Spring is coming

Spring is coming! While it is officially spring on the calendar spring weather seems a few weeks off. There is still plenty of fishing and plenty of fishing coming up. Here is what is going on and what is on its way.

Lower Yuba is coming down and clearing up from the recent storms but once it clears it should be game on for spring/summer fishing. This is the best time of year to be on the river for dry fly fishing. With hatches of PMD’s, PED’s, March Browns, Gray Drakes, various caddis, Little yellow sallies, and golden stones the fish began to focus on the surface to feed. Flows should be increasing due to run off and summer irrigation so the flats and bigger riffles will be tough to wade making a boat mandatory.

Lower Sacramento River is low and fishing is hit and miss with the weather but as soon as we get some stable spring weather the caddis hatches and PMD hatches should get kicking March and April should be good this year and June –July are always great months to be on the river as the spring crowds thin out and many days we can have the lower floats all to ourselves.

Lower Feather has a good number of spring steelhead in the system with the standard 18-20” chrome springer “half pounders” and a few larger adults. The fishing should remain good through April and into the first part of May. This is great place to swing flies on a switch or spey rod as these fish will chase down caddis or attractor patterns swung through the riffles.

North Fork Feather should have plenty of water to start trout season and with the less then average snow pack run off should not be as big. I will be running float trips on the NF Feather this year and this is a great wild trout fishery for the more adventurous angler. Great dry fly fishing and nymph fishing through mid July.

Shad and Stripers should start showing up around the first week of May with shad fishing peaking mid May to mid June and Striper fishing stretching from May through September.

Bass are starting to wake up and I have added a few new private bass fisheries to my list of places as well as local reservoirs, lakes, and rivers. May through July is great for Smallmouth, Largemouth, and spotted bass.

Lake Almanor – I will doing some trips up on lake almanor and various Plumas county lakes for both trout and smallmouth bass during the annual Hex hatch and throughout the summer. Call or email for more details.

Clearwater Lodge – I will again be spending some time working up at Clearwater lodge guiding the fall river, Pit River (#1 and #3, #4), Lake Britton, Hat Creek (upper and lower), and various other lakes and ditches. For more details on packages and guiding up at the Lodge give me a call, drop me an email, or check out www.clearwaterlodge.com.

We should finally have a more normal spring this year with plenty of fishable water. Give me a call or drop me an email regarding open dates April - August.

A bit of an update...

So I have been the L. Yuba the last few weekends and presidents days...If you haven't hear fishing has been good. Great mix of hatches. Skwalas, early march Browns, Baetis, caddis, a few PMD looking things....The bugs have the fish eating nymphs and dries during the warmer parts of the day. With the spring weather this week things should really get going. Flows are still really low and this gives the bank angler access to the whole river. Meaning if you are wading you can cross the river and move up and down and across the river with relative ease. Below is a picture of a Brown Trout a client caught this last week. This is the first brown trout I have ever seen, personally, caught on the Yuba. We caught this thing down by Hammond Grove so if it was a wash over from englebright it had a long journey down river.

Yuba Report

So the Rains came and went. Last weekend the Yuba came up from 730 cfs to 900cfs for a day and half and then jumped up to 1393cfs for 2 days before dropping to 1200cfs for a day and then dropping Jan 27 back down to 730cfs. Lots of flow changes in a week. I guided the river last saturday when it was at 900cfs. The clarity was perfect just a tad off color where we could fish what I call "off color water patterns" like big stonflies, attractor patterns, and eggs. The fishing was really good. No huge fish or big winter steelhead to report just really good numbers of hot cookie cutter yuba river rainbows. We also hit a great baetis hatch with some of the best numbers of fish feeding on the surface that I have seen all fall and winter. My client rose multiple fish but he was new at the small fly down stream feed game so none got to the net. Saw one skwala flying around and that was it for last weekend...Sunday I changed venues

This weekend I was out on the river Saturday and the river had just dropped to 730cfs and clarity was about as dark as would like it and still feel confident about catching fish. It was about 1-2" feet visibility on the banks but the runs seemed pretty dark, but I am sure will clear over the next few days once the flows stabilize, though I am not sure what the clarity in the lake is. That said the bugs we were fishing were "off color water patterns" for the most part. The good news was there was bugs out...the warmer water has kicked some bugs into gear. I saw about a handful of skwalas flying around, Baetis hatching, PMD's hatching, and caddis. No march Browns. I saw a few bank anglers hooked up while fishing dry flies but I never stopped to fish any as I had more confidence in nymphing with the off color water. I imagine once the clarity improves over the next couple days and we get some nice consistent mid to high 60's the skwala hatch is going to go off and the other bugs will follow...bringing the fish to the surface. We caught plenty of fish and lost plenty of fish on nymphs and even managed some nice 16-18" fish to the boat.

