The Yuba - wind, sun, and crappy dry fly conditions

So I spend a lot of time on the Lower Yuba and I by no means believe my way of fishing it is the be all end all. There a few guides out there who I respect that I know fish the river a completely different way and some days I poke more fish some days they poke more fish.

Let me paint the scene - about 70's midday, wind gusts every few minutes that blow good enough to chop up the water. So I pull into a big flat notorious for March Brown and Grey Drake hatches this time of year but with the wind and chop that is not going to happen. There is another guide boat anchored up over a part of the flat where his clients are throwing what looks to be dries. I think sweet maybe they found some working fish - so I change my clients nymph rigs for the flat and we proceede to miss a few fish in the top of the flat nymphing with lighter weight and smaller flies. We then slide around the other boat to get to the bigger more open part of the flat below them and I watch and see no fish, just wind chop, not even any bugs to speak of. So we fish the bottom of the flat break of a really nice fish, miss another 2 or 3 grabs and then as I am re rigging I make sure to sit and watch where they are fishing for about 10 minutes as my clients take a break and I re rig - nothing. I was completely per plexed - ya I know maybe clients wanted to fish dries NO matter what - maybe there WERE rising fish - What ever dude
wind chop on the water = no mayflies
no mayflies = no risers in the flats
That is commitment to a technique. As much as I had my heart set on fishing dries on a sunny march day the conditions were just not right but that said some people stuck it out.

Over all the fishing was tough. we by no means knocked them dead. I had a father daughter combo and they were struggling in the morning as the grabs were pretty subtle. In the afternoon when the fish got a bit more grabby they started hooking up more. Most fish came on The Spring Fling Pupa, Hogan's Clinger , and Hogan's Yuba Pupa.

River seems to be in what I call the early spring transition. The March Brown and Grey Drake hatches are kinda petering out and the caddis, PMD, little yellow sally hatches are just getting started or have yet to began. Over all the next 2 months on the L. Yuba are gonna be good. I still have a few dates available if anyone wants to get out and fish during some of the best dry fly months of the year.
Available Dates: April 7-10, 24 May 1, 16

Under Construction

Wanta thank all the redding area crew who showed up for my presentation on wednesday to the Shasta Trinity Fly fishers. Had a great turnout and everyone seemed to enjoy my new presentation on entomology and fly design. Usually I judge interest in my presentations by how many people in the over 65 age bracket fall asleep. I could only see 2 so I consider that a success... if I can keep those guys a wake everyone else was into it I figure. Looks like I will be back up in redding next month to speak to the Shasta May Flies but we are still in negotiations about that...I recently signed with Scott Borris so I let him do his work.

On a fishing note no guiding this weekend...I am gonna go run my river boat (one with a motor) tomorrow probably to dust off the cob webs and make sure everything works. I did get canceled on the weekend of March 27th and 28th so if anyone wants those dates I will give you a $95 discount and book the date for $300 -either date for $300. These are prime dates for the Lower Sac and Lower Yuba so if your jonesen to fish get a buddy and for $150 (plus tip - lets not get cheap now) your on the water.

Flies: I have been tying a ton. Lots of new bugs on the bench in various stages of development from ...."good ideas yet to be fished" to "I gotta get these off to Idylwilde" .... In the process of this I thought I would share some new dubbing I have been messing with. Hareline is my go to company for materials and their hare's ice dub is pretty cool. A mix of standard rabbit hare dub and their revolutionary ice dub. check some pics of new colors...

These colors really vibrant and these pictures don't due them justice but should get you interested. I really like the Bloody Black and Hare's Ear. I tied up some black AP's using the black. Also with the hare's ear I tied up some Hare's Ear's with standard hare's ear dubbing for the back and the Hare Ice for the mid seciton. Which gives a old fly a little different look. Not sure about the Rusty Orange yet...might work as a PMD but seems a little to vibrant of a Orange. May mix it with some brown to get more a dirty rust orange.

Drive By Truckers + Hogan Brown live in Redding one night only.

