Yuba River Report & Salmon Numbers

[RJSFLYTRIP]

Well.....It is good to be back in CA after a long summer of guiding on the South Fork of the Snake in Idaho. I took a week off to spend some time with the family and work on Cast Hope. Now it is time to get back on the water and see if I still know how to guide these Nor Cal valley rivers. Below is my current report on what I saw on the Yuba.

I spent the last two days guiding good clients of mine on the Yuba River. We found really good fishing for Yuba standards with 30+ trout hooked each day. It really doesnt get any better than that on the Yuba. There were a handful of salmon milling around in the deep slots. We saw about 15 each day but not nearly the number of salmon that we saw this early in the last couple of years. I have to imagine that the egg bite is going to be a couple of weeks away. But needless to say the fish still ate egg patterns. To be honest 2/3 of our fish each day ate the egg. So it is becoming that time of year over there. It should only get better in the next 2 weeks as more salmon start showing up and actually get on redds and start dropping eggs. The one odd thing is that there were lots of small fish. Each day half of the fish we hooked were like 12" long with a handful of your typical 16-18" rainbows thrown in the mix.

For those of you looking to get out on the river in the next couple of weeks I have some prime openings still left for the Yuba and the Lower Sac.

My openings are Oct. 2-5, 11-13, 18-19

Early October is prime for the Yuba while mid October is great on both the Yuba and Lower Sac.

Hope all of you are doing well.

Tight Lines!

[RJSFLYTRIP]

Just spent the last 2 days on the Lower Sac. Fishing was in its late summer form with caddis being the main source of food for those rainbows. The fishing was good with about 25 fish to hand on tan pupahs and birds nest being the hot flies. Those summer fish are as fat as they can be. They look really good with all of the high water that we had this last spring. Most of the fish that we caught came in more typical faster moving caddis water. The flats were pretty much dismal and the riffles/runs good. We floated the upper river up in Redding both days. It seemed like the fishing was fairly consistent throughout the entire day. You would get a couple grabs each spot then it was time to move on.

The fishing should just improve on the Sac over the next couple of weeks. Its getting to that time of year where things get really good. Come on salmon.

The word is that there is a ton of salmon right now around Chico and Los Molinos. So it should be 2-3 more weeks before those fish show up.

Hope you guys are great.

Tight Lines!

[pvsprme]

Welcome back, Ryan. Got a fly rod picked out for the little sweetie, yet?

[RJSFLYTRIP]

It is good to be back. Dont have a rod picked out quite yet. But I keep pondering at what age can she start rowing the flats on the Sac? Im thinking by the time Maggie is 8 she will be rowing her daddy down the river. Now that is something to be excited for. Unless she asks for a pink drift boat then it could get expensive. Maybe we should stick to the Barbie rod and pan fish for now. Oh the adventure that we have begun.