I would expect the Yuba to get pretty good over the next week or so but who knows it is the Yuba...

If anyone is interested I still have some dates available in Feb
Feb 5, 11, 13, 18-20

Update....

For my weekly rant and banter on fishing check out the Idylwilde blog Nor Cal Report at http://idylwilde.com/wordpress/ along with other very informative posts...

Also I will be speaking at the Jan 12 Granite Bay Fly Casters Meeting (this coming thurs.). I will be giving my presentation titled "Trout Flies: From Imitation to Creation" where I talk about my simplified idea of understanding the 3 basic insect hatches (caddis, mayflies, stoneflies) and how I use that knowledge to create flies. Pretty practical and useful knowledge for any trout fly fishermen or fly tier. Meeting starts at 7pm and anyone interested can check out there website for directions or more details. http://www.gbflycasters.org

In reports...Not much is going on. I feel like I live in Phoenix AZ day time highs have been in the mid to high 60's, no rain for weeks, I have been having to water my lawn in the first week of Jan, and the rivers as low and clear as August. Scary. The Lower Yuba has been fishing good but it really needs some rain to move fish around and get rid of the low and gin clear conditions that can turn fish off on any given day. I had 3 days out there last week and we had good days, not great but good.

The Deeler and I fished Butte Creek twice this week as well and it is LOW and GIN CLEAR. It hasn't been above 300cfs all year and is sitting at 130cfs right now. I don't think you could even get a pontoon boat down it right now let alone a raft. While we managed some trout and what seemed to be a half pounder or two the fishing was slow as we had to cover a ton of water to scratch out a few fish.

Other then that just been tying some flies and enjoying some time off. Keep rain dancing.

Winter Forecast and available dates

Winter is here….Sorta…we haven’t had much weather but hopefully we get some rain soon, but not to much. There is some great fishing happening right now and coming up over the next 2 months. Here is what to expect:

Lower Yuba is entering into its Winter stage. Baetis hatches are getting going providing some dry fly fishing on any given day and there are still some winter salmon around so fish are still eating eggs. The fall crowds have disappeared and fishing should continue to be strong through January. With some rain we should see some winter steelhead moving up river as well.

Lower Sacramento River is fishing well in the middle to lower river. Winter fishing is getting going on the Lower Sac as well. The baetis hatches are getting going, even providing some dry fly fishing on various days. There are still good numbers of half pounders and a few adult steelhead in the lower river and the big trout up through town are starting to feed again as well. Winter fishing on the L. Sac can be very good as this is when some of the biggest rainbows of the year are caught.

Butte Creek is fishing fair to good. We really need some rain to bring the flows up and move some fish up river. That said the creeks is fishing fair for trout and a few early steelhead. Floating the creek is tough at the low flows but not impossible. With a good rain storm this creek will really start to turn on.

Winter is a great time to get out and fish as the fall crowds have disappeared and the fish have to keep eating!!!

Available dates:

Dec: 16, 17, 20, 28-31

Jan: 2-8, 16, 21, 22

Last few days....

With a week off of school I have been guiding the last four days. I spent days on the Lower Sac, Butte Creek, and Lower Yuba. I floated the Lower Sac from Red Bluff to Los molinos looking for trout and steelhead two days with mixed results. Both days we hooked adult steelhead and a few trout but fishing was by no means off the hook. One day the wind came up after lunch and kinda shut things down but the second day the wind stayed away and the baetis hatch came off pretty solid. We had, as you can have some days, good dry fly fishing during the baetis hatch. One client wading a flat hooked and landed 6 nice fish on small baetis dries. Most of our fish came on small mayfly nymphs and egg patterns.


Butte Creek so far has been really low. It needs rain to bring the flows up and bring some steelhead up the river. While there are resident wild trout in the creek they are not the main attraction for most. Sense the flows are so low I opted to walk and wade with my clients. We hooked one nice adult fish and a handful of resident rainbows. Not a bad day but I prefer to float the creek and will probably wait until we get some rain before I head out there again.


The Lower Yuba fished good as well. Lots of grabby smaller fish and a few bigger fish. Most fish came on egg patterns, small mayfly nymphs, a caddis pupa later in the day. Fish seem to be holding in traditional bug water and have moved out of the shallows where most anglers look for them eating salmon eggs this time of year. While we did catch fish on egg patterns they were more attractor style egg patterns and not beads.

Over all winter fishing is getting into swing on all the rivers and I still have some Dec./Jan. dates available if anyone is interested shoot me an email.

New Nor Cal Report

New Nor Cal Report on the Idylwilde Blog...check it out and consider yourself informed when done.

http://idylwilde.com/wordpress/