If you have not heard of the Drive By Truckers yet...you need to check these guys out...they are by no means super secret underground...so nerdy indie guy don't think I am working some sorta street cred promotion here. They just posted there new CD to listen to on their web site a week before it is released. I just listened to whole thing and tied a bunch of caddis flies. Good CD. if you like it check out decoration day as well. Still my favorite but this new one may over take it with a few more listens.
http://www.drivebytruckers.com/

Also I will be speaking one night only at the Shasta Trinity Fly Casters tonight March 10th at the Redding Library. It'll get pretty wild as I talk about fly tying and my thoughts on bugs. Bring your lighters, whiskey, and hash pipes...everything else involving flytying is trivial if you don't have the essentials.

Also check out the new idylwilde website, if you haven't yet already. It is like nothing else out there right now and really geared towards the people fishing the flies. Check out the blog and anything Kevin "the hippie" Price writes...Dudes nuts...and he is one of my best friends.

here is an idea get the fly tying essentials, turn on the drive by truckers, and check out the new idylwilde site...then road trip it up to the redding library to see me speak...massive free stuff if anyone pulls that off. that is rock star...you will catch way more fish, straight exude awesomeness, and score super models for the rest of your life. Over and Out

Fishing report

Guided the L. Sac this weekend with my buddy Kevin Price. Floated from Boneview to Anderson. Visability was about 6"to 1' around Bonnie and cleared a bit once we got around Redding RV to about 2'. Bottom line was it was off color but fishing was good. I had a mom and 12 year old daughter who had hever fished but with a quick lesson they weren't doing to bad. Kevin had dad and his buddy so they were on fish most of the day with a few 20"+ fish and one nice steelhead. We were missing fish for a awhile but managed a few head shakes and runs. It took mom and daughter a while to put the whole thing together and get some fish to the net. At the end of the day mom had a nice steelhead tear her up and leave a mass of flesh and scales on her rubber leggs. Didn't really know what to do...me screaming let it run didn't register.

Good thing was that there was plenty of action. Fish were eating rubber legs, Oregon Cheese Eggs, Amber wing princes, zug bugs, etc. Standard stuff really but the smaller bugs didn't start getting eaten until we got down to about RV and the water cleared a bit. Overall good day on the river. Over and Out.

Weighing In...

So I am not one to get to involved in industry drama. My wife for the longest time has been convinced that the fly fishing industry/guides create more drama than a sorority house full of blondes. Well certain issues at times require me to weigh in…Bobber Gate has required me to weigh in.

The release of Idylwilde’s new indicators (the Sindicator), which lets not pull any punches, are bobbers, much like a corky, thingamabobber, balloon, or old red and white, have created a real hub bub amongst the blogosphere or guys with nothing better to do….don’t lump me in to that category…I post to put off working out each morning, I have a job, wife, college education, and have reproduced. So don’t get the wrong picture here…

Fly-fishing Blogs “Moldy Chum” and “Blanco Honky” have thrown off the gloves name calling like “Shameless”, “ripoffandduplicator”, and questioning the integrity of all contract tiers for idylwilde.

SERIOUSLY!!!!! YOU GOTTA BE KIDDING ME!!!!!?????!!!!!?????

SIDE NOTE: I am pretty sure Moldy Chum is also run by the sales manager of Patagonia - DISCLAIMER: Not sure could be rumor - But if this is true, Sales manager dude, get off the internet and on the ball. Not sure if you watched the bass masters the other weekend but every dude was rocking Simms. So...might want to work on that marketing plan because while you were poaching and trash talking about Idylwilde, Simms just put some tracks on your back.

These guys are going off like somebody at idylwilde broke into the Laurence Livermore labs and stole government secrets. It is a freaken bobber and has been around FOREVER. Get over it!!! in this industry things get knocked off. Every fly company in the world ties a copper john, Fox pupa, or Kaufmans stimulator. You don’t see those guys flippen out and trash talking all over the Internet.

Furthermore, I don’t read either of these blogs much, but as this epic hilarity has ensued I have looked them over…they from what I can see are prime examples of content piracy. Even the post on Sindicators poached a picture from an idylwilde press release…and no there was no photo credits or acknowledgement. I know one of the blogs even poached a good buddy of mines content off his blog (Kevin price www.infoaboutbassin.blogspot.com) for their own…Again SERIOUSLY????!!!!

Here is my thought: It is a bobber. Talk about something more important like a fishing report, a new fly, a fishing technique, conservation issues, …. Health care, the state/national debt, unemployment, energy and climate issues…hell read a book and talk about it, better yet come up with your OWN content…novel idea…. Bottom line the guy that invented the Internet is pissed, if not rolling over in his grave.