Yuba River Today

[Mike O]

The Yuba river continues to prove that it is a fish-it-at-dark kinda river.

Nothing happening, very few bugs except dragonflies from 5-8PM. Then we saw a few melon colored mayflies and a handful of golden stones, but nothing on the water.

The action happened at dusk/dark, when the sun dropped below the bluff. Lotsa dinks pecking at the flies...missed a few, Caught a dink, LDRed a nice one, had a grab and go, then C&R this one. The last 3 were on a yellow hopper thing with red legs...but it was too dark for that to matter, they went after the shape. 15 inch fish which fought like the scrappy Yuba Duba he was.

Sorry for the poor quality...iPhones suck at dark.

[royewest]

I had pretty much the same experience, except I had a nice rainbow at 5pm or so when I started. Then nothing over 6" until 8-ish. Then a nice hatch of pinky pale mayflies that produced some surface action -- but again small fish mostly. Then just before it was too dark to fish, some bigger (14-18") fish going after my sculpin pattern on the swing in a shallow fast run, including one to hand.

Hard fishing but a lovely evening, with the moon rising over the hills and the ospreys and herons to keep company.

Here's a theory (based on not much): the big fish are there but in the big water, where there's plenty of food and it's just a lot harder to get flies in front of them. I also suspect that more talented fisherpersons will do better then I've done -- still struggling to learn to cast a switch rod, etc., etc.

[royewest]

I was starting to ask whether anyone knew what the pale pink mayfiles were, but remembered the "Fly Fishing Traditions" site and looked there first.

Mad props to Clay Hash's hatch charts, patterns, and other info at http://www.flyfishingtraditions.com/hatch_chart

I'd forgotten what a fabulous resource this is.

Thanks, Clay!

[Mike O]

great website!! Thanks