A Few Questions

[El Rey]

1. Yuba flows @ 3,400 cfs! What's up with that? Are they making room in the reservoirs for Spring run-off? It was only 2,000 cfs last week and fished OK, but 3,400 is pretty much unfishable.

2. Anyone been up to the Silver Fork? Is the road clear? What is the condition of the water? Run-off flows?

3. Bill recently mentioned McCumber Lake. Is it fishable from shore? It would be a convenient stop on the way home from Hat Creek.

Thanks in advance,

El Rey

[Jaybinder]

Silver Fork road is open as far as the China Flat camp ground. Call the ranger station for up to date info.

[Scott V]

Silverfor road is open a lot further than China Camp and it looks fishable. I was there on Saturday to take a look and the flows were a little faster than normal, but fishable and the clarity was great. Give it a few weeks and the flows will probably be up a little higher due to melting.

[amoeba]

1. Yuba flows @ 3,400 cfs! What's up with that? Are they making room in the reservoirs for Spring run-off? It was only 2,000 cfs last week and fished OK, but 3,400 is pretty much unfishable.


Thanks in advance,

El Rey

I think I know the answer to that one (YES); bullard's bar water level is getting too close to the top of the conservation pool level right now (due to snowmelt is my guess, the inflow has gone up, see weblink below), so they are letting some water out.

http://www.spk-wc.usace.army.mil/cgi-bin/mkplot.pl?bulr?wy2010?wy

[JD]

3. Bill recently mentioned McCumber Lake. Is it fishable from shore? It would be a convenient stop on the way home from Hat Creek.
Not really. Some areas you can get to near the dam, but generally not worth it, in my opinion. You might want to try Manzanita in Lassen Park, which has considerably more shore access, although check the regs because a small area is restricted (around the stream, I think).

[El Rey]

Thanks guys for covering all three questions. I appreciate it.

El Rey

[joshfish]

jd is right. lake McCumber is best fished from a float tube or pontoon boat.

[windwalker]

The reason why flows are high right now in the Yuba is simple. It's Rice Growing Season. This is the time of the year rice fields are flooded to grow the crop. Yuba River water levels spike annually this time of the year for about a month. I'm sure high water levels also account for the increase, but 2400 CFS plus flows are common this time of the year.

I wouldn't think Bullards Bar has much of an affect on the lower yuba. Bullards bar has some water, but its no where near the top, I was bass fishing there last weekend. Englebright is the lake which has the greatest affect on the lower Y.

With that said, high flows on the Yuba only make wading difficult, it does not making catching fish impossible. Fish the edges.

[Tony Buzolich]

El Rey,

Last Saturday the flow on the lower Yuba was up to 4000cfs. Whether this was for the rice growers or not I'm not sure but it sure changed the bite on the river. The same last week too on the Sac. Any time there's a change of some kind, the fish have to adjust for a day or so and get in to a new routine.

The morning paper here gives the flows and capacities of the local lakes and rivers every day and right now Bullards Bar is at 84%, Oroville is at 61%, and Shasta is at 97%.

[Bill Kiene semi-retired]

The high flows on the Lower American and Lower Yuba will bring in the Shad (and Stripers) so that would be looking at the good side of it.

After the flows go down the Shad should be very good on both rivers.

[Mike O]

The reason why flows are high right now in the Yuba is simple. It's Rice Growing Season. This is the time of the year rice fields are flooded to grow the crop. Yuba River water levels spike annually this time of the year for about a month. I'm sure high water levels also account for the increase, but 2400 CFS plus flows are common this time of the year.

I wouldn't think Bullards Bar has much of an affect on the lower yuba. Bullards bar has some water, but its no where near the top, I was bass fishing there last weekend. Englebright is the lake which has the greatest affect on the lower Y.

With that said, high flows on the Yuba only make wading difficult, it does not making catching fish impossible. Fish the edges.

I may be wrong on this, but Bullards is upstream of Englebright, no? If Bullards needs to release, then so will Englebright. I don't know whether they need to, but if they do, it works in a progression.

[amoeba]

The reason why flows are high right now in the Yuba is simple. It's Rice Growing Season. This is the time of the year rice fields are flooded to grow the crop. Yuba River water levels spike annually this time of the year for about a month. I'm sure high water levels also account for the increase, but 2400 CFS plus flows are common this time of the year.

I wouldn't think Bullards Bar has much of an affect on the lower yuba. Bullards bar has some water, but its no where near the top, I was bass fishing there last weekend. Englebright is the lake which has the greatest affect on the lower Y.

With that said, high flows on the Yuba only make wading difficult, it does not making catching fish impossible. Fish the edges.

Nope, I don't think that's right. Essentially all the water that goes into the lower yuba comes from Bullards, this amount of water is not related to rice floodup, englebright has no storage and doesn't have anything to do with lower yuba levels, Bullards is nearing 800,000 ac-ft, near it's conservation pool of 900,000 ac-ft, and if you look at the chart on the weblink posted, you'll see a clear correspondence between the inflow and outflow for this release. 2,400 occurs, but this jump to a higher flow, (3,400) is just trying to match inflow and outflow.

When the inflow comes down and there is more clearance between actual storage and the conservation pool level at Bullards, the release level will come down. Typically, there will be a gap between this lowered release, and water transfers to the State which occur later in summer.

So expect some lower water sometime later in May-June, and then up again. There's no fixed schedule that I know of right now. It's just typical operations.