. So, I concentrated on what I could reach. Started with just the leader out of the tip and swung a generic soft hackle with a larger size 4 steelhead fly with black flowing spey hackles. Both were attached to a couple of feet of mono and then a 7ips sinking leader.

Didn't see any signs of life, but the river looked fishy enough. I slowly inched out more line on each cast. Eventually, I was casting out 60 or so feet, swinging it down, letting it hang, followed by a few steps down the river. This went on for a while. No bumps, no bites. Nothing. Birds were out, diving into the river for what I assumed were fish. So I kept at it until the river got too deep to comfortably wade.

Not long after, I chose to crawl up the bank and back into the car. The road was easy to follow since I could just hug the river, but it required slow-going. After spotting another fishy looking spot, I started swinging again. By this time, the wind was whipping along at 15 or more mph. I'm not sure what it is, but anytime I plan for a day on the river, it gets windy. Today was no exception.

After a few wind knots, I had the line swinging 60-70 feet out. There were no boulders or any other targets to aim for. It was a wide open search and destroy mission. I prefer targeting fish holding spots, but these larger rivers make it difficult at times. As usual, I tried to position myself so that my downstream dangle was on a current seam. Just in case someone was lurking on the slow side waiting for food to flow down the fast side.

About 10 minutes and 50 tangles later (lots of debris in the water), I felt a bump in the heart of the swing. I resisted the urge to set the hook and just let the fly swing further. Just as the fly came to the end of the swing-- WHAM, the fish hit a second time. He followed the fly a pretty good distance, at least 30 feet. The line went tight and the fish took off for the middle of the river.

This was the first time catching a fish on this rod, so I wasn't familiar with how it would feel. But it felt like a big fish. He wasn't peeling line off, however, at 65 feet out, it was rather challenging to maneuver him back to the slower water.

This is the fly that caught the first fish of the day.

At some point I caught a glimpse and noticed he was pretty good size. A few minutes later I had him to hand and put him up to my rod for a measurement. Earlier, before leaving home, I measured from the butt of my second grip to the top of my first. It is 23 inches. This hatchery fish stretched slightly beyond. I'd guess he was 24-25 inches and bulky. He took the size 4 spey fly and after removing it, I set him free. It was only 9am, and this would be the last bite I'd have until the afternoon.

It is a blur to me now, but at some point I got back in the car and drove further upstream. The road got worse and it became harder to figure out which direction to go. Not one, but two and a half HOURS later I was fishing again. I did a lot of really slow driving trying to find a place to fish. Nada.

I decided to check out the fish hatchery up near the dam. What a fish-ladder. If you haven't been here before, you've got to check that thing out. It is quite the run. Someday I'm going to come back here with my wife and son, we'll check out the rearing ponds and the underwater viewing area. I was too eager to start fishing again to bother today.

I drove more and more. Good thing I laid out a ton of potential fishing spots mapped out the night before. Those roads in the wildlife area are a major time waster. Next time, I'll go in and out of a few gates, but not drive through the area any further than I have too. It is just too time consuming. Unless you have a beater of a car, it pays to drive a little slower to avoid the dents (some sections of bigger looser stone requires 4wd and a high clearance, be careful if you have a 2wd car).

Eventually I found a spot to fish again. It had been so slow, that I looked for deeper, slower water. I even put on an absolutely huge split shot on and two heavy flies to get down. It didn't help. No bites.

I wandered downstream to this really neat little spot. It was very hard to get to, and you had to balance carefully on these rocks, but the water looked so fishy. I spent quite a bit of time here with no results. Even though fish were starting to rise for bugs, I couldn't fool anyone. Out of casting range, I saw an absolutely huge trout jump out of the water. It was quite the sight to behold. If it weren't so windy, I'd be able to target the rising fish more easily.

I decided to go back to the car for some food. It was probably 3pm by now. After the long walk up a steep hill, I chose to get in and drive somewhere else instead of walk back to the river to a spot that wasn't producing. Besides, this was a day for exploring anyway.

I found this island that looked absolutely incredible. Such a great place to fish. Unfortunately, I couldn't get out to it. Not that I didn't try. There was this narrow strip deep water keeping me from crossing. I was very disappointed. If the water was slightly lower, I could of made it.

Discouraged, I walked downstream to end of that island. When the two forks joined again, there was a swirl of current. Far out into the river, the two swirls met and made this great back eddy. The water just seemed to stop here. I was thinking that this had to hold fish. How can I get to it? Sure enough, a few minutes later I saw fish rising. I tried different angles and casting to various drifts to try and get into the slow water. But the current on either side was pulling my fly out.

The answer was to wade a little further upriver and cast at a very awkward angle, down and across. I had to put out 70-90 feet of line to get to it. On that very first successful cast, where my fly just sat in the slow water-- WHAM! I scrambled back out of the current to slower water where I could bring the fish in. This guy measured about 22 inches. He put up a good fight.

I worked this eddy for a while. There was a 45 minute or so window when they were hitting on almost every cast. There was also something very big lurking in there. Or maybe several big ones. I lost two flies tied on 8lb mono and had the hook straightened on not one or two, not three, but four flies. The hits were so hard, it was alarming.

A few minutes later, I cast my fly out about 60 feet, lifting the line high out of the water trying to keep it from getting swept in the faster current, the fly swung almost in a dead drift as I fed running line in to keep it drifting beyond 90 feet. Smack! Hit again. But this time, the hook didn't bend, he was staying on.

Instead of running away from me, he came flying towards me. I stripped in line as fast as I could to try and keep it tight. Before you knew it, I had about 50-60 feet of running line under my feet. This was not good. It was a big fish and I wanted to use the reel. I reeled in the slack, but it got so bunched up from being loose, that my reel got jammed with line tangles. Somehow I kept the line tight and untangled the running line from my reel at the same time. I carefully waded over to the slack water.

I worked the fish to my hand that was in the water waiting for him. A tailed him, but when I tried to pick him up, my hands were so shakey. I've never been like that before, I was physically shaking from the adrenaline. I couldn't keep a grip on him. Maybe he felt my moment of weakness and had another spurt of energy. He took off between my legs. Sure enough, he had looped the tippet around my boot and the line broke. Buh bye. :( If I were to guess, he was upper 20's. But, it was hard to say for sure. At least mid 20's. Whatever size he was, the excitement gave me the shakes and he got the better of me. Good for him.

This section was very productive. Over the course of an hour or two, I caught 5 fish. None of them were under 20 inches. I lost several more and had some really big grabs. Still, I decided to move on before it got dark.

Further downstream, I found another good looking spot, but didn't have any luck. Between it getting dark and the swarm of mosquitoes that were attacking me, it was time to go.

This was a unique experience. It is the only time I can recall that I caught this many fish and not one was under 20 inches in length. Normally, I'd get a few small guys. Happily, I'd take that next time out.

Steelhead "Summer" Box #1

Just for grins, I took a picture of my go-to steelhead fly box. These are all the low-water and summer flies. You can see several that I've posted pictures of on the blog and a few that haven't made an appearance.

Summer Steel (Click for a larger picture)

At a later time, I'll post my winter box. The big ugly and heavy ones.

Lining Rods

Spent a couple of hours at the casting pools to try and dial in some new lines on a couple of rods. First off, I've had much too light of a line on my main weapon of choice. While I could overhand it nicely, it just wasn't heavy enough to pound out some longer casts with a some sort of water borne anchor cast. I felt that 65-70 was pretty much maxing it out. With my skill level anyway.

Today, with a heavier line, I could get out further. 70-75 feet wasn't a problem, even though I wasn't standing in the water (an important note considering these are spey casts afterall) .

Now, when I tried a few lines on a longer 12'6" rod, ziiing. I was hitting 90feet without much difficulty. Again, standing out of the water. When the temps warm up later this week, I'll get my feet wet and see what happens. In that scenario, I'm hopeful that I can hit 100 feet.

Ninety Nine percent of the time, I don't need to cast anywhere near that distance. However, on those occasions that I do, it is nice to be prepared. This fall, I'll be up in Washington for a steelhead trip. I want to be comfortable bombing out 80-100 foot casts if possible.

12 Hours on 4 Rivers.

I rarely fish on the weekends these days, but Saturday, I made an opening day exception. I met up with Curt (thanks for the fun day) around 7am on the Main Fork of the Tuolumne to start things off.

As usual, the T was beautiful and looked very fishy. Surprisingly, the water was not high and was actually a little lower than I had seen it on previous outings. What didn't change is the tough fishing. I've only pulled a few fish out of this river in the few times I've been there. Nothing happened today. Not even a bump.

Around 10am, we decided to head to Cherry Creek, above the power house. The water was rocking. I wasn't expecting so much flow. Much higher than the last time I was here. Unfortunately, access was difficult and there weren't a whole lot of good spots to fish. Eventually we managed to find a location where some small fish hung out. I caught a handful, all 10 inches or less. Like the last time I was on the river, darker flies seemed to be their favorite flavor. And today, wooly buggers and anything with a marabou tail attracted the most attention. Even if it only got them close enough to see the smaller soft hackle and pound that instead.

After a few hours, we went down to the Middle Fork of the Tuolumne. I've never fished here before. It was crowded for such a small stream. I guess the access was too easy for people to pass up. Initially it was slow going, but as time wore on and I started getting down deep with the flies, it improved.

Because the river was small and the water was cold, I started high sticking some weighted soft hackles with split shot on the leader. This seemed to be the best way to go until the evening when the fish were starting to come to the surface after swung flies. At that point, I put on a size 10 steelhead pattern in the rear with a smaller soft hackle upfront. They were loving the combo. This particular pattern produces well on the Stanislaus, and did well here. It is an ugly little thing with red dubbing and very flashy wings. When swung slowly in the right conditions, it is hard for trout to resist. Again, nothing that large was caught, but for a day that started out slowly, you end up happy with anything.

The day was wrapped up by heading to the Rainbow Pools over on the South Fork of the Tuolumne. There was only an hour or so left of daylight, so one had to be quick. I was happy to see that no one was here and I had the place to myself. Again, with heavily weighted soft hackles, I'd drop them into pools, only to let them rise near the tail outs. This really attracted the fish. They'd follow the flies from 6-7' depths to near the surface. Quite a lot of movement for such cold water. If they didn't take on the rise, a twitch or two on the rod often made them commit.

For someone who likes to swing flies, I did very little of it on this day. Mostly high sticking or very close in swinging while holding almost all of the line out of the water. Slow and deep was the trick. I ended up with a dozen or more fish to hand. Most small, the largest being only 15”. Still, quite an enjoyable day.

Fly #42: Yellow Spider

I've been tying a lot of steelhead flies for the last so many months. It has been great fun, but while on the river last time fishing for trout, I realized that I'm running low on some of my "go to" soft hackle patterns.

In response, I've spent the last few evenings tying various trout flies. I've been concentrating on sparsely dressed spider patterns. These are meant to be fished right in the surface film, or just below.

Yellow Spider (size 12)

Body: Yellow thread, copper wire ribbing, hares ear dubbing
Collar/Hackle: Natural Partridge, stripped on one side

Speyorama

I'll be there tomorrow (Friday), will you?

If you are a two hand guy, or interested in it, this is where you need to be. Go to their website for all the details.

Snakes

Indiana Jones and I have something in common. Our discomfort for snakes. While on the Yuba the other day, I had the fortunate or unfortunate, depending on how you look at it, experience of crossing the path of not one, but two snakes.

Normally, I'm okay with it as long as it is a comfortable distance away. Even when close, I'm not one to run or scream like a girl, however, I rather not meet them on those terms.

The first snake was pretty small, maybe a foot and a half. He was on the path and I saw him when he was a few steps away. He slithered off and after I took a breath, I continued on. I'm not sure what kind he was, but he didn't seem very threatening. (Yes, I know, the small ones can be bad too.)

The second snake freaked me out. It was late afternoon and I heard a rustle when I looked down and saw a pretty big snake, in both length and girth less than 2 feet away from my boots. Since he was at least 4 feet long, probably even longer, I wasn't feeling very comfy. I froze in that spot and waited for him to saunter off.

Innocent enough. The next thing I know, this guy climbed up the tree next to me in no more than a few seconds. That freaked me out a little. A few more seconds and he was about 7 to 10 feet in the air above my head.

I was not feeling good about that! I darted off and watched from a safe distance as he went from branch to branch seeming to defy gravity. It's one thing to have a snake below you, but when they get above you... Yikes.

When I was younger, I would often float the Ozark rivers in a canoe. Going under branches, you had to be thoughtful of the possibility of a snake in your face or falling in your lap. And yes, it did happen once. A snake fell from a low tree into the canoe at my feet after bouncing off my upper body. Perhaps that was the start of my anxiety. Who knows. Whatever the case, I'd rather not see them unless I'm watching Animal Planet.

Speaking of snakes, there is a video you can watch of a rattler swimming across a lake and trying to get in a guys boat. Not cool! I'm not exactly okay with the guy tormenting the thing, but man, I don't know what I would of done in that situation. It is bad enough when I see snakes swimming around me while wading. I don't want one trying to get in my float tube some day.

Trip Report: Yuba

Once again, I'm late with another report. Chalk this one up to a busy schedule or laziness. Your choice.

Last week, I made a pilgrimage to the Yuba. I arrived bright and early and waddled my way upstream of the 20 bridge and crossed river well after the bend. Someone remind me to replace the felt on the bottom of my boots. I was slip sliding all over the place and came close to taking a few spills.

After managing a rather clumsy crossing, I went back downstream and put my line out. I had my two handed rod and a 7ips sinking polyleader on the end. I started off with a black string leech, but wasn't really in the mood to power that sucker. So, I replaced it with two soft hackles.

I stepped and swung through the run starting high in the riffles. Nothing happening. There were fish around as I saw a few rises. At one point, I was stripping in my line as the fly hung down below me. I felt a tug and a bright shiny fish took a 3 foot leap out of the water. He looked to be around 17-20 inches. I can't say for sure, because he managed to remove the hook after a few seconds. While it was a short battle, he put on quite the show.

I spent a good hour or two going through this piece of water. Eventually I had enough and walked upstream a ways. While I was the first one on the water, there were now a few people around. And unfortunately, not only people showed up, but wind did as well.

The weather forecast called for rain and a slight 10mph breeze. WRONG! It didn't rain but for a few minutes late in the day. Furthermore, the wind was whipping! We are talking 30-50mph gusts. It was beyond difficult to cast.

I stayed anyway. Waiting for the gusts to slow for each cast. It wasn't impossible, but it wasn't pleasant either. Despite the rough wind, the fish were there. Around noon or so, the big fish were sipping on the surface. I can only imagine a few of them were in the mid to upper 20's. However, in typical Yuba fashion, those fish are smart and hard to catch.

I tried a lot of flies and although they were eating. Between the driving wind and being unclear on what they were eating, it wasn't happening. I finally worked myself down river and crossed again. There were now around 7 people in this area fishing. I saw one guy catch one, but that was it. At least I wasn't alone in my futility.

While I haven't been skunked, the last few outings have been really slow. Sure, I've gotten some smaller guys, but even they were few and far between. What was even more frustrating about this day on the Yuba were all the fish I could see and actively feeding at that. It just wasn't happening.

I decided to give it a rest above the 20. I went back to the car and decided to do some exploring. I'm not going to tell you where I went, because the area can't handle too much fishing pressure. But, what I will say is that there wasn't a soul in sight. It took a while to drive to, but once there, you could access the water without much walking. A nice change of pace.

One thing really annoyed me though. I was swinging in a piece of water as a guide in a drift boat decided that I must have been in his space. He not only went over my line, but after the drift through the run, he rowed back up two more times. Each time, he again crossed my line and didn't as much as say “sorry” or “do you mind?”. How rude. This sort of stuff really pisses me off. I know who the guide is, he posts on Kienes forum. But, I'm going to keep my trap shut. What an ass. Have some respect. Just because you have a boat and a paying client to satisfy doesn't mean you have a free pass to drift over my line and sit there keeping me from casting again.

Other than those few moments, the day was good. The rain didn't last long and although the fish were not cooperating, I got to explore some new water that I'll visit again.