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View Full Version : Wading the mouth of the Feather ???



David Lee
04-02-2005, 03:04 PM
And yet another question for out Veteran flyfishers out there in Kiene-land .....

Does anyone know if the mouth of the Feather is wadeable ?? I have heard that flows will drop to 1050 CFS out of Oroville dam ... add another 1000 CFS out of the Yuba and a like amount out of the Bear . Can it be waded ?? Can anyone Email me a map or drawing (no ... I'm not kidding) of where the "deep" part is ?? I have heard that the channel is on the south side - how did guys wade back in years gone past ???? Did they get dropped-off from a boat ?? Would you park @ Verona and walk upstream ??

Thanks for the help (I hope ...) . David

Darian
04-02-2005, 09:35 PM
David,..... Never fished there but have been there (on the bank) during normal water years and drought years. In drought years, the bar can extend out from the verona side of the river, thirty to forty yards and be completely bare 8) . The drop off from the side of the bar, then, is steep and where there's current it's probably dangerous to wade :shock: . Easy to fish from the dry sand, tho. 8) I've seen boats anchor on the sand, there and hold in the current. :? Bill said he'd waded there before and undoubtedly knows more about that than I..... 8)

Years ago, I spoke to one of the original flies for Striper guys at Kienie's shop (his last name was Humphreys) about night fishing up there. He said that it was one of the wierdest places he'd ever fished due to upwellings of conflicting currents..... :? :? He, also, said he caught some very big Stripers, there. 8) 8) 8) :D

Bill Kiene semi-retired
04-03-2005, 01:46 AM
We all started wading it about 1970.

The flow in the Sacramento probably needs to be around 5000cfs?

We wade it for shad in the day time and then fished stripers in the AM/PM and all night too.

We used boats to from 8 to 16 feet, anchored.

You do have to have low flows on both the Feather and Sacramento to get the sand bar to be exposed. You have to go there in the day time to really find out what it is like under water. Some will take an 8' length of 1.5" white PVC plumbing pipe out and mark the edge of the drop off.

I watched a teenager go off the end of the bar and float right down the middle of the Sacramento River till a boat pulled anchor and picked him up.

Just a few years ago, probably 5, we knew the sand bar was exposed so we had a fish-out and barbque one evening for shad. We can do that again. I think we have to pay a few bucks and park at the marina just below the mouth and walk upstream to the sand bar about 50 yards.

I could tell you dozens of stories about fishing the mouth of the Feather River.

A quicky:

One night in the spring about 20 years ago about 6 of us were all there wading and fly casting right at sundown for stripers. We fished for an hour without a grab and then a young guy from Woodland waded out with a spining rod and on the first cast stuck a 20 pounder with a Rebel lure.

We were all discouraged.

Joe Shirshac, Al Perryman, Cal Guin, Jim Potter, Larry Cullins, Galen Geller, Craig Zeigler, Forest Olham, Bob Long, Al Fong, Frank Pullen, Don Rotsma, Neil Hansen, my brother Dick and many others all fished the mouth of the Feather for shad and stripers in the spring years ago.