Poll: Yuba or American...

[Dragking]

...for a float this weekend. I am aware of the differences between the two rivers in terms of fishing experience/strategy, but I am woefully out of the loop on river conditions (and the flows don't tell the whole story). From what I can tell, the American has a some really big fish around (but they are few and far between), and the Yuba is just clearing up from the month of rage (but likely will be good when the fish get back into their groove).

Who has input? Thanks!

[flyguy1]

stay away from the american, way too many people fishing. Give it a month or so and the amount of people should thin out

[Dragking]

Thanks, flyguy. I ended up going to the Yuba, so I thought I'd give a report. It was cold (about 23 degrees) when we got to the put-in, and the river was moving pretty fast, but the clarity was good (a nice green tint with maybe 5 feet of visability) considering the weather we have had during the last month.

I took a buddy on his first fly fishing trip and didn't really fish myself because of his iffy rowing skills, so take this report with a grain of salt. We were nymphing the entire day, and my buddy hooked and lost three fish. It's hard to say what they were biting because we didn't get a fish to hand, but I was running a lot of rubberlegs, skwala nymphs, red headed step children, baetis and midge patterns. I only saw one fish feeding on the surface, but the take was super explosive (it moved a lot of water). We saw a couple guys swinging and one other boat that reported similar results, but for some reason the other boat had luck up top and we had more luck closer down towards Sycamore. (The more I think about it, this likely was due to the fact that my buddy's efforts up top probably would be classified as "learning" rather than "fishing.")

Considering the cold snap and the water conditions, I would suspect the river to heat up when the temperature does. For those wondering, I did not see signs of skwalas. Also, the river is scoured pretty good, so I would expect the fish to be opportunistic if they a fly drifting